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Creating a throw-away culture: How companies ingrained plastics in modern life
A trash can overflows as people sit outside of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP/AP
Just for a minute, think about how much of the plastic you use today will end up as trash. Drink bottles? Grocery bags? Food wrappers? If you live in the United States, it’ll probably add up to about a pound of stuff — just today.
Most plastic is dumped in landfills or becomes pollution in places like rivers and oceans, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Along the way, it sheds microplastics that can make their way into animals and people. Just 4% of plastic in the U.S. is recycled.
It wasn’t always this way. But over the past 70 years, plastic has become embedded in nearly every aspect of human life. The world produces around 230 times more plastic now than it did in 1950, according to Our World in Data.
As production soared, so did pollution. Many scientists and activists say chemical and fossil fuel companies make too much plastic now for society to manage sustainably. The United Nations says the problem is also being fueled by a “worrying shift” toward single-use products and packaging, which are designed to be used once and thrown away.
Plastic became ingrained in modern life in large part because the plastics industry started working in the 1950s to convince people to embrace the material as cheap, abundant and disposable.
The marketing campaign worked so well that litter soon became a problem across the U.S., and there was a public backlash. The industry responded by pitching recycling. But almost from the outset, corporations knew that recycling probably wouldn’t work to rein in waste, multiple investigations have shown.
Now, faced with spiraling plastic pollution, the U.N has set out to write a legally-binding agreement to deal with the problem. But the negotiations are fraught.
And even if nations can broker a deal, it’ll be a daunting task to actually reduce the world’s consumption of plastic, which is in almost everything, from clothing and diapers to medical devices.
“We’ll continue to need plastic for specific uses,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said at the latest round of U.N. negotiations in Canada in April. “But there’s a growing agreement,” she said, that a lot of single-use plastic “can probably go.”
Vintage Bakelite and other plastic objects at a museum in England.
Matt Cardy/Getty Images/Getty Images Europe
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Matt Cardy/Getty Images/Getty Images Europe
The plastics industry pitched disposability to make more money
As part of the treaty talks, some countries want to cap production of new plastic, which is made from oil and gas. However, those efforts are opposed by big fossil fuel producers that are determined to keep plastic demand growing. State and local governments in the U.S. have tried to limit pollution by passing laws that ban plastic shopping bags or single-use plastic bottles.
The industry has responded by fighting regulations that could hurt demand for its products. It says the solution to environmental problems is better recycling, not using less plastic.
Matt Seaholm, chief executive of the Plastics Industry Association, says his group is advocating on behalf of plastic producers and consumers alike, since “it is an essential part of society at this point.”
Synthetic plastic was patented in the early 1900s. It was known as Bakelite, and it sparked a boom in durable and affordable consumer goods. Soon, companies started selling different kinds of plastic. At first, most of it was marketed as sturdy and reusable. One television ad from 1955 — about a made-up homemaker named Jane in a made-up place called Plasticstown, USA — touts how plastic containers are ideal for families because they won’t break if kids accidentally drop them.
But soon, the messaging started to change. In 1956, the industry learned about a new way to boost sales — and profits. At the plastics industry’s annual conference in New York, Lloyd Stouffer, the editor of an influential trade magazine, urged executives to stop emphasizing plastics’ durability. Stouffer told the companies to focus instead on making a lot of inexpensive, expendable material. Their future, he said, was in the trash can.
Companies got the message. They realized they could sell more plastic if people threw more of it away. “Those corporations were doing what they’re supposed to do, which is make a lot of money,” says Heather Davis, an assistant professor at The New School in New York who’s written about the plastics industry.
Garbage is dumped at the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, New York, in 1989.
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David Cantor/AP/AP
Throw-away living was a foreign concept in 1950s America
But getting people to throw away items after a single use took a lot of work.
Adults in the 1950s had lived through The Great Depression and World War II, and they were trained to save as much as possible, Davis says.
“It was a really difficult sell to the American public in the post-war period, to inculcate people into a throwaway living,” she says. “That is not what people were used to.”
A solution companies came up with was emphasizing that plastic was a low-cost, abundant material.
A 1960 marketing study for Scott Cup said the containers were “almost indestructible,” but that the manufacturer could still convince people to discard them after a few uses. To counter any “pangs of conscience” consumers might feel about throwing them away, the researchers suggested a “direct attack”: Tell people the cups are cheap, they said, and that “there are more where these came from.”
A few years later, Scott ran an advertisement saying its plastic cups were available at “‘toss-away prices.”
In a 1963 report for another plastics conference in Chicago, Stouffer congratulated the industry for filling dumps and garbage cans with plastic bottles and bags.
“The happy day has arrived,” Stouffer wrote, “when nobody any longer considers the [plastic] package too good to throw away.”
