ART ATTACK

Trump White House Boasts About Tearing Down Obama Portrait

The painting depicts the president raising his fist after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt last summer.

The White House flaunted a painting of President Donald Trump on Friday that was placed in a spot previously occupied by a portrait of former President Barack Obama.

Obama’s portrait was not removed outright but was taken from its place in the Grand Foyer of the White House to the entrance hall of the White House state floor, a Trump official said. The Biden administration put the Obama portrait up in 2022.

Sources told CNN the new location of Obama’s portrait had most recently been occupied by a portrait of former President George W. Bush. The Bush portrait was reportedly moved to the wall of a nearby staircase, next to a framed photograph of his ex-president father, former President George H. W. Bush.

Trump’s new painting depicts him raising a fist after a failed assassination attempt last summer at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. It resembles a viral photograph captured at the scene, which showed his face bloodied as Secret Service agents rushed to surround him.

The new painting was brought into the West Wing early Tuesday morning and was hung without “significant pomp and circumstance” on Friday morning, a source told CNN. Typically, the unveiling of White House portraits involves a small ceremony.

The painting was done by Marc Lipp and donated to Trump by Andrew Pollack, a supporter of the president, according to the New York Post.

Pollack’s 17-year-old daughter Meadow was among the students who died in a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

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CNN reported that the Trump painting now hangs in “one of the most prominent places in the East Wing of the White House.” The network reported that the new home for Obama’s portrait is also considered to be a “place of prominence.”

A shuffling of White House art and portraits is typical at the beginning of a new administration—particularly when there is a change in parties.

Trump did a pair of portrait swaps in his first term, too, opting to replace photos of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in the Grand Foyer with framed snaps of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt—two U.S. presidents who notably loved tariffs, too.

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Josh FialloBreaking News Reporter

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