Sad, Silent Trump Requested for Disney’s Hall of Presidents

ORLANDO, FL — As America’s 45th president, Donald Trump has earned rights to more than the Oval Office. If tradition holds, he's also scored a place in Walt Disney World’s storied Hall of Presidents. Some people, however, are bucking for the Magic Kingdom to create Trump’s forthcoming animatronic replica without one feature: a voice box.

The request for Disney to place a mute Trump in its Orlando Hall of President was launched on Change.org by a resident of Brooklyn, New York. Matthew Rogers is imploring the theme park to silence the statue before it's put in place. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 8,000 people had joined Rogers in making the request.

Rogers wants to make sure Trump’s animatronic doesn’t utter a word let alone give a full speech like the statue created for former President Barack Obama, the petition notes.

“Donald Trump ran a presidential campaign on hateful speech, misogyny, racism and xenophobia,” the petition reads. “In doing so, he has tainted the legacy of the American Presidency forever.” Since Disney’s Magic Kingdom is a place meant for families, Rogers says “it is not an appropriate place for a Donald Trump speech.”

Disney’s Hall of Presidents is a longstanding feature at the Orlando area theme park. The vision for the hall came from Walt Disney himself, the park’s website explains. Initial plans for the hall were nixed when Disney wasn’t happy with the wax figure technology available at the time.

“So Walt decided to work with his Imagineers to develop the first audio-animatronics figure in human form,” the website explains. The result of that collaboration was an animatronic of President Abraham Lincoln that debuted during the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The Disney World hall opened in 1971 in the Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Square. “Since then, every U.S. President, including the addition of Barack Obama, has been added to the roll call.”

The Hall of Presidents is currently closed for refurbishment. Disney hasn’t announced when it will reopen or when the Trump animatronic will be revealed. As for whether it will be given voice, that remains unclear, as well. A request for comment from Patch was not immediately answered by Disney.

Gallup has been tracking Trump’s approval rating since he took office. Following a series of controversial decisions, such as a temporary ban on travel from seven predominately Muslim countries, Gallup reported that only 43 percent of the 1,500 respondents of its daily telephone poll on Jan. 31 approved of the job Trump is doing. That number is down from the 45 percent approval rating Gallup reported on Jan. 23.

To find out more about the Disney petition, visit Change.org online.

Photo credit: White House photographer