President Donald Trump‘s newly installed “Presidential Walk of Fame” at the White House has been the subject of controversy for its derisive plaques that recast American presidential history with partisan insults and unverified claims.
Trump originally unveiled the display in September 2025, arranging portraits of all U.S. presidents in gilded frames along the walkway. Notably, former President Joe Biden‘s official portrait was omitted and replaced with a photograph of an autopen signature, referencing Trump’s repeated claims about Biden’s cognitive fitness and alleged reliance on automated signature devices.
The most controversial elements of the exhibit, however, are the plaques installed beneath the portraits of several recent presidents. Each contains descriptive text that reads less like historical context and more like partisan commentary, reflecting Trump’s personal views on his predecessors.
Under Joe Biden’s space, the plaque calls him “by far, the worst President in American History” and repeats the unfounded assertion that he assumed office “as a result of the most corrupt election ever seen in the United States,” directly contradicting official Electoral College results and certified election outcomes.
Obama’s plaque reads that “he passed the ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act, resulting in his party losing control of both Houses of Congress, and the Election of the largest House Republican majority since 1946. 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 text continues onto a second plaque below, summarizing Obama’s foreign policy “failures” and accusing his administration of spying on the 2016 Trump campaign, and finishes by bragging that Trump would go on to beat “his handpicked successor,” Hillary Clinton, in the presidential election.
Other plaques mix praise and censure. Ronald Reagan, for example, is depicted as a conservative icon who “won the Cold War,” who was a fan of President Donald J. Trump long before President Trump’s Historic run for the White House. Likewise, President Trump was a fan of his!”
George W. Bush’s plaque acknowledges the creation of the Department of Homeland Security while criticizing his decisions to initiate the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the plaques, saying they are “eloquently written descriptions of each president” and that “many were written directly by the President himself.” Reactions from former presidents or their representatives have been limited, and no formal responses were immediately available at the time of reporting. Biden, Obama, and other past leaders had not publicly commented on their plaques.
The installation of the plaques comes days after Trump faced severe criticism for his response to the murder of film director & activist Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, implying that his criticism of the president or “Trump Derangement Syndrome” played a role in his death.
