New inscriptions on the White House denigrate the Democratic predecessors of US President Donald Trump. The plaques are mounted beneath a gallery of images depicting past presidents of the United States.
Especially Trump’s immediate predecessor Joe Biden is portrayed in a bad light. It is written there that he was “by far the worst president in American history.” He brought the nation “to the brink of destruction.” It can also be read that the 2020 election, from which Biden emerged victorious against Trump, was fraudulent – a claim that Trump has repeatedly made, but which has been refuted.
The language of the inscriptions is similar to Trump’s posts on his online platform Truth Social. This is how Biden is shown on the plaque as sleepy (sleepy) and crooked (fraudulent), terms that Trump often uses to insult Biden. To the former president Barack Obama It is written that he was one of the most polarizing political figures in American history – an accusation that historians often level at Trump himself.
Autopen instead of Biden portrait
The new plaques are part of the so-called Presidential Walk of Fame, a portrait gallery of previous presidents in a portico outside the White House that Trump had installed in September. Instead of a picture of Biden, however, there is a photo of a so-called autopen, a mechanical signature machine.
Republicans accuse the previous Biden administration of using the autopen to issue a large number of pardons – without Biden’s approval or knowledge. Biden himself had the New York Times said he had verbally approved all pardons at the end of his term. According to previous media reports, the autopen is not uncommon in the everyday life of US presidents.
In the two pictures of Trump himself, however, the US President is highly praised. For example, during his first term in office, it says that Trump created the “greatest economy in the history of the world.” The plaque for his current term in office reads, among other things, Trump’s repeated claim that he has ended eight conflicts in the world. However, fighting continues in several of them.