Workers remove garbage floating on the Negro River in Manaus, Brazil.
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Edmar Barros/AP/AP
A booming market hit a consumer backlash
By the early 1970s, plastics were booming. The market was expanding faster than the “rosiest of predictions,” and its growth prospects were “out of sight,” an executive at the chemical company DuPont told the Chamber of Commerce in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 1973. Soon, big soft drink companies introduced plastic soda bottles.
But the industry faced a growing public-relations problem that was especially threatening to beverage companies, whose names were stamped on the packaging: Plastic litter was becoming an eyesore across the country.
“Even if you’ve convinced people that maybe the disposability of plastics isn’t such a bad thing, people are still seeing this waste out in public,” says Bart Elmore, a professor of environmental history at Ohio State University.
So drink makers went on offense. Elmore says they fought bans on throw-away bottles and joined the plastics industry in pushing recycling as an environmental solution.
However, multiple investigations, including by NPR, have shown that plastics industry representatives long knew that recycling would probably never be effective on a large scale. Officials have said they encouraged recycling to avoid regulations and ensure that demand for plastic kept growing.
Trade groups for plastic companies say those investigations don’t accurately reflect today’s industry.
There isn’t evidence that drink makers were part of those internal discussions about recycling’s viability. But Elmore says they should have had enough information at the time to know recycling was a risky bet.
In 1976 — two years before big soft-drink makers introduced plastic soda bottles — a study by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded that “substantial recycling of plastics is unlikely in the near future.” That echoes the agency’s 1975 draft report that found “recycling of plastic bottles is unlikely to be commercially feasible.”
“To make a gamble like that, where public agencies and public documents are saying this at the time, I think raises real questions about culpability, accountability in an era when I think a lot of people are asking for that,” Elmore says.
Less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled globally. As countries try to negotiate a global waste agreement, activists and scientists are focusing a lot of their attention on chemical and fossil fuel companies that make plastic. But Elmore says consumer goods companies like beverage makers also deserve scrutiny, because they use a ton of plastic packaging and rank as some of the biggest plastic polluters globally.
“If they take a stand, one way or the other, it has a huge global impact,” Elmore says.
A business group called the American Beverage Association said in a statement to NPR that one of its highest priorities is creating a so-called circular economy where plastic is recycled and reused to prevent waste.
An aerial view of Buffalo, New York, facing Lake Erie.
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
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Bruce Bennett/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
A lawsuit aims to hold a major plastic polluter accountable
The disposable culture that was fostered by the plastics industry is playing out in places like the Buffalo River, which empties into Lake Erie in western New York. Plastic debris litters the banks of the river, and it breaks down into fragments called microplastics that accumulate in the lake, contaminating drinking water for about 11 million people.
One morning this spring, volunteers met at the river to clean up some of the pollution. “We see plastic tops, bottles, we have single-use plastics from takeout food,” says Jill Jedlicka, who leads Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, a nonprofit that organized the event.
It’s constant work. The debris that volunteers collected will be replaced in weeks by more plastic trash. “It’s an onslaught,” Jedlicka says.
A lot of the plastic waste around the Buffalo River is packaging sold by the food and beverage giant PepsiCo, according to a lawsuit that New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed last year against the company. New York prosecutors say plastic pollution around the Buffalo River is a public nuisance, and that Pepsi contributes to the problem by selling tons of single-use packaging.
Activists say lawsuits like the one New York filed against Pepsi are a way to try to hold corporations accountable.
In a court filing, Pepsi said it isn’t responsible for the Buffalo River pollution, and that it shouldn’t have to warn people that plastic waste poses environmental and health risks.
“Consumers are more than capable of purchasing a beverage or snack product, consuming it, and placing the packaging in a recycling or waste bin,” the company said.
Researchers say companies often blame consumers when plastic waste gets into the environment.
Pepsi said in statements to NPR that “no single group or entity bears responsibility for plastic pollution,” and that it is trying to improve recycling and reduce how much new plastic it uses.
However, in its latest sustainability report, Pepsi said its use of new plastic increased slightly in 2022, partly because recycled material was expensive and hard to find. Pepsi isn’t alone: Despite growing public pressure, companies increased their use of new plastic by 11% between 2018 and 2022, according to data compiled by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
“There is so much that the plastics industry needs to do to improve the sustainability of plastics,” says Shelie Miller, a professor at the School for Environmental Sustainability at the University of Michigan. But she says consumer culture is also part of the problem.
“If our stance is, consumers should be able to consume whatever they want in whatever quantity they want and it’s someone else’s job to deal with it,” Miller says, “that’s not a path toward sustainability.”
