The White House has begun installing a series of commemorative plaques designed to deride the legacies of former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, according to a report by NBC News on Friday, marking an unprecedented break from the traditional decorum of the executive mansion.
The brass markers, reportedly placed in prominent West Wing locations including the Roosevelt Room, serve as a “wall of shame” curated by President Donald Trump’s administration to highlight what it defines as the historical failures of his predecessors.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News in a statement that Trump wrote the text of “many” of the plaques.
“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind,” she said. “As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”
According to the report, one plaque specifically targets a 2009 statement made by Barack Obama during the push for the Affordable Care Act, etched with the quote: “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.”
The one placed under the portrait of the “Autopen,” which stands in for President Joe Biden’s portrait, refers to him as “Sleepy Joe Biden” and calls him “the worst President in American History.” The plaque contains a number of derisive statements about the former president, referring to Biden’s “severe mental decline,” “the Biden Crime Family” and his “Radical Left handlers.”
The plaque says that Biden took office in the White House “as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States,” alluding to the 2020 presidential election whose results Trump sought to overturn. It accuses Biden of overseeing “a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our Nation to the brink of destruction,” noting the inflation that developed during his presidency, denouncing the Inflation Reduction Act as the “Green New Scam” and blasting his administration’s immigration policies.
It also reportedly takes aim at Joe Biden, focusing on the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ongoing crisis at the southern border, framing the events as symbolic of “failed leadership.”
President Bill Clinton’s plaque ends with the fact that Trump beat Clinton’s wife, Hillary, in the 2016 presidential election. Clinton’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two plaques summarizing Trump’s time as president describe his leadership in glowing terms.
The one detailing his first four years says during that period, he “signed the Largest Tax Cuts in History, built a booming Economy, eliminated a record number of Federal Regulations, rebuilt the United States Military, terminated the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Paris Climate Accords, ended the NAFTA disaster, destroyed the ISIS Caliphate, signed the historic Abraham Accords, and created the Greatest Economy in the History of the World.”
The plaque also boasts about Trump’s second term, including his sweeping tariffs, hard-line immigration policies and says he “removed Critical Race Theory and transgender insanity from public schools, and banned men from women’s sports.”
“He began the construction of the Golden Dome missile defense shield, renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, and has built, right here at the White House, the magnificent Trump Presidential Ballroom after a 225 year wait — but THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
The move is intended to “highlight the failures and broken promises” of the previous Democratic administrations, sources told NBC News, effectively turning portions of the presidential workspace into a partisan museum.
While incoming presidents traditionally swap out portraits, rugs, and sculptures to reflect their tastes, the permanent installation of plaques intended to lampoon predecessors is a significant departure from established norms.
Trump, who has built his political identity on dismantling the records of those who came before him, appears to be using the physical infrastructure of the White House to cement his grievances into the building’s history.
The report noted that the plaques are part of a broader effort to “remind visitors and staff of the consequences of bad policy.”
The White House has yet to provide an official comment on the total number of plaques intended for installation or the specific funding source for the project. Critics have already labeled the move as “petty” and a “desecration” of the neutral ground traditionally afforded to the West Wing.
ANN/NBC
