White House adviser Sebastian Gorka unveiled a new White House painting of President Donald Trump on X on Monday, and promised there were “more to come.” The portrait itself — along with a host of other changes that Trump is making to White House decor — capture Trump’s political project far better than he may have intended.
Trump appears to have a fixation on paying homage to himself in the White House.
The portrait depicts Trump with a stern-looking expression and looking remarkably trim in an overcoat. The painting also conveys the president in motion — he appears to be striding down a hall between two rows of American flags. The most striking feature of the work, however, is not the subject, but the backdrop: Streaks of orange leap and glow behind Trump. It’s difficult not to see it as fire.
A Trump supporter might look at this painting and see things to like. Trump, a man of action, looking uncharacteristically fit, forging a new nation in the crucible of chaos that is modern America. For those not on the MAGA train, it’s easy to see the painting as self-parody — Trump is not taming the chaos, but authoring it, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake as he transforms the republic into an inferno.
Trump appears to have a fixation on paying homage to himself in the White House. In April NBC News reported that the White House “moved the official portrait of former President Barack Obama to a new location in the building’s Grand Foyer, replacing it with a painting of President Donald Trump with his fist raised in the air right after last year’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.” That Trump painting took the spot “traditionally reserved for the most recent official presidential portrait.” (Former President Joe Biden does not yet have an official portrait.)
The White House also unveiled a new official photographic portrait of Trump in June, a close-up that replaced the official photograph released just months earlier, at the time of his second inauguration. In both of those photographs, Trump glares at the viewer against a dark backdrop, in contrast to Trump’s smiling visage in his official photographic portrait in his first term. It’s important, it seems, to get the scowl just right.
President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Monday.Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP
Beyond the apparent obsession with representations of himself, Trump is keen on changing the White House to match his gaudy personal aesthetic. He has blanketed the Oval Office in gold ornaments and gold trim. And NBC News reported in July that Trump is replacing the part of the East Wing traditionally used for the first lady’s offices with a giant ballroom, a renovation effort that would mark the “biggest transformation of the White House complex since Harry Truman’s day,” referring to when Truman added a balcony to the White House. According to NBC News, Trump checks in on construction work in the White House weekly, spending up to half an hour asking the workers questions.
It is unsurprising that a former reality TV star and poor real estate developer whose success relies on constant hype that is never fulfilled would be preoccupied with turning the White House into a temple dedicated to his brand. That doesn’t make it any less vulgar.