WASHINGTON — The White House has installed plaques on the exterior of the building bashing President Donald Trump's predecessors, including Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and promoting disinformation about their administrations.
The plaques were hung up below presidential portraits that have been on display on Trump’s recently added "Presidential Walk of Fame" in the White House colonnade.
The one placed under the portrait of the “Autopen," which stands in for President Joe Biden's portrait, refers to him as “Sleepy Joe Biden” and calls him “the worst President in American History.” The plaque contains a number of derisive statements about the former president, referring to Biden’s “severe mental decline,” “the Biden Crime Family” and his “Radical Left handlers."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News in a statement that Trump wrote the text of "many" of the plaques.
“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind," she said. "As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”
The plaque says that Biden took office in the White House "as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States," alluding to the 2020 presidential election whose results Trump sought to overturn. It accuses Biden of overseeing "a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our Nation to the brink of destruction," noting the inflation that developed during his presidency, denouncing the Inflation Reduction Act as the "Green New Scam" and blasting his administration's immigration policies.
"His Afghanistan Disaster was among the most humiliating events in American History," the plaque says, noting the deaths of 13 U.S. service members during the 2021 withdrawal. "Seeing Biden’s devastating weakness, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Hamas terrorists launched the heinous October 7th attack on Israel," it says.
It also references Biden's poor performance in the 2024 presidential debate, saying, "Following his humiliating debate loss to President Trump in the big June 2024 debate, he was forced to withdraw from his campaign for re-election in disgrace."
Biden's office declined to comment.
Obama’s plaque names him as “Barack Hussein Obama” — the former president's full name, which is often used derisively in right-wing circles. Calling him “one of the most divisive figures in American history," the plaque details what the Trump administration paints as his failures, including Obamacare, which it calls "the highly ineffective 'Unaffordable' Care Act."
"He presided over a stagnant Economy, approved the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, and signed the one-sided Paris Climate Accords, both of which were later terminated by President Donald J. Trump," the plaque says.
Obama's plaque also repeats Trump's conspiracy theory that Obama "spied" on his 2016 presidential campaign and says he "presided over the creation of the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, the worst political scandal in American History."
Obama's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Bill Clinton’s plaque ends with the fact that Trump beat Clinton's wife, Hillary, in the 2016 presidential election. Clinton's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two plaques summarizing Trump's time as president describe his leadership in glowing terms.
The one detailing his first four years says during that period, he "signed the Largest Tax Cuts in History, built a booming Economy, eliminated a record number of Federal Regulations, rebuilt the United States Military, terminated the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Paris Climate Accords, ended the NAFTA disaster, destroyed the ISIS Caliphate, signed the historic Abraham Accords, and created the Greatest Economy in the History of the World."
The plaque also boasts about Trump's second term, including his sweeping tariffs, hard-line immigration policies and says he "removed Critical Race Theory and transgender insanity from public schools, and banned men from women’s sports."
"He began the construction of the Golden Dome missile defense shield, renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, and has built, right here at the White House, the magnificent Trump Presidential Ballroom after a 225 year wait — but THE BEST IS YET TO COME!"
The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about how the plaques were paid for, whether government funds were used and whether they were installed by government employees.
The new plaques drew mixed reactions from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
"I'm really disturbed by that," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, who often bucks her party, told NBC News.
“These are individuals who served who were elected by people around this country. Whether I supported them or not, they were the country’s president,” Murkowski said. “Let’s not have President Trump trying to redefine the contributions or lack of contributions of each. That’s inappropriate.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, a staunch Trump ally, indicated the plaques were not a concern.
“I don’t think that’s going to move the ball for us. There may be some amusement there,” he said before pivoting to the 2026 midterm elections. "But the bottom line is, if we lose the House, he’s going to get impeached. We need to focus on, you know, fixing people’s problems. And the more we can focus on that, the better.”
