Trump says he rejected Secret Service proposal to demolish the Oval Office, eyes federal landmark status
Trump told Time magazine the Secret Service suggested tearing down the Oval Office and rebuilding it — an idea he says he rejected outright — and that he wants the room given federal landmark status to stop future presidents changing it.
Donald Trump has said the US Secret Service once suggested tearing down the Oval Office and rebuilding it — a proposal he says he rejected outright.
“I see the Secret Service looking, and I say, ‘What are you guys looking at?’ ‘Sir, we think the Oval Office should be taken down, and we’ll build a new one, sir,’” Trump told Time magazine in an interview published on 1 October.
“I said, ‘My a—, you can’t build a new one. This is a special place.’”
The president told the magazine he wants the room protected from future renovation, saying he has asked his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, to look into making it a federal landmark. The Hill, also reporting on the interview, said Trump had been pressing Wiles for six months to prepare a statement on preserving the room.
Asked by Time whether landmark status would mean “no one can change what you’ve done” to the Oval Office, Trump replied: “No.”
The remarks came in a wide-ranging Time interview in which the president was asked what he would miss most when his presidency ends. “This beautiful room,” he answered, according to CNN’s account of the interview.
Trump, whose second term has seen sweeping changes to the White House, has bathed the Oval Office in gold, adding gold appliqués on the fireplace, gilded mirrors and Rococo-style dessert stands from London and France, according to USA Today. He has also bulldozed the East Wing to make way for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom and threatened to demolish the Kennedy Center.
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