What has changed in the Oval Office of the White House since Biden took office？
As the main office of the president of the United States, the furnishings of the Oval Office of the White House often have the personal styles of different presidents, and each president will change the decoration and furnishings of the office when he takes office.
"For President Biden, walking into a ‘ Like the United States ’ It is very important for the oval office to begin to show what kind of person he will be as president. " Ashley Williams, deputy director of the Oval Office, said this in an exclusive interview with Washington post.
After the Oval Office welcomed its new owner Biden on January 20th, what changes have taken place in its furnishings?
The Oval Office after Biden took office. All the pictures in this article are images of surging waves.
What is the significance of the new statue?
According to a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the 21st, after Biden took office, the portrait of andrew jackson, the 7th president of the United States, in the Oval Office is gone forever. Jackson was also considered a populist, and Trump spoke highly of Jackson publicly.
Jackson’s portrait is located on the left side of the president’s desk and has been replaced by Benjamin Franklin’s portrait. Franklin was not only one of the founding fathers of the United States, but also a famous writer, scientist and philosopher. Washington post said that hanging Franklin’s portrait was intended to show Biden’s respect for science in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a moon rock next to Franklin’s portrait, which also expresses the same meaning.
Busts of Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the American civil rights movement, and Robert Kennedy, a former attorney general, were placed on both sides of the fireplace opposite the desk. It is said that Biden often mentioned their influence on the black civil rights movement. There is also a bust of Rosa Parks, a black woman known as the "mother of the civil rights movement" in the office. In 1955, Parks refused to give up his seat to white people on the bus, and a series of subsequent events were considered as the prelude to the civil rights movement.
A bust of Rosa Parks.
Above the fireplace hangs a huge portrait of franklin roosevelt, the Democratic president who led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II. Other portraits include several founding fathers of the United States: the first President George Washington, the third President Thomas Jefferson, and the first Treasury Secretary alexander hamilton. The portraits of Jefferson and Hamilton are paired together to express, in the words of Biden’s office official, "the importance of different opinions to democracy within the guardrail of a Republic." Also placed is a portrait of former President abraham lincoln. It is reported that the portraits of Roosevelt, Jefferson and Hamilton are newly added.
The figure in the largest photo in the middle is Roosevelt, and from the top left, Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Hamilton are counterclockwise.
On the table behind Biden, besides family photos, there is also a bust of César Chávez, a Mexican-American labor leader who fought for the rights and interests of farm workers in the 1960s and 1970s. CNN reported on the 21st that the bust of Chavez entered the oval office on the same day as Biden proposed the reform of immigration law, which aims to provide a path for nearly 11 million immigrants who live in the United States but have no legal status to become American citizens in eight years.
A bust of Cesar Chavez and a photo of Biden’s family.
Drinks, pens and chairs have all been changed
The president’s desk in the Oval Office is "Resolue Desk", which Biden chose from six presidential desks. This desk was presented by the British government to the American government in 1880, and the wood used was from the British navy’s three-masted rescue ship "Perseverance". Trump also used this table when he took office, but the new two sets of items on the table clearly reflected the fact that the president changed people: a set of tea cups and saucers, and a box of pens for signing orders.
Trump loves to drink diet coke. It is reported that he has a button in the Oval Office to ask others to bring him coke. Few people photographed him with a cup or coffee cup. CNN said that Trump has long liked to sign official government documents with a thick black marker, just like the signature style of a star.
On January 20th, when he signed the executive order, Biden sat in a brown leather chair in Zhang Shen. When Trump was last photographed in the Oval Office, there was a heavy reddish-brown executive chair in the office. This is very similar to or even identical to the seat that Trump used in his private office before he took office.
At the beginning of 2017, Trump brought golden curtains and carpets when he took office, but these things left with their owners on January 20, and returned to the office with the dark blue carpets and dark gold curtains when Clinton was president. The American flag and the presidential flag have also replaced the flags of different departments of the army.
When Churchill disappeared, Johnson made a low-key response.
After Biden took office, the bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill also disappeared. Churchill was originally lent by the British government to George W. Bush, and Obama took office to remove it. Boris Johnson, then mayor of London and now British Prime Minister, accused Obama of saying that "presidents with Kenyan ancestry have an ancestral dislike of the British Empire". After Trump took office, he moved Churchill back. It was not until the Democrats regained control of the White House that Churchill was invited out of the White House again.
This time, Johnson’s attitude towards the removal of Churchill was quite different from last time. Johnson’s spokesman said: "The Oval Office is the private office of the President, and it only needs to be decorated by the President according to his own wishes."