President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a proclamation declaring the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room a national monument, but the document stops short of the protections he described and leaves future presidents free to redecorate.
Trump said major changes to the two rooms should require approval from Congress, and he said he would ask lawmakers to write his order into law. The proclamation itself contains no such requirement.
If they want to say, ‘Let’s not have oval anymore, let’s make it square,’ what happens is they have to go back to Congress
Donald Trump, president
Instead, it puts the Interior secretary in charge of managing the Oval Office and calls for documentation, review and a look at alternatives before any action that would substantially alter or demolish the space.
The text also preserves a president's authority to redecorate, choose furnishings and make routine operational and security changes, as long as they do not substantially impair the historic structure or architectural character.
Nothing in the order stops a successor from undoing the designation altogether. Trump himself has reversed national monument designations made by his predecessors.
The signing was Trump's first official action since Tuesday's midterm elections, in which Republicans lost their majorities in both chambers of Congress. If the lame-duck Congress does not codify the order, that is unlikely to happen once Democrats take control of both chambers.
A red baseball cap reading VETO sat on the Resolute Desk as he signed the document, a nod to the shift in power on Capitol Hill.
Trump did not say exactly what he was trying to prevent, though he suggested the Oval Office could face a threat in the future. He described the order in sweeping terms, saying the rooms would be shielded from anyone who would tear them down to build something in a slightly different shape.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has filled the Oval Office walls with gold-framed portraits, gold appliqués and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. On Thursday he also pointed to new chandeliers he said were installed in the Cabinet Room to fix poor lighting.
A week of Washington projects
The proclamation marked the third day this week that Trump delivered remarks centered on his Washington projects. On Monday he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool about its renovation, and on Wednesday, the day after the election losses, he signed the final beam raised on his ballroom.
Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House to make room for that ballroom, and he has faced several lawsuits alleging his beautification projects in Washington were carried out without the necessary approval.
Democrats are already turning up the scrutiny. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent letters Thursday to known ballroom donors demanding information and warning of other steps to force compliance.
