Can I Be Honest About Trump's Oval Office Makeover?
President Trump’s Oval Office makeover has sparked plenty of outrage from the left, but honestly, they need to find something more important to complain about. During a recent interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump proudly gave viewers a tour of his newly renovated workspace, showing off the gilded embellishments he added to the historic room. The gold accents have become a lightning rod for criticism, with detractors claiming the decorations look cheap and tacky.
When Ingraham asked if the gold trim came from Home Depot, Trump quickly set the record straight. “This is not Home Depot stuff,” he insisted.
Some critics have tried to draw comparisons between Home Depot’s decorative appliqués and what’s actually in the Oval Office, but anyone who looks closely can see they’re not the same, even if there are superficial similarities.
Back in April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had brought in his “gold guy” to add custom-made gold finishes throughout the Oval Office. The project included gilded carvings for the fireplace mantel and molding that wraps around the room.
I have to be honest: I don’t like all the gold either. I absolutely agree that it looks kind of tacky. But here’s the thing: while I agree with Trump’s critics that the gold-heavy aesthetic looks tacky, they’re making way too much of this.
Every president puts their personal stamp on the Oval Office when they move in. It’s tradition. Trump likes gold, and that’s his prerogative as the sitting president. The next occupant of the office will change it to suit their own stylistic preferences, just as Trump changed what his predecessors left behind.
The left’s obsession with Trump’s design choices extends beyond the Oval Office. They blasted his renovation of the Rose Garden, which swapped out the lawn for a stone patio, which is undeniably functionally superior. The stone patio actually looks nice and solved a functional issue, but facts don’t matter when there’s an opportunity to bash Trump.
Then there’s the controversy over Trump’s ballroom addition to the White House. Critics acted as though he was defacing a national monument, completely ignoring that the addition is desperately needed. For years, State dinners have been hosted in temporary tents because the White House lacks adequate space for these important diplomatic events, and guests forced to use porta-potties.
Adding proper facilities for hosting foreign dignitaries is a perfectly reasonable upgrade, but because Trump proposed it, the left lost their minds. Even Donald Trump’s fiercest critics have admitted the new White House ballroom makes sense. For all the phony outrage from the media and D.C. elites, even the Washington Post editorial board couldn’t deny it. They grudgingly called Trump’s project a “reasonable idea,” acknowledging that “privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses recognize the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating.”
Imagine how many of Trump’s critics may denounce the project publicly, but privately feel that it’s something that the White House has needed for a long, long time.
The irony is rich. If Barack Obama or Joe Biden had done the project, the press would’ve hailed it as a “visionary modernization of the people’s house.” But because it’s Trump, the knee-jerk reaction was to treat it like some kind of imperial vanity project. Yet, as the dust settles—and the East Wing gives way to something bold and functional—even Trump’s detractors will shut up, their silence a de facto admission that it was a practical, overdue upgrade, and all the criticism was performative outrage.
The pattern is crystal clear: the left hates Trump, and they’ll turn anything he does into a scandal, no matter how trivial or sensible. Gold trim in the Oval Office, a waterlogged garden finally fixed, or a perfectly reasonable ballroom — in their eyes, it’s all a crisis. They need to pick their battles. There are real policy fights worth having, but interior decorating isn’t one of them.
At the end of the day, Trump’s gold‑trimmed Oval Office is exactly what you’d expect from him. It’s bold, ostentatious, and unapologetically his. You might not like it—I don’t, personally, either—but who cares? Nobody but Trump has to like it, and nobody has to pretend it’s a national emergency. The faux outrage over wallpaper and molding says more about Trump’s critics than it does about him. It proves once again that they’ll manufacture a scandal wherever they can, because the real threat isn’t the decor, it’s a president who refuses to play by their rules.