WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Kamala Harris removed a historic bust of Christopher Columbus from her office while she served under Joe Biden’s administration. Under Vice President JD Vance, The Daily Wire has learned, the bust has since been brought back. “Restoring this piece of history to the Vice President’s office is one of many actions taken by the Trump Administration to honor Christopher Columbus’s contribution to Western exploration,” a spokesperson for the vice president told The Daily Wire. “Unlike Kamala Harris, Vice President Vance is committed to respecting our national heritage and restoring our monuments.” Members of the USS Montgomery removed the Christopher Columbus bust from the Spanish fleet in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and gifted it to the Secretary of the Navy, a source familiar with the matter shared with The Daily Wire. A historic bust of Christopher Columbus in Vice President JD Vance’s Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Photo courtesy of the White House. The bust remained on display in the Secretary of the Navy’s office through 1921, when the office was converted into the Army Chief of Staff’s office and later became the Vice President’s Ceremonial Office. That office has been occupied by a vice president since Lyndon B. Johnson. Harris, who supported efforts to replace Columbus Day with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” had the bust removed and moved to an unknown location, the source familiar said. “Since 1934, every October, the United States has recognized the voyage of the European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas. Those explorers ushered in a wave of devastation for tribal nations — perpetrating violence, stealing land, and spreading disease,” she said in 2021. “We must not shy away from this shameful past, and we must shed light on it and do everything we can to address the impact of the past on Native communities today.” A spokesperson for Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment. News of the bust’s reinstatement comes amid a strong push by President Donald Trump’s administration to celebrate Columbus, who famously explored the Americas. Democrat lawmakers and leftist activists have demeaned Columbus in recent years, displacing Columbus Day and accusing him of genocide against Native Americans. Trump has pushed back with aggressive pro-Columbus messaging, leaning into memes from the acclaimed television series “The Sopranos,” in which fictional mafia boss Tony Soprano warns his son: “In this house, Christopher Columbus is a hero.” “I’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes,” Trump said in an April 2025 Truth Social post. “The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much.” And in this house, Christopher Columbus is a hero. pic.twitter.com/9vCzUlThxg — The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 21, 2026 “They tore down his Statues, and put up nothing but ‘WOKE,’ or even worse, nothing at all,” the president said. “Well, you’ll be happy to know, Christopher is going to make a major comeback. I am hereby reinstating Columbus Day under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before!” Six years after vandals toppled a Baltimore-based statue of Columbus and tossed it into the city’s inner harbor, Trump had the statue restored and placed in the White House’s “Garden of Heroes.” The president also led the charge in restoring the Columbus Circle fountain at Union Station in Washington, D.C. Vance himself has slammed Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a “fake holiday” and praised Columbus for using “technology developed in Europe to sail across a giant ocean and discover a new continent.” “’Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ is a fake holiday created to sow division,” Vance wrote on social media in 2021. “Of course, Joe Biden is the first president to pay it any attention.” The vice president and his wife lived in Columbus, Ohio, for a time, and Vance attended The Ohio State University there. According to photos shared with The Daily Wire, the vice president also recently added a model of the USS Ohio to the Ceremonial Office, in addition to the bust. A model of the USS Ohio in Vice President JD Vance’s Ceremonial Office. Photo courtesy of the White House.