Video above: President Trump reacts to a letter former President Biden left him in the Resolute desk.
(NEXSTAR) – As the up-to-date and outgoing presidents attend the former’s inauguration, White House staffers face a daunting task: getting one president out and another in in a matter of hours.
That happened on Monday when President Donald Trump was inaugurated. As soon as he and President Joe Biden began their limousine ride to the Capitol, change began.
“As soon as they leave, the executive residence staff springs into action,” said Matthew Costello, chief education officer of the White House Historical Association, during a recent online broadcast on the history of Inauguration Day. “Essentially, staff work non-stop to inventory, process and transport all of a first family’s personal belongings.”
While most Americans can’t see every inch of the White House and the changes made between the first families, we can see the Oval Office.
Each president can choose the look of his office, from the carpet to the artwork on the wall.
The up-to-date president can retain all of the functions already assumed by the outgoing president (Trump appears to be retaining several of them), but most make it their own domain.
He kept the Resolute Desk, which all but three presidents – Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald R. Ford – have refused to apply since it was gifted to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880.
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President Donald Trump has decided to keep a bust of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., shown in this Jan. 20, 2021 photo, that was on display in President Joe Biden’s Oval Office. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) -
President Donald Trump is once again using the Resolute desk in his Oval Office, as you can see here in this photo from January 20, 2025. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
He also kept a bust of Martin Luther King Jr., which former President Joe Biden said was also on display in the office Wall Street Journal.
Like others before him, Trump has photos of his family behind him. In the image below you can see some of these photos, including one of his mother.
On the opposite side there is an exhibition of Challenge Coinstraditionally used by military or Department of Defense personnel to identify units, offices, special events, anniversaries and more.
Biden had issued a lot of challenge coins in the private dining room.
Trump has brought back many of the artworks and decorations that were seen in the Oval Office during his first term.
Its iconic “Diet Coke Button” is back, they say Wall Street Journal. (WSJ got an exclusive tour of the Oval Office on Inauguration Day.) Trump also brought back a bust of Winston Churchill that Biden had removed.
Portraits of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson hang above the fireplace. (Biden had five portraits hanging above the mantel: a larger portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, flanked by smaller versions of Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson). Silver eagle figurines now sit on the mantel, WSJ reports.
On the back, next to the Resolute desk, there is also a portrait of President Andrew Jackson, which Biden replaced with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. According to the WSJ, Trump decided to keep Franklin’s portrait.
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A painting for former President Andrew Jackson hangs in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) -
In the file photo from January 28, 2017, US President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Trump also dropped a bust of Robert F. Kennedy that Biden had and brought in the sculpture “The Bronco Buster” by Frederic Remington (another Remington piece, “The Sergeant,” was featured in). a model of the Oval Office at the Republican National Convention this summer).
A quick look at the Oval Office appears to show the return of flags for all branches of service that Biden did not have during his time in office.
Biden, who kept the curtains from Trump’s first term in the Oval Office, replaced a pastel-colored carpet with a gloomy blue one that his brother James picked out for him. Trump brought back the pastel carpet.
It is possible that the Oval Office decor will be adjusted or replaced during Trump’s term. As WSJ reports, it was “refreshed” a few months into his first term.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