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Today’s top stories
The Justice Department yesterday released about 30,000 pages of new documents, including flight logs, memos and letters, related to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The files contain hundreds of references to President Trump.
President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Dec. 15.
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
- 🎧 It’s well established that Epstein was well-connected and knew many influential figures, including Trump and former president Bill Clinton, NPR’s Sarah McCammon tells Up First. She emphasizes that Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but notes that the documents continue to highlight the relationship between Trump and Epstein, raising questions about how much Trump knew about Epstein’s activities. She adds that it’s unclear which documents are credible and which aren’t. On social media, the DOJ has claimed that one of the files — a letter from Epstein to convicted sex offender Larry Nassar — is fake.
The Supreme Court has ruled that National Guard troops must stay out of Chicago — for now. The decision is one of several “emergency docket” cases in which the conservative majority court has ruled against Trump since he began his second term as president. The justices ruled 6-3, stating that the president failed to explain why the situation in Chicago warranted an exception to a law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the military’s ability to execute laws on U.S. soil.
- 🎧 Because the ruling came through an emergency decision, it does not set precedent, NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf explains. The decision applies only to this specific case in Illinois, not to troop deployments elsewhere. But deployments in other cities are currently tied up in litigation in lower courts, and Lonsdorf says lower court judges tend to look to these emergency decisions for guidance.
The U.S. economy grew faster than economists expected from July through September, according to a delayed report from the Commerce Department on the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). The agency usually releases this report in October, but it pushed it to this month due to the government shutdown.
- 🎧 Two factors helped drive the growth, NPR’s Alina Selyukh reports. The first was people and companies spending money on artificial intelligence and other technologies. The other is what Selyukh called the “perpetual motion machine” that is the American consumer. Americans are continuing to spend, despite recent polling showing growing uncertainty about their financial prospects. A new Conference Board report on consumer confidence found that sentiment declined for the fifth consecutive month, as Americans worry about inflation, the political landscape, and the labor market.
Today’s listen
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” first hit No. 1 in 2019 and has topped the chart every holiday season since.
Denise Truscello/Getty Images for Live Nation Las/Getty Images North America
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Denise Truscello/Getty Images for Live Nation Las/Getty Images North America
Christmas stirs a mix of joy, anticipation and … yearning. That tender longing runs through holiday classics like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and Judy Garland’s version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Slate music critic Carl Wilson speaks with Morning Edition about why the holiday evokes this sense of yearning, and why these songs still resonate. Listen and grab some inspiration for your Christmas playlist.
Picture show
Mason “Bric” LaDue, a hip-hop music industry professional turned cattle rancher, takes the reins off of his horse, Valero, on Feb. 5, 2025, at his family’s ranch in Marquez, Texas.
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Michael Minasi/KUT News
As the year comes to a close, NPR photojournalists are sharing a collection of images that defined 2025. The photographs capture the biggest headlines and quiet, powerful human scenes across the U.S. They’re representative of the fact that journalism not only documents factual events but also conveys the experiences and emotions felt in the many places we call home. Here’s a look at some of the images that resonated with the photographers this year.
3 things to know before you go
A family at their Victorian-era Christmas dinner, circa 1840.
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Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive
- Today, the word “yule” conjures up images of cozy Christmas cheer. But Yuletide traditions got their start in wild parties and animal sacrifice. On this week’s Word of the Week, dive into the pagan origins of Yule festivals.
- The Middle Collegiate Church, a centuries-old space in New York City, will hold its first Christmas Eve service tonight after a six-alarm fire destroyed the building in 2020. The church officially reopened on Easter this year.
- At the Ground Zero Hurricane Katrina museum in Waveland, Miss., an exhibit showcasing letters written to Santa in the wake of the storm tells stories of resilience and recovery. (via New Orleans Public Radio)
This newsletter was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi. Brittney Melton contributed.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a media conference at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025.
Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP
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Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP
KYIV, Ukraine — The United States and Ukraine have reached a consensus on several critical issues aimed at bringing an end to the nearly four-year conflict, but sensitive issues around territorial control in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, along with the management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, remain unresolved, Ukraine’s president said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke as the U.S. showed the 20-point plan, hammered out after marathon talks in Florida in recent days, to Russian negotiators. A response is expected from Moscow on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president briefed journalists on each point of the plan on Tuesday. His comments were embargoed until Wednesday morning. The draft proposal, which reflects Ukraine’s wishes, intertwines political and commercial interests to safeguard security while boosting economic potential.
At the heart of the negotiations lies the contentious territorial dispute concerning the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, known as the Donbas. This is “the most difficult point,” Zelenskyy said. He said these matters will be discussed at the leaders level.
Russia continues to assert maximalist demands, insisting that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory in Donbas that it has not captured — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk.
