Trump Gushes Over His Gilded Oval Office & Insults Biden In The Process (Per Usual)

Donald Trump has a well-documented preference for surrounding himself with gold, and you can see that in the White House now. Trump's changes to the Oval Office for his second term have included adding a lot of gold accents. It's not to everyone's taste, but Trump is out here defending the updates. On August 22, Trump announced from the Oval Office that the live drawing for the 2026 World Cup will happen at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He got off track from the announcement as he talked about renovating the Kennedy Center and started talking about the Oval Office. "You see the way this is looking," Trump said as he gestured around him, "I can't tell you how much that gold costs. A lot of money. ... This beautiful office needed it.... When we took it over it was dirty, not clean. I immediately changed the chair," via YouTube.

When you compare what the Oval Office looks like with Trump vs. what it looked like with Biden, it definitely looks different. We can't speak to the cleanliness aspect, but we're not surprised that Trump got in a slam on Biden as he bragged about the new look. And whatever Trump thinks of it, plenty of people aren't fans.

In a response to the clip of him talking about the new decor on X (formerly known as Twitter), someone said, "Lots of wasted money. I guess we are going to just pretend DOGE never existed." DOGE is the Department of Government Efficiency; famously implemented by Elon Musk, who is now on the outs with Trump. Another wrote, "Tells you everything you need to know that he thinks that gaudy a** office actually looks good."

Despite Donald Trump saying that the new Oval Office decor cost a lot of money, some people think that the gold is fake. "Looks like everything was spray-painted with the s***tiest gold paint from the dollar store clearance rack," via X. Whether it's real gold or not, one person pointed out that the new design is indicative of Trump's whole presidency, saying: "The aesthetic speaks for itself. It's a deliberate shift from the semiotics of a republic (wood, history, restraint) to the semiotics of an absolute monarchy (gold, cost, opulence). He's not just redecorating an office; he's visually rebranding the very nature of American power."

One recent high profile critic of Trump's Oval Office makeover is musician Jack White, who called it "a vulgar, gold-leafed and gaudy, professional wrestler's dressing room," via Instagram. Steven Cheung, White House communications director, shot back at White in the Daily Beast. Some see that as a sign that the White House doesn't take kindly to insults about Trump's design choices, a response that will likely just spur more comments.

For the World Cup announcement and his Oval Office bragging, Trump wore a hat that read "Trump was right about everything"; the same one can be found in the White House MAGA gift shop that Trump made European leaders visit. Somewhat unexpectedly, he wasn't wearing one of his signature red ties, and he was looking a little tired. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has taken to posting like Trump on social media, posted on X about Trump's appearance at the Oval Office meeting: "Such low energy. SAD!"