Trump gloats over the gold trim in the Oval Office. Dork!

[Dennis Donovan]

Aaron Rupar
‪@atrupar.com‬
Trump to Carney: "You see the new and improved Oval Office. As it becomes more and more beautiful with love and 24 karat gold. That always helps too."

May 6, 2025 at 12:12 PM

Trump to Carney: "You see the new and improved Oval Office. As it becomes more and more beautiful with love and 24 karat gold. That always helps too."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-05-06T16:12:39.404Z

[EYESORE 9001]

1. I'm suddenly reminded

of Spanish conquistadors meeting their demise by having molten gold poured down their gullets. Just a serendipitous passing thought, that’s all.

[yellowdogintexas]

25. also the Khaleesi's brother in Game of Thrones

[ScoutHikerDad]

29. I Remember That Scene!

Khal Drogo gave him his golden crown alright!

[Initech]

2. It looks like a third world country in there.

Oh wait...

[IA8IT]

3. President White Trash. Vulgarian

[Ocelot II]

4. He's so gauche. He's turned the Oval Office into a trashy simulacrum

of what an elegant room could be and was before he tarted it up to look like what a social climbing loser imagines a royal palace to look like. Dictator chic, Versailles redecorated by Saddam Hussein's pimp.

[Maeve]

11. Gauche is right. Gauche, gaudy and god-awful

[redstatebluegirl]

33. Money does not buy taste.

[PatSeg]

15. Hussein immediately popped into my head

He might want to remember what happened to Saddam as well as some other gold-loving authoritarians.

[magicarpet]

5. The new and improved 24 Carat Oval Office,...

......Control central for Generalissimo trDumpsterfire.

[MO_Dem]

10. Not to mention the 24 carrot face

nt

[58Sunliner]

6. Is there a small tub of water he can fall head first into?

[onethatcares]

7. well hell,

the only thing missing is a few of his golf trophies...

[PatSeg]

16. And possibly some framed fake Time Magazine covers

[allegorical oracle]

39. They're probably out, being gold-plated. Twenty-four kt my arse. nt

[Diamond_Dog]

8. This moron is so embarrassing!

How does he not know the rest of the world is laughing at us?

[yellowdogintexas]

9. At least some of the gold items belong to the White House, Some of it may have come from Mar a Lard O

This article is about the history of the plant(s) which preceded the gold stuff and includes the origin of the gold stuff.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/growing-legend-missing-oval-office-171836112.html I love the story of the ivy. It has its own Instagram account.

According to another article, Mrs Kennedy used the larger pieces as flower vases around the formal rooms.

Regardless, that gold overlay he plastered around the room is just plain tacky and gauche.

At any rate, I hope the stuff is inventoried and put away before he leaves. It belongs to us, not him. At least he did not spend taxpayer money on those items or anything he brought from any of his other residences

Also from Wikipedia:

The Vermeil Room (/ˈvɜːrməl/ VUR-məl; French: [vɛʁˈmɛj]) is located on the ground floor of the White House, the official residence of the president of the United States. The room houses a collection of silver-gilt or vermeil tableware, a 1956 bequest to the White House by Margaret Thompson Biddle. Portraits of American First Ladies hang in the room.[1]

McKim creates the Social Room for Theodore Roosevelt
The Vermeil Room was originally a staff work room used for storage and later for polishing silver. Theodore Roosevelt's 1902 renovation of the White House by architect Charles Follen McKim reconfigured the use of the house, finishing much of the ground floor for public use. When first furnished for public use, the room was termed the Social Room because it served as a lounge adjacent to a women's restroom. McKim provided the room with late Georgian-style cove moldings and a paneled wainscot. On the west wall, McKim installed a Colonial Revival mantel with paired Tuscan Doric columns and bas-relief medallions with American eagles similar to the one found in the seal of the president of the United States. A pair of built-in arched cupboards flanked the mantel.

