New White House plaques echo Trump’s scathing attacks on Biden, Obama

Portraits with new plaques of explanatory text are seen on the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade of the White House in Washington, DC, on December 17, 2025. Photo / Brendan Smialowski, AFP

United States President Donald Trump, who has made no mystery of his enmity for his Democratic predecessors, recently took things a step further with unorthodox White House plaques repeating his long-standing grievances against the former leaders.

The 79-year-old Republican had previously caused a stir by installing a gallery of former presidents’ portraits outside the Oval Office but replacing former President Joe Biden’s photograph with an autopen.

The substitution is a reference to Trump’s claim that Biden, who left office in January aged 82, was so senile that he did not know what was being signed in his name.

Today, journalists allowed access to the famed West Colonnade noted that new plaques had been installed under the presidents’ photos.

The descriptions for Biden and former President Barack Obama were strikingly negative.

The inscription below Obama, the first black president in US history, calls him “one of the most divisive political figures in American history”.

It also includes his middle name, Hussein, as Trump often does when referring to his Democratic predecessor, after having stoked conspiracy theories about the 44th president’s birthplace.

Biden is described as “by far, the worst President in American history”.

The plaque also repeats Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

As for the current officeholder, his bio is expectedly glowing.

It states that he ended eight conflicts in eight months, a figure viewed as inaccurate, and that he attracted an unverifiable sum of trillions of dollars in investment to the US.

The new plaques are the latest White House alteration since Trump’s return in January.

The billionaire real estate developer has torn down the entire East Wing to make way for an extravagant ballroom, added copious amounts of gold to the Oval Office and other rooms, and hung portraits of himself - contrary to the custom of the president’s image only being displayed after leaving office.

-Agence France-Presse