Reported by Al Jazeera
Following election losses, the signing wraps Trump’s third event of the week focused on signature renovation projects.
United States President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation designating the Oval Office and the adjacent Cabinet Room as a national monument.
Signed from behind the president’s desk, topped with a red “VETO” baseball cap, the proclamation on Thursday marked Trump’s first official action since his party’s sweeping losses in Tuesday’s midterm elections , which will hand Democrats control of Congress come January.
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“We’re making it a national monument, and it will not be allowed to be touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office at the signing, adding that the document will turn both rooms, located on the first floor of the West Wing, into “a landmark for the ages”.
The monument also includes the Outer Oval Office. The move is intended to prevent any major changes to the spaces, which the president has heavily redesigned during his second term in office.
The effort is also aimed at preserving the spaces’ “historic character, architectural integrity, and association with the Presidency”, according to the proclamation.
The proclamation orders the interior secretary to manage the monument through the National Park Service, and requires “documentation, review, and consideration of alternatives before any action that would substantially alter or demolish the monument”.
The measure does not prevent future presidents from restyling the Oval Office. Proclamations can be revised or revoked by a successor via a new executive action – a strategy Trump himself used to dramatically downsize two major national monuments in Utah during his first term, and again during his second term after former President Joe Biden had fully restored them.
The text of the proclamation also explicitly states that the order does not restrict the president’s authority to redecorate, select furnishings or change the office’s decor.
Coming on the heels of his party’s defeat , the signing marked the president’s third event of the week highlighting his pet projects.
Those initiatives include multiple high-profile overhauls, including…