Attorney General Pam Bondi covered quite a bit of ground in her latest interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, but she specifically took a moment to reflect on one of her early experiences after being sworn in as the nation’s chief law enforcement official.
Pam Bondi says she personally took portraits of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris off the walls of government buildings
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-04T02:44:36.521Z
After noting that she had visited assorted floors at Main Justice, Bondi explained that she also stopped by national security offices on the seventh floor. “They still had a picture of Joe Biden on the wall and Kamala Harris,” the attorney general said. “That’s how bad it was. So, I, personally, took those off the wall.”
It was, to be sure, a brief anecdote, and as a rule, agencies replace presidential photographs relatively quickly after the torch is passed. That said, Bondi’s comments got me thinking about the larger context — and the degree to which the Trump administration has prioritized wall art over the last six weeks.
For example, the day after Donald Trump’s second inaugural, NBC News reported that the Pentagon had taken down a portrait of retired Gen. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who had become a frequent target of Trump condemnations. Soon after, the Defense Department also took down a different Milley portrait, which recognized him as a former chief of staff of the Army.
Soon after, CNN, The Washington Examiner and Stars and Stripes, among other outlets, reported that the Pentagon also had taken down a portrait of former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who had repeatedly clashed with his former boss as well. (After working side by side with Trump, Esper concluded that the president was “unfit” for office, a national security threat and a “threat to democracy.”)
In case that weren’t quite enough, after Trump met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House last month, reporters noticed that a framed copy of a New York Post cover, featuring the president’s mug shot taken after his criminal indictment in Georgia, had been placed on a wall just outside the Oval Office. (White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino later confirmed the presence of the photo in a social media video.)
I’ve followed plenty of presidents and their teams over the years, but I can’t remember the last time there were quite so many stories about wall décor emanating from a new administration.
