President Donald Trump has turned his acute attention to yet another White House makeover, this one of the Cabinet Room – with surprise decorative choices provide new insights about the president’s heroes and pet peeves.
One antique furniture selection even underscored how he has the power to seize what he wants from his most powerful subordinates – something the president pointed out to the top people who report to him.
Other selections reveal a more superficial appreciation for something as basic as a wood picture frame.
‘I picked it all myself. I’m very proud of it,’ Trump said.
The president couldn’t help but give a visual tour of the redesign during a televised cabinet meeting Tuesday that ran well over an hour, and shared personal observations about each of the hand-picked items. Some had gone unused for a century, he claimed.
He said he personally rummaged through a White House ‘vault’ with curators to select new works, comparing himself to one former president who oversaw the largest expansion of territory in the nation’s history.
An aide said there was no set date for the redo, with Trump redesigning on a ‘daily basis.’
‘You know, we spent a lot of time, effort – very little money – on this room,’ Trump told his team at a meeting where he railed on Vladimir Putin and crowed about new tariff letters he said would bring billions in revenue to the country.
Trump pointed out paintings and furniture he selected for a remake of the White House Cabinet Room, ribbing Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had to relinquish a grandfather clock
Trump says he exercised his authority to requisition a grandfather clock from Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s office
‘This is called the Cabinet Room. It’s been here for a long time, and it had some pictures that were … not many of them and not very good ones. And I actually spent time in the vaults.’
Some of Trump’s most revealing comments came while discussing a portrait of former President James K. Polk – who presided over the U.S.-Mexican war and was able to seize massive U.S. territory.
Polk is among the pro-imperialism president who have drawn middling reviews from historians, although he often earns points for setting out his his goals during the campaign and stepping back after achieving them in office.
Trump, a former real estate developer, set his sights on acquiring Greenland and making Canada the 51st state immediately after the November elections.
‘That’s a gentleman named and we call him President Polk. He was sort of a real estate guy,’ Trump said. ‘He was – people don’t realize he was one of them. He was a one-termer, but he was a very good president. But, and I’m not sure I should be doing this, he actually gave us the state of California,’ Trump said.
Trump’s real estate comment appeared to be a sly comment on the land grab, as Polk was professionally what these days might be called a career politician.
But there were reasons besides massive territorial acquisition why Trump picked the portrait – having to do with how the 11th president was framed.
‘I’m not sure – maybe he won’t be there for long,’ Trump joked, earning laughs from his team while talking about a state where he deployed U.S. Marines amid street protests and Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a top critic.
‘If you notice, the frame is the exact same size almost as the other one is, Andrew Jackson. So that was a part of the reason, too, I have to be honest,’ Trump allowed. ‘But Polk is actually a very good president who’s got the same frame that I needed.’
Trump also selected a painting of President Dwight Eisenhower, whom he called a ‘very underrated president.’
It wasn’t just the Interstate Highway System that Trump pointed out when hailing the Army General who was the as Supreme Commander of the Allies during World War II.
‘He was the toughest president, I guess, until we came along,’ Trump said. ‘He was the toughest president on immigration. He he was very strong at the borders. Very, very strong. And sometimes he could be too strong.’
He was likely referencing the ‘Operation Wetback’ overseen by Eisenhower, which was the largest mass deportation of undocumented migrants in history.
An aide said there is no set date for the redo, with Trump redesigning on a ‘daily basis.’
Trump raved about the art in the White House collection, and praised a painting of a younger Abraham Lincoln
Trump provided detailed descriptions of his selections to members of his cabinet
‘And during a certain period of time, they were so strong that almost every farmer in California went bankrupt. We have to remember that,’ Trump added, days after making comments calling for exceptions for farmworkers and hospitality workers amid his own mass deportation.
Trump also evinced enthusiasm for a portrait of a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the former governor of the state Trump left to reside in Florida.
‘This is very exciting to me. He was not a Republican, to put it mildly, but he was, you know, four-termer,’ said Trump, whose allies have spoken about ways to get around the Constitution for a third term.
Trump also pointed out the ramps put in to accommodate the wheelchair-bound FDR.
‘He was an amazing man. It’s an amazing portrait,’ Trump said. But he complained that a prior portrait in the room was a ‘terrible portrait.’
‘It was almost like it was done by a child. And I used to say, you know, I can’t believe that he would have approved of that portrait of himself.’
This is something Trump knows something about, having recently complained so forcefully about a portrait of himself in the Colorado state house that state Republican leaders immediately took it down and installed a new one.
Another portrait he selected is of a Republican national hero. But the best one, to Trump’s tase, was already in use in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Trump even selected Demorat Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s portrait, and pointed to his four-terms in office
Trump has been stacking art on the White House walls. He gushed about some of the frames
It sat there ‘for many, many years,’ Trump said. ‘That was his favorite picture of himself. And the Lincoln Bedroom is very famous. You remember when Bill Clinton had it and he rented it out to people?’ he said, taking a shot at another predecessor over a 90s scandal of letting top donors stay there.
‘I said, I have to give it up, because that’s one of the greatest pictures of the White House.’
Trump even dwelt on his own personality and obsessions with framing.
‘It doesn’t work if you have, I want to be nice, but it doesn’t work if you have a big frame, a little frame of you – but it’s like perfection. I’m a perfectionist,’ he said.
‘Look at those frames. You know, I’m a frame person. Sometimes I like frames more than I like the pictures,’ Trump said.
He said some of the items ‘sat in the vaults for over 100 years. He brought up china, silverware, and so-called trophyware.
But there was one item Trump just had to have. It was an antique grandfather clock. It previously resided in the State Department, he said, which under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump also named his national security advisor after forcing out predecessor Mike Waltz.
‘It’s really become quite a beautiful place. I don’t want to tell this, though Marco pointed it out. I was going to leave the clock. So as president, you have the power – if I go into the State Department or Department of Commerce or Treasury, if I see anything that I like, I’m allowed to take it.’
‘So I’m in Marco’s [office]… , I see this gorgeous clock, grandfather clock. I said, Marco …’ Trump said, to more laughs.
‘I said, Marco, I love this clock. Look at it. It’s beautiful. He said, “What clock?”‘
‘The clock that’s in the other room is incredible, and nobody gets to see it there,’ Trump recounted. ‘Marco – I tried to talk him into it first, and it sort of worked. And then I had to use a little more …’
‘I’d love to take that clock out and put it in the Cabinet Room. He said, “No, are you serious?” I said, Marco, I have the right to do it. He said, “what the hell.”‘
It doesn’t take a top diplomat to predict how the matter was going to turn out.
‘Marco: that’s his contribution to the Cabinet Room,’ Trump said.
That Cabinet Room came to be during a 1902 addition of the West Wing. President Richard Nixon gifted its oval mahogany table. Other presidents have also given it personal touches. President George W. Bush gave it busts of Washington and Franklin and portraits of Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Eisenhower, and Washington.
