President Donald Trump has taken the unusual step of replacing a portrait of former President Barack Obama at the White House with a dramatic painting of himself captured shortly after surviving an assassination attempt.
The newly unveiled artwork, placed prominently in the Grand Foyer near the main stairwell, depicts the 78-year-old president raising his fist and shouting “fight,” his face bloodied from a gunshot wound to the ear during a July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In a break from long-standing White House tradition—where portraits of sitting presidents are typically installed only after they leave office—Trump removed Obama’s portrait from its central location and relocated it to the opposite side of the entrance hall.
“Some new artwork at the White House,” read a post from the White House on X, accompanied by a video showing Trump’s portrait now occupying the prominent space previously held by Obama’s.
A White House official said they did not immediately have information about the artist, though the painting closely mirrors a widely circulated photo taken by the Associated Press at the scene of the assassination attempt.
Photos shared by several White House staffers show Obama’s portrait still on display but repositioned a few feet away. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung confirmed the change and responded to criticism online by telling a user to “Pipe down, moron.”
While it’s not uncommon for presidents to reshuffle portraits within the White House—often placing those of more recent leaders in visible locations—the move has drawn attention due to the high-profile nature of the painting and Trump’s historically contentious relationship with Obama.
Obama’s official portrait, unveiled in 2022 by then-President Joe Biden, shows the 44th president in a black suit and grey tie against a minimalist white backdrop.
Trump’s decision to prominently feature his own likeness underscores his penchant for self-glorification. Throughout his properties, including the White House and Mar-a-Lago, Trump has displayed items celebrating his political journey.
Recently, a gold-framed version of his mugshot from a case involving alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election was hung near the Oval Office. At his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, he has installed a large bronze sculpture portraying his defiant response to the Butler shooting.
The White House’s public celebration of the new portrait adds to the symbolism of the switch, highlighting both Trump’s survivor narrative and the enduring tensions with his predecessor, Barack Obama—a feud that traces back to Trump’s promotion of the discredited “birther” conspiracy theory, and Obama’s subsequent public mockery of Trump during a 2011 dinner.
