The White House has made considerable additions to the plaques for former leaders. The Presidential Walk of Fame now includes lengthy descriptions of each former president based on President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about them.
The plaque beneath former President Joe Biden’s photo reads, “Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American history.”
Highlights
- The White House added plaques with detailed, politically charged descriptions to portraits of all former presidents near the Oval Office.
- Joe Biden's plaque insults him as 'Sleepy Joe Biden' and accuses him of winning the 'most corrupt election ever,' echoing Trump’s claims.
- Barack Obama is labeled as 'divisive' and criticized for the Affordable Care Act and losing congressional majorities, per the new plaques.
- Plaques for presidents favored by Trump, like Reagan and Nixon, contain positive descriptions highlighting their legacies and connections to Trump.
It claims Biden won the “most corrupt election ever” and that he made “unprecedented use of the autopen.”
The White House added plaques below the portraits of former presidents
Image credits: Win McNamee/Getty Images
This follows a dig the White House made about Biden back in September. While all other presidents had their official photo framed and hung on the wall in the White House, Biden’s frame was replaced with a portrait of an autopen machine.
An autopen is a device that replicates a person’s signature, and Trump has regularly claimed that Biden’s aides used the pen without Biden’s approval.
In June, Trump even ordered an investigation into a claim that Biden’s aides hid his “cognitive decline” and used an autopen to sign official documents without his direct approval.
Another new label for Barack Obama called the former president “Barack Hussein Obama,” and describes the two-term president as “one of the most divisive political figures in American history.”
His description reads, “As President, he passed the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act, resulting in his party losing control of both Houses of Congress, and the Election of the largest House Republican majority since 1946.”
While Obama did pass the Affordable Care Act, and backlash against it contributed to Democrats losing the House in 2010, they only lost the Senate later in 2014, with the ACA being only one of several factors driving those outcomes.
The additions arrived after Trump had already made several changes to the White House, including relocating presidential portraits. Obama’s portrait was reportedly moved away from a prominent display area to a section hidden from public view.
The plaque called Biden ‘Sleepy Joe Biden’ and said he won the ‘most corrupt election ever’
Image credits: Win McNamee/Getty Images
The Presidential Walk of Fame was recently added and features portraits of past presidents displayed along corridors between the Oval Office and the South Lawn.
The plaque accompanying Bill Clinton’s photo reads, “In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”
Even former President George W. Bush did not escape the plaque ridicule. His plaque says Bush started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, “both of which should not have happened.”
Image credits: Win McNamee/Getty Images
The descriptions of presidents that Trump favors were more positive. For Ronald Reagan, the White House wrote, “Known as ‘The Great Communicator,’ he was re-elected in a landslide in 1984, and left office with high approval ... He was a fan of President Donald J. Trump long before President Trump’s Historic run for the White House. Likewise, President Trump was a fan of his!”
President Richard Nixon’s description claimed he had “one of the greatest political comebacks in American History” and “won the largest popular vote victory in American History.”
Image credits: Win McNamee/Getty Images
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the plaques as an “eloquent” description of each president’s legacy.
“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind. As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who regularly mocks Trump, wrote on X, “Inflation is up. Unemployment is up. Grocery prices are up. Electricity costs are up. And Donald Trump is spending his time doing this bulls**t.”
Barry McCaffrey, a retired US Army general, also slammed the additions on X. “Appalling. Embarrassing. Juvenile. Something very wrong here,” he wrote on X.