Donald Trump held a high-stakes meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the Oval Office.
When he had had enough of the cameras, his team rushed everyone out of the room.
He signaled the end by stating, “There’s never been a time like this in America. Truly, it’s the gold age of America. Thank you very much, everybody.” Then the room turned chaotic.
Staffers spread their arms out wide, flailed their hands towards the door, and shooed reporters away.
The president, 80, and Aoun remained seated in front of the fireplace as videographers recorded last-minute footage of the officials.
The administration expected the takeaway to be his dignified meeting with a world leader amid pressures to temper the conflict with Iran.
Aoun’s visit marked the first time a Lebanese president visited the White House since 2009.
Trump’s key advisers, Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were also present.
But social media users also noticed everything about the Oval Office environment in a shaky clip circulating online. With each passing month of Trump’s second term, a new decorative addition appears.
While plenty of viewers have noticed the gilded fixtures lining the walls, far fewer seemed to catch the freshly painted gold trim running along the molding just behind him. It’s a small addition compared to the rest of the room’s shine, but once spotted, commenters couldn’t stop pointing it out.
An IG Threads user jeered, “The pullback to show how golden the room is, has to be one of the craziest optics in history.The room is essentially gold at this point.”
A second observer wrote, “Forget the interview… I can’t get past the gold overload. It’s gaudy, tacky, and just plain ugly. WTF were Trump and his designers thinking?”
The entire room is gilded with golden accents on every surface, from the walls and bookshelves to the fireplace columns, doors, and more.
View on Threads
Make no mistake, every ornamentation is to ensure Trump’s name becomes enmeshed with opulence. After all, he has long been known for his golden interior design and golden signage that mark each of his Trump Towers.
His disparagers half-agree that this time in American history is golden, and have written things like “Oh FFS! Who gave the gold sharpie … Everyone knows he can’t be trusted.” Another comment read, “And the Oval Office is fool’s gold. All fake, just like Trump.”
The executive office is traditionally decorated with a conservative touch. But this time around, Trump has been determined to make it look like his personal residence, and he has been very hands-on.
Critics believe that Trump has been using superglue to add his special touches. Staffers recently forgot to remove a fresh pack of the glue from the Resolute Desk before a meeting, further fueling the discourse.
Detractors are convinced that Trump won’t stop his golden design rampage until the White House is completely unrecognizable.
According to someone else, “He won’t be satisfied until the Oval Office looks like his old place in New York – just a blinding amount of tacky gold.”
Another said, “Just a reminder that Trump got confronted about the ornaments and tried to claim they were solid gold or real gold. He lies about everything. Every single time he’s talking … he’s lying.”
Trump shows off all the gold he has in the Oval Office pic.twitter.com/V5kR2DKqVi
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 11, 2025
Last year, Trump gave Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham a tour of the Oval Office.
He swore that his wall decals were not from local hardware stores — despite skeptics finding exact replicas — and that the opulent sheen was from melted-down 24-karat gold, not imitation paint.
While plenty of viewers have noticed the gilded fixtures lining the walls, far fewer seemed to catch the freshly painted gold trim running along the molding just behind him. It’s a small addition compared to the rest of the room’s shine, but once spotted, commenters couldn’t stop pointing it out.
His latest additions are two placed in the center of the Oval Office fireplace. They were added sometime in June and remain in place despite an outcry from critics who whined that the decorations are “fake, tacky and needs to be removed.”
