Trump hangs plaques mocking Biden, Obama along White House Colonnade
President Donald Trump has installed plaques underneath portraits of presidents at the White House, using them to insult and make unfounded claims about some of his predecessors including Joe Biden and Barack Obama -- the latest in a series of controversial White House changes under Trump.
The plaques, many of which the White House said Trump penned himself, add to what the president has dubbed the "Presidential Walk of Fame" -- a portrait gallery along the West Wing Colonnade -- and describe the tenures of former commanders in chief in an overtly political way.
Trump's most recent predecessors' plaques read the most editorialized. The permanent signs are stylistically similar to the president's social media posts, with sporadic capitalizations and punctuation -- including many exclamation points.
Under Biden, depicted only by his signature written by the presidential autopen, the plaque includes claims such as "Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History," adding that he took office "as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States" and that "Biden oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our Nation to the brink of destruction."
Trump also attacked Biden for his economic record, his climate, immigration and foreign policies, including the Afghanistan withdrawal (calling it "among the most humiliating events in American History"). He also said that because of Biden's "weakness," Russia invaded Ukraine, and "Hamas terrorists launched the heinous October 7th attack on Israel."
The plaque also cites what Trump calls Biden's "severe mental decline, and his unprecedented use of the Autopen."
Under Obama, Trump wrote: "Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History."
Obama's plaque ends with a more false claims that he "spied on the 2016 Presidential Campaign of Donald J. Trump, and presided over the creation of the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, the worst political scandal in American History."
The plaques also make two references to Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of State and the 2016 Democratic nominee who lost to Trump. Under Obama's portrait, it says that Hillary Clinton was his "handpicked successor," and noted that she "would then lose the Presidency to Donald J. Trump." Under Bill Clinton's portrait, it says that "President Clinton's wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump."
Obama had no comment about the plaque. ABC News did not receive immediate responses from Biden and the Clintons for comment.
Many of the plaques were "written directly by the President himself," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement about the new decor.
"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," Leavitt said in the statement.
Trump had teased these bronze plaques during an interview with Fox's Laura Ingraham in November, saying that each would describe what the respective president did during his tenure.
In addition to the changes he has made to the colonnade, Trump has also altered the White House by paving over the Rose Garden, renovating White House Palm Room that was originally designed by former first lady Jackie Kennedy and connects the front of the White House to the Rose Garden in the back and redesigning the Oval Office. He has added statues around the Rose Garden and added ample gold leafing and decor to the Oval Office.
Most notably, Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House earlier this year, making room for a sweeping, multimillion-dollar ballroom that the president has said will be completed by the end of his term.
