DISCLAIMER: This article was first published on December 17, 2025
Donald Trump drew some mockery on Wednesday, upon the debut of the new plaques in the “Presidential Walk of Fame” in the White House, which offered critical assessments of Trump’s predecessors, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joseph Biden, along with a heroic description of himself.
Just a couple of days earlier, Trump was seen posing in front of another new White House decoration.
Back in April, CNN reported, a new painting depicting Trump after the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., debuted in the Grand Foyer of the White House. It took up the space formerly occupied by a portrait of George W. Bush, which was moved to a nearby staircase.
“Details on the origin of this Trump portrait, its artist, and who paid for it were not immediately clear, though it appears to be based on iconic photographs of Trump taken moments after the assassination attempt at his July 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania, rally by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci and New York Times photographer Doug Mills,” CNN said at the time.
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Later reports attributed the painting to Florida-based artist Marc Lipp. Andrew Pollack, a school safety advocate, donated the portrait to the White House, the New York Post reported.
Per the New York Times, at the time, the new painting “drew criticism from some presidential historians, who could not recall another president hanging a painting of himself during his term in the White House.” Ted Widmer, a presidential historian at the City University of New York, slammed the painting as “tacky.”
Last week, Trump was photographed, unsmiling, while wearing a tuxedo, in front of the portrait:
Trump poses with a new portrait of himself in the White House lobby pic.twitter.com/LGgDOh37Wk
— Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) December 14, 2025
Trump had posted the photo to Truth Social on the 14th, and was almost certainly dressed up for the Kennedy Center Honors that night.
Some social media users reacted to the picture:
this is how toddlers look at you when they’re actively shitting their pants https://t.co/iqMtSFR2KF
— e l l a 🇨🇦 (@blondehotcoffee) December 16, 2025
Donald Trump stands in front of completed jigsaw puzzle he hung up: https://t.co/wMXN3kKJMK
— Elon Altman (@ElonAltman) December 17, 2025
This is despicable. The valorisation of an assassination attempt into a form of political art in a formal setting is cult-of-the-personalty stuff. https://t.co/hmF1tQyInr
— 🌳 #NFFC Bod (@nffcbod) December 17, 2025
As a PhD student studying history, I hate that all of us historians are going to be teaching the next generation in the near future what happened during this second generation.
I do not like this timeline as a Black scholar. https://t.co/6QJfrdKugv
— Je’lon Alexander, M.A. (@JelonAlexander) December 15, 2025
Photo courtesy of an X screenshot.
