The man who made the widely mocked golden statue of Donald Trump that appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida this week spoke to POLITICO’s Playbook this Sunday, and said the statue was made in Mexico, where he resides.
Tommy Zegan, who is an expat on a permanent visa, said that it took 6-months to prepare the statue. Zegan and three other men in Rosarito, Mexico, molded the statue and painted it before transporting it to Orlando this weekend.
He’s also trying to sell it for $100,000.
The statue was slammed by Trump’s critics as an example of hypocrisy, since Trump has a very large evangelical Christian base (who overwhelmingly attend CPAC every year) and the bible condemns idolatry, particularly of the golden kind.
But Zegan, who was a youth pastor for two decades, says that’s exactly the opposite of what he was trying to communicate.with his work, which is titled, “Trump and his magic wand” — a reference to a remark from former President Obama who said that Trump did not have a magic wand to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S
“I know the biblical definition of an idol. This is not an idol,” he added. “This is a sculpture.”
He also says that he wasn’t always such a strong Trump supporter.
“I mean I voted for him because I wasn’t going to vote for Hillary. So I voted for him, but I didn’t really care for him. I used to watch ‘The Apprentice’ but I would turn it off halfway. I thought, ‘This is stupid,’” he said.
Zegan hopes to sell the statue because he says that he spent his “life savings” of $50,000 to make it.
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