President Biden removed the military flags former President Donald Trump had in the Oval Office after he was sworn in on Wednesday.
“Gone are the flags of the branches of the military that Trump displayed behind the Resolute Desk. Biden has installed an American flag and another with a presidential seal,” the Washington Post reported of the absent flags.
Trump added an array of flags to the oval office in 2017, and he had the military flags positioned on his left side at the Resolute Desk next to a window.
Biden Oval Office vs. Trump Oval Office pic.twitter.com/4plAURP1Y4
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) January 20, 2021
Biden also notably removed a painting of Andrew Jackson, the nation’s first Democratic president, after a summer of social justice riots and protests that included criticizing the former president for the Native American Removal Act he signed in 1830.
A large portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is now in the office, as well as a bust of Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor. A bust of Martin Luther King Jr. was also added as well as a bust of Cesar Chavez, who was an American socialist labor leader.
“Biden is … nodding to segments of the Democratic Party’s base via [these] historic references,” Washington Post reporter Annie Linskey said of the changes.
