Trump Proclaims Gold-Studded Oval Office a National Monument
"It will not be allowed to be touched by anybody,” Trump said, which is flatly not true, as anyone can reverse the proclamation.
Apparently scrambling to secure his legacy after the blue tsunami of midterm triumphs for Democrats, President Donald Trump proclaimed the White House's Oval Office, Outer Oval Office, and Cabinet Room a joint national monument on Thursday, November 3. The proclamation rests on the same historic preservation law the president invoked to significantly diminish two cultural sites in Utah earlier this year.
The proclamation is not legally binding, meaning a future president could simply reverse it. Trump has outfitted the Oval Office with gold frames and trim, Mar-a-Lago maximalism, and his approximations of Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles in an aesthetic that former President Barack Obama said looked like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” The president issued the proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906, a law that lets presidents designate national monuments and protects archaeological and historical sites on federal lands.
While the Antiquities Act does not give presidents the authority to reduce, alter, or raze national monuments, Trump invoked the law in 2017 to shrink the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, two national monuments in Southern Utah that encompass culturally significant Indigenous lands. President Joe Biden restored the national monuments to their original size, though Trump doubled down in his second presidential term by reducing both sites by approximately 90% each this July.
