Vol. II, No. 158 From Our Region to Yours
Politics

Trump Declares His Renovations a National Monument to Protect Them From Future Renovations

A proclamation puts the Oval Office and Cabinet Room under the Antiquities Act. Trump says no major changes will be allowed without Congress. The East Wing was not offered the same deal.

By 2 min read

President Trump sits at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, surrounded by standing guests while photographers crouch on the rug. The cream walls behind him are covered in gold ornaments, gold-framed portraits of Lincoln, Grant and Washington, and gilded trim over the doorways.
The Oval Office in June 2026, during the signing of a different proclamation. Everything visible here is now either a national monument or a furnishing. Photo: The White House / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed a proclamation Thursday making the Oval Office a national monument. The point is to stop the next president from renovating it. He has renovated it a great deal.

The proclamation creates the Oval Office National Monument under the Antiquities Act. It covers the Oval Office, the Outer Oval Office and the Cabinet Room, according to the text posted by the White House.

“It will not be allowed to be touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape,” Trump told reporters, the Associated Press reported.

He said there would be “no major modification without the approval of Congress.” He said the proclamation would be sent to Congress to be ratified, The Hill and Newsweek reported.

The renovations

Since returning to office, Trump has added gold medallions, gold eagles, gilded mirrors and small gold cherubs from Mar-a-Lago to the Oval Office, The Hill reported. The room now looks like what happens when a craft store wins a federal contract.

The proclamation does make one exception. Nothing in it restricts the president’s authority “to redecorate the monument” or “select furnishings,” it says. So the walls are now a national treasure. Whatever is stuck to them remains a matter of taste.

The Interior Department must now write a management plan for the rooms. A senior official who requested anonymity because he was embarrassed said the plan will need a chapter on telling historic gold from gold that came in a multipack.

The East Wing

The East Wing was not a national monument. Trump had it torn down in October 2025 to make room for a ballroom. Congress was not asked. Courts have let construction continue, NPR reported.

On Wednesday, Trump signed the ballroom’s final beam, the AP reported. On Thursday, he made sure nobody could do that to his office.

The rule is now settled. A president who wants to knock down part of the White House should go first.

“It’s pot, kettle, and a proclamation designating the kettle a national monument,” said a White House aide known to this bureau only as Deep Throat Lozenge. He asked that the kettle not be moved.

What a proclamation is worth

A monument made by proclamation can be unmade by one. Trump knows this. In 2017 he shrank two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. President Biden restored them in 2021.

The next president will need one pen and about four minutes. The pen is already in the room. It is a furnishing.

The Antiquities Act was passed in 1906 with canyons and ruins in mind. Using it on the inside of an office is new. Nobody has tested it in court.

The timing

The proclamation was Trump’s first official act since Tuesday, when Democrats won control of the House and the Senate, the AP reported. Democrats take over in January. They have been scrutinizing his White House projects.

Trump also offered a hotline. “If anybody ever decides to come and start knocking down walls, you call me wherever I may be, and I’ll come back here and I’ll make sure it never happens,” he said.

The East Wing would like to know who it was supposed to call.

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