I watched the protest, including where the three white vans blocked the road with their flattened/removed tires. I also watched the entire event and speech. These are not my takeaways (well, except for "four more years!" etc.), but of course here is the lamestream media's spin on Mt Rushmore…
At Rushmore, Trump to say protesters seek to ‘defame’ heroes
MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL, S.D. (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to say in a fiery speech at Mount Rushmore on Friday night that protesters have waged “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history” amid demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality.
The sharp rebuke in a holiday address to mark the nation’s independence follows weeks of protests across the nation, sparked by the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Some demonstrators have also destroyed or damaged Confederate monuments and statues honoring those who have benefited from slavery.
“This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore,” Trump will say, according to excerpts of his speech released by the White House. He will also add that some on the political left hope to “defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”
His speech, intended to rev up his conservative base, comes as Trump has seen his standing slump over his handling of the pandemic and response to protests and unrest around the country. With four months until the election, Trump’s reelection hopes — once buoyed by low unemployment and a roaring stock market — seem uncertain.
Amid the headwinds, Trump has sharpened his focus on his most ardent base of supporters as concern grows inside his campaign that his poll numbers in the battleground states that will decide the 2020 election are slipping.
Trump in recent weeks has increasingly lashed out at “left-wing mobs,” used a racist epithet to refer to the coronavirus and visited the nation’s southern border to spotlight progress on his 2016 campaign promise to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The event, while not a campaign rally, had the feel of one as the friendly crowd greeted Trump with chants of “Four more years!” and cheered enthusiastically as he and first lady Melania Trump took the stage.
“Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity, so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America’s destiny,” Trump will say, according to the excerpts.
The event drew thousands of spectators, most of them without masks, even as coronavirus cases spike across the country. The president was set to speak before a big fireworks show, the first to be held at the site in over a decade.
Hours before Trump arrived, protesters blocked a road leading to the monument. Authorities worked to move the demonstrators, mostly Native Americans protesting that South Dakota’s Black Hills were taken from the Lakota people against treaty agreements. About 15 protesters were arrested after missing a police-imposed deadline to leave.
Trump was expecting a South Dakota show of support, with the state Republican Party selling T-shirts that feature Trump on the memorial alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. But concern about the coronavirus risk and wildfire danger from the fireworks, along with the Native American groups’ protests were also present.
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, a Trump ally, had said social distancing won’t be required during the event and masks will be optional. Event organizers were to provide masks to anyone who wanted them and planned to screen attendees for symptoms of COVID-19.
Noem, in her own remarks, echoed Trump’s attacks against his opponents who “are trying to wipe away the lessons of history”
more https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/03/at-rushmore-trump-to-say-protesters-seek-to-defame-heroes/