Margaret Thompson Biddle's bequest
Margaret Thompson Biddle's collection was significant and ranged from Renaissance to 19th-century French and English pieces. The collection includes work by English Regency silversmith Paul Storr (1771–1844) and French Empire silversmiths Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751–1843), and Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot (1763–1850). First Lady Mamie Eisenhower had the collection displayed in the room's glass-enclosed vitrines.

[PatSeg]

17. "Tacky and gauche"

Trump's trademark style. And he wonders why old money wanted nothing to do with him and his family.

[NoMoreRepugs]

12. WTF is VonSchitzInPants talking about??

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

13. It's going to be quite a job, in 2029, to remove all that gold leaf from the walls.

Until then, the Oval Office looks like my image of a New Orleans bordello.

[allegorical oracle]

40. Especially the pieces on the fireplace front. Marble's porous and the

fireplace has been there since Truman. Wonder how they're mounted. He has no respect for the history of the WH and who has lived there before him. Everything's about himself.

[Ping Tung]

14. Did someone say "kitsch"? All that's missing is the Elvis on black velvet and golden running shoes.

[PatSeg]

18. My god, how can anyone live like that?

Not exactly warm and inviting.

[Ping Tung]

19. It can have its drawbacks. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were very fond the gilt of Versailles.

Nicholas and Alexandria also discovered that "If you got it flaunt it" can prove troublesome. Hungry people are not fond of showing offs of wealth.

[PatSeg]

20. Any student of history could easily see where all of this is going

I suppose that some might believe they are going to be the exception to the rule. Tyrants fall and their public excesses tend to contribute to their demise, yet there is always someone waiting in the wings to take their place.

[allegorical oracle]

41. Holy shite. Is it Louis XIV, XV, or XVI? Or a Motel VI? nt

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. trump made the Oval Office look like Liberace died in a Motel 6 and they spray-painted everything gold

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Just when you thought Trump’s Oval Office couldn’t scream “dictator starter pack” any louder…

He’s now plastered every inch of wall space with even more cheap gold junk—hung with command strips.

Who needs taste when you’ve got tacky authoritarian vibes?

Just one more mess his successor will have to clean up. 🤮

[purr-rat beauty]

22. But but but...

I thought we all need to be frugal?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. The tackification of the Oval Office

The Washington Post actually has an article on the tackification of the Oval Office

Curious about the tackification of the Oval Office, I skimmed the official White House photo feed. As it turns out, the gold elements in the room were added slowly, not all at once. Photos in my (free to read) newsletter.
s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?tra...

— Philip Bump (@pbump.com) 2025-05-05T15:21:40.072Z

Link to tweet

https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/

As I was writing it, I realized that a companion piece might be warranted. Among the less-important ways in which Trump is subverting tradition is his gaudy overhaul of the seat of American power: the Oval Office itself.

Consider this image, for example, showing Trump meeting with staff including his soon-to-be-former national security adviser Michael Waltz. It was taken on April 30, the day before Waltz’s ouster. Gold trim and appliqués are ubiquitous.


That photo prompted two questions. First, how different was it from the Oval Office during the Biden administration? Second, when did the change occur? My search for answers led me to official photos posted to the sharing site Flickr (remember Flickr?), where I learned that the answers to those questions were “very” and “slowly.”

Let’s start with the photo below, which shows President Joe Biden welcoming Brittney Griner’s wife to the Oval Office in 2022. Notice the doorway and bookshelves on the back wall. Neither has any visible gold.

....By early February, little splashes of gold started to appear. In the nooks above the bookshelves, gold vases were put on display. Some sort of gold figurine was placed above the door’s transom.


By late March, Trump was settling in. The pictures near Ronald Reagan’s portrait had changed. A portrait of Andrew Jackson and its brownish frame had been swapped out for a gilded one — and another portrait with a thick gold frame was crammed into a formerly empty space.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

24. He made the Oval Office gold and gaudy, just like himself! 🤮

Link to tweet

[Docreed2003]

26. At least most of that gilded crap doesn't look like it's permanent

I saw that most of the decor was likely purchased from Home Depot, spray painted, and put up with 3M tape

[Vinca]

27. It looks like the reception room of a 19th century whorehouse.

[Rebl2]

28. The gold

looks tacky.

