White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt chastised a low-ranking French politician who made headlines for demanding that the United States return the Statue of Liberty, noting that it symbolizes America’s historical contributions to global peace.

“Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” Raphaël Glucksmann, a socialist and member of France’s left-wing Place Publique party in France, said. “We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty.’”