According to a recent rumor, Trump has relegated the official portraits of past presidents George H.W. Bush, George Bush, and Barack Obama to a private stairwell out of sight of tourists.
The two most recent presidents’ pictures are customarily displayed in the Grand Foyer to welcome guests to the White House. However, according to CNN, Obama is currently tucked up in a corner on top of the Grand Staircase, the landing that serves as the entrance to the private home.
CNN was informed by people familiar with the situation that the portraits of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, have been relocated to the same location.
Obama’s portrait will now only be viewed by members of the president’s family, US Secret Service agents, and a few staff members who are allowed entry to the highly restricted location. According to the White House Historical Association, it has been White House policy since the 1960s to prominently exhibit the pictures of recent presidents.
Obama’s image had previously been moved by Trump once, in April, to the wall across from where it had been placed in the foyer close to the stairs. After he was assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2023, he replaced it with a painting of himself lifting his fist to the sky.
The previous president George W. Bush’s portrait on the Grand Staircase was moved, and it was subsequently hung nearer to his father’s image.
Trump is angry because all three former presidents have voiced their opposition to his agenda. Obama and George W. Bush publicly denounced the Trump administration for destroying the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in June, which was an uncommon step. In his memoir The Last Republicans, written by Mark K. Updegrove, the elder Bush, who passed away in 2018, called Trump a blowhard.
Using News Wire Services
