'Sleepy Joe', 'Divisive Obama': Inside Trump's 'Presidential Walk of Fame'

The White House has installed new plaques along President Donald Trump's "Presidential Walk of Fame", offering descriptions beneath portraits of former presidents that reflect the Republican leader's own views. The descriptions, first seen publicly on Wednesday, have been written in the style of Trump's social media posts -- including insults, baseless claims and random capitalisation, including branding his predecessors Joe Biden as "the worst president in American history", Barack Obama as "divisive", and Ronald Reagan as a fan of a young Trump.

The additions mark Trump's latest effort to remake the White House in his own image, while flouting the protocols of how America's commanders-in-chief treat their predecessors and doubling down on his determination to reshape how US history is told.

"The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind. As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on the installation in the colonnade that runs from the West Wing to the White House.

A plaque at the start of the exhibit says it was "conceived, built, and dedicated" by Trump as a "tribute to past Presidents, good, bad, and somewhere in the middle, who served our Country, and gave up so much in so doing." The Trumpian flourishes, written in the President's typical bombastic language, highlight the Republican leader's fraught relationships with his more recent predecessors.

Donald Trump

With two presidencies, Trump gets two displays. Each is full of praise and superlatives – "the Greatest Economy in the History of the World." He calls his 2016 Electoral College margin of 304-227 a "landslide".

Touting his 2024 victory, Trump's plaque says he overcame the "unprecedented Weaponisation of Law Enforcement against him, as well as two assassination attempts." It goes on to declare that Trump, who's been in office for 11 months, has "delivered" on his Inauguration Day promise to usher in the "Golden Age of America."

Joe Biden

Credit: @VaughnHillyard on X

Former President Joe Biden remained the only president in the display not to be recognised with a gilded portrait. Instead, Trump chose an autopen, reflecting his mockery of Biden's age and assertions that Biden was not up to the job.

Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election and dropped out of the 2024 election before their pending rematch, is introduced as "Sleepy Joe" and "by far, the worst President in American History" who "brought our Nation to the brink of destruction."

Two plaques blast Biden for inflation and his energy and immigration policy, among other things. The text also blames Biden for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and asserts falsely that Biden was elected fraudulently.

Barack Obama

Credit: @VaughnHillyard on X

Barack Obama, meanwhile, is described as "a community organiser, one-term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History."

The plaque calls America's 44th president's signature domestic achievement "the highly ineffective 'Unaffordable Care Act." And it notes that Trump nixed other major Obama achievements: "the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal ... and "the one-side Paris Climate Accords."

George W Bush

George W Bush, who notably did not speak to Trump when they were last together at former President Jimmy Carter's funeral, appears to win approval for creating the Department of Homeland Security and leading the nation after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

But the plaque decries that Bush "started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened."

Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton, once a friend of Trump's, gets faint praise for major crime legislation, an overhaul of the social safety net and balanced budgets. But his plaque notes Clinton secured those achievements with a Republican Congress, the help of the 1990s "tech boom", and "despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency."

Clinton's recognition describes the North American Free Trade Agreement, another of his major achievements, as "bad for the United States" and something Trump would "terminate" during his first presidency. (Trump actually renegotiated some terms with Mexico and Canada but did not scrap the fundamental deal.)

His plaque ends with the line: "In 2016, President Clinton's wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!"

George HW Bush

Republican George HW Bush, who died during Trump's first term, is recognised for his lengthy resume before becoming president, along with legislation including the Clean Air Act and Americans With Disabilities Act - despite Trump's administration relaxing enforcement of both. The elder Bush's plaque does not note that he, not Clinton, first pushed the major trade law that became NAFTA.

John F Kennedy

Democrat John F Kennedy, the uncle of Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, is credited as a World War II "war hero" who later used "stirring rhetoric" as president in opposition to communism.

"Kennedy suffered a painful setback during the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and was President when the Soviet Union built the Berlin Wall, but skillfully navigated the threat of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis... Kennedy's Presidency ended tragically with his assassination in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963," it reads.

Richard Nixon

Republican Richard Nixon's plaque states plainly that the Watergate scandal led to his resignation. While Trump spared most past presidents of harsh criticism, he jabbed at one of his regular targets, the media - this time across multiple centuries: Andrew Jackson's plaque says the seventh president was "unjustifiably treated unfairly by the Press, but not as viciously and unfairly as President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald J. Trump would, in the future, be."