The White House moved the official portrait of former President Barack Obama to a new location in the east room, replacing it with a painting by President Donald Trump with his fist raised in the air just after the attempted murder attempt last year in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The portrait seems to be based on a photo of Trump’s then candidate, bloody and surrounded by secret service agents, even on stage after receiving a shot in the campaign event. That image, along with Trump’s words to “fight, fight, fight,” became a distinctive seal of Trump’s offer for a second mandate.
The White House presented the switch in a brief video published in X Friday, accompanied by text that said: “Some new works of art in the White House.”
A Obama spokesman did not immediately respond to a comment request on Friday night.
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Trump’s new painting takes a place traditionally reserved for the most recent official presidential portrait. Former President Joe Biden, who left office in January, still does not have an official portrait.
The tradition dictates that the portraits that hang in this place, next to the east room of the lobby after entering the White House, are the most recent presidents, but that is not a hard and fast rule, said a former White House official at NBC News. The president can lead the curator to move things.
The former official said that during his first term, Trump moved the portraits of former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Trump does not have an official portrait of his first term, which would generally have been presented at some point during his successor’s mandate. At that time, the Biden Administration sent questions about the matter to the Historical Association of the White House, which has facilitated the acquisition of portraits of presidents and first ladies since 1965.
Obama’s portrait was not the only one moved during Trump’s recent redecoration. The portrait of the 44th President was transferred to the occupied place George W. Bush, and Bush’s portrait is now on the staircase, according to a White House official.
The White House Secretary, Harrison Fields, published a photo of the new Obama portrait location on Friday.
Some Republicans intervened with enthusiasm in the new decoration. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a firm Trump ally, published a photo from side to side that compared the place adorned with the portrait of Obama and now with Trump’s. “Much better,” wrote the Republican of Georgia.
Replacement is the last development in an unexpected chain of events related to the portrait. Trump demanded a painting of him hanging in the house of the state of Colorado last month, and in January, a portrait of the former president of the Joint Heads of the state of the leader, Mark Milley, disappeared abruptly from a wall dedicated in the Pentagon.
