A satirical golden statue depicting President Donald Trump seated and rubbing his bare foot appeared on the National Mall on November 9, 2026, to mock his Vietnam-era medical draft deferment for bone spurs, The Guardian reported.
The monument arrived just two days before Veterans Day, positioned between Madison Drive Northwest between 7th and 9th Streets near the National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Garden, Yahoo reported.
The anonymous satirical art activist group Secret Handshake created the piece, titled “The Foot Soldier,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Born in 1946, Trump was eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War, receiving five deferments including four for education and a 1968 medical deferment for heel bone spurs after graduation, USA Today reported.
The installation features a plaque reading, “We honor the service and sacrifice of our Commander in Chief, Donald J. Trump. He’s a soldier in spirit, who marched to the front lines of dodging the draft, armed with a perfect diagnosis of bone spurs.”
The Los Angeles Times noted that the plaque continues, “We salute a leader who knows you can’t spell sacrifice without ‘I,’ and a warrior who reminds us that sometimes when you’re called to stand up, it’s best to just sit down and rest your feet.”
Secret Handshake has built more than a dozen Trump statues on the National Mall over recent years, Yahoo reported. Previous installations include a Trump-Epstein friendship statue, a giant gold toilet near the Lincoln Memorial, and arcade games satirizing Greenland ambitions, according to Yahoo and the Los Angeles Times.
For the first time, the display includes an interactive element: an actor wearing a six-foot-tall red-weltd and black-haired toe costume named “Toey,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Secret Handshake explained in an email that Toey acts like a Minor League Baseball mascot to celebrate a well-heeled excuse, occasionally telling visitors, “This little piggy went to … well, not the military, that’s for sure,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Yahoo reported that a mascot named Toey stood beside the statue on Monday.
| Installation Title | Location | Theme |
|---|---|---|
| Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell | National Mall / New York | Iran War satire |
| Iran War Participation Trophy | National Mall / Minnesota | Post-invasion protest |
| The Foot Soldier | National Mall | Vietnam draft bone spurs |
Secret Handshake stated via email that they wanted to pay tribute to a time when the president would do just about anything to avoid combat, wishing he could have secured a similar doctor’s note regarding foreign conflicts, the Los Angeles Times reported. The Foot Soldier and the mascot Toey will remain on the National Mall through Veterans Day.