[yellowdogintexas]

30. Need to inventory all the gold vases, etc and make sure they go back to the Vermeil Room and not to

Mar a Lardo when he leaves. Those pieces belong to the White House and were a gift during the Eisenhower Administration. Mrs Kennedy used the vases for cut flowers at various events.

Bring back the Ivy on the mantel piece and strip that gaudy gold garbage off the front of the mantel

[LoisB]

31. Looks like a low-rent brothel to me.

[RockRaven]

32. Tacky, low class morons think gold looks good.

Last edited Sun May 11, 2025, 07:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Edit for clarity: gold used in that manner or similar.

[KitFox]

34. Hideous! Viktor Yanukovych comes to mind When he was ousted and fled from Ukraine

they let the public in to see the decadence and bizarre opulence at his estate resulting from his extreme corruption. He claimed he lived in a modest house and there was no money for education, health care and pensions. Gold plated was everywhere. They found documents dumped in a lake that proved all of his corrupt deals and extravagances. Trump is a bottomless pit of buffoonery , ignorance and embarrassment. He is so outlandish, you can’t satirize or spoof him.

[allegorical oracle]

42. Don't forget the records/receipt book that belonged to Paul Manafort that

was found and showed the ample $$$ Yanukovych was paying him.

[Cha]

35. While It Fucking Starves Kids!

Fuck It and its Gold!

[uponit7771]

36. These people are freakin nuts !!! Money doesn't make everyone top level brain eead

[Emrys]

37. Dictator chic, quite possibly sourced from Alibaba.com

I don't know or really care how much his interior designer charged, but it's yet another absolute Trumpian triumph for the Dealmaker In Chief:

Shop this look: Buy cheap, faux gold dupes of Oval Office decor
Some of the gold decorations in the Oval Office look... very similar to items we found for sale on a Chinese marketplace.

Since President Donald Trump moved back into the White House in January, it has undergone some major decorative changes. The Swedish ivy that perched upon the mantle has been replaced with golden vases from the White House collection. And the room, overall, has just gotten noticeably more shiny and gold.

Looking at photos taken in the Oval Office this week with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, we noticed several decorative medallions applied to the marble fireplace, and the same ones stuck on the wall under portraits in gilded frames.



Sometime after March, ornate gold decorative medallions were added to the cornice around the ceiling. The fact that several copies of the same decoration were showing up in different spots (made of different material) made us wonder where these were sourced and what they were made of.



A quick photo search on Alibaba showed many such “decorative appliqués” available in white and gold. We came across one item that looks very much like the ones all over the Oval Office.

This “High-density Home Decoration Polyurethane Appliques Ornament PU Foam Veneer Accessories” from Guangzhou Homemax Decorative Material Limited on Alibaba is a dead ringer. The decorations are available in many colors: “matte white most, or gold, silver, antique gold or bronze, mixed color, customized color.”



The price? Between $1 and $5 apiece (but the minimum order is 50 items). And that isn’t accounting for the steep 145% tariffs that Trump recently slapped on Chinese imports.



As you can see from this comparison, this looks very close, but it may not be a perfect match. To be fair, it is certainly possible that Chinese manufacturers are copying a high-quality design from higher-end architectural suppliers, which provided the new decor to the White House.

I messaged the owners of Guangzhou Homemax Decorative Material Limited, and a customer service agent named Ruth Fu quickly responded to my question about the item’s availability.

“Hello Sir. Yes we have this model. Do you need gold color, please?”

I followed up to ask if that was indeed their product hanging in the Oval Office, but I did not hear back.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://sherwood.news/power/shop-this-look-buy-cheap-faux-gold-dupes-of-oval-office-decor/

[DET]

38. Spray painted styrofoam!

Sounds about right.