> I'm assuming that, if this rumor is true, somebody in the Trump campaign forced somebody at NASA to do this out of some misguided nostalgia.

Came here to say this is exactly my guess.

FWIW I think it's almost always a good idea to keep at least one example of any plane flying, just out of simple cultural principle (I feel this way about the Avro Vulcan and I think it's really sad that none can do more than taxi anymore) so I am not sure it's stupid for them to ask, but I can see why keeping an SR-71 in any kind of functional condition might be implausible.

I would guess this is not a serious project to get it flying, but more a recognition that it will take more than two years to do it, could be cancelled at the two year mark without really wasting vast amounts of money, and ensures some very easy, regularly replenishable goodwill from the man who thinks the USA has planes that are literally invisible.

There is precedent, after all: his insistence on a return to steam launchers on carriers.