In a bid to facilitate compromise, the United States has proposed transforming these areas into free economic zones. Ukraine insists that any arrangement must be contingent upon a referendum, allowing the Ukrainian people to determine their own fate. Ukraine is demanding the demilitarization of the area and the presence of an international force to ensure stability, Zelenskyy said.
How the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest plant in Europe which is under Russian occupation, will be managed is another contentious issue. The U.S. is proposing a consortium with Ukraine and Russia, with each party having an equal stake in the enterprise.
But Zelenskyy countered with a joint venture proposal between the U.S. and Ukraine, in which the Americans are able to decide how to distribute their share, presuming it would go to Russia.
“We did not reach a consensus with the American side on the territory of the Donetsk region and on the ZNPP,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the power plant in Zaporizhzhia. “But we have significantly brought most of the positions closer together. In principle, all other consensus in this agreement has been found between us and them.”
A free economic zone compromise
Point 14, which covers territories that cut across the eastern front line, and Point 12, which discusses management of the Zaporizhzhia plant, will likely be major sticking points in the talks.
Zelenskyy said: “We are in a situation where the Russians want us to leave the Donetsk region, and the Americans are trying to find a way so that it is ‘not a way out’ — because we are against leaving — they want to find a demilitarized zone or a free economic zone in this, that is, a format that can provide for the views of both sides.”
The draft states that the contact line, which cuts across five Ukrainian regions, be frozen once the agreement is signed.
Ukraine’s stance is that any attempt to create a free economic zone must be ratified by a referendum, affirming that the Ukrainian people ultimately hold the decision-making power, Zelenskyy said. This process will require 60 days, he added, during which time hostilities should stop to allow the process to happen.
More difficult discussions would require hammering out how far troops would be required to move back, per Ukraine’s proposal, and where international forces would be stationed. Zelenskyy said ultimately “people can choose: this ending suits us or not,” he said.
The draft also proposes that Russian forces withdraw from Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv regions, and that international forces be located along the contact line to monitor the implementation of the agreement.
“Since there is no faith in the Russians, and they have repeatedly broken their promises, today’s contact line is turning into a line of a de facto free economic zone, and international forces should be there to guarantee that no one will enter there under any guise — neither ‘little green men’ nor Russian military disguised as civilians,” Zelenskyy said.
Managing Zaporizhzhia power plant
Ukraine is also proposing that the occupied city of Enerhodar, which is connected to the Zaporizhzhia power plant, be a demilitarized free economic zone, Zelenskyy said. This point required 15 hours of discussions with the U.S., he said.
For now, the U.S. proposes that the plant be jointly operated by Ukraine, the U.S. and Russia, with each side receiving dividends from the enterprise.
“The USA is offering 33 percent for 33 percent for 33 percent, and the Americans are the main manager of this joint venture,” he said. “It is clear that for Ukraine this sounds very unsuccessful and not entirely realistic. How can you have joint commerce with the Russians after everything?”
Ukraine offered an alternative proposal, that the plant be operated by a joint venture with the U.S. in which the Americans can determine independently how to distribute their 50 percent share.
Zelenskyy said billions in investments are needed to make the plant run again, including restoring the adjacent dam.
“There were about 15 hours of conversations about the plant. These are all very complex things.”
A separate annex for security guarantees
The document ensures that Ukraine will be provided with “strong” security guarantees that mirror NATO’s Article 5, which would obligate Ukraine’s partners to act in the event of renewed Russian aggression.
Zelenskyy said that a separate bilateral document with the U.S. will outline these guarantees. This agreement will detail the conditions under which security will be provided, particularly in the event of a renewed Russian assault, and will establish a mechanism to monitor the ceasefire.
This mechanism will utilize satellite technology and early warning systems to ensure effective oversight and rapid response capabilities.
“The mood of the United States of America is that this is an unprecedented step towards Ukraine on their part. They believe that they are giving strong security guarantees,” he said.
The draft contains other elements including keeping Ukraine’s army at 800,000 during peace time, and by nailing down a specific date for ascension to the European Union.
Elections and boosting the economy
The document proposes accelerating a free trade agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. once the agreement is signed. The U.S. wants the same deal with Russia, said Zelenskyy.
Ukraine would like to receive short-term privileged access to the European market and a robust global development package, that will cover a wide-range of economic interests, including a development fund to invest in industries including technology, data centers and artificial intelligence, as well as gas.
Also included are funds for the reconstruction of territories destroyed in the war.
“Ukraine will have the opportunity to determine the priorities for distributing its share of funds in the territories under the control of Ukraine. And this is a very important point, on which we spent a lot of time,” Zelenskyy said.
The goal will be to attract $800 billion through equity, grants, loans and private sector contributions.
The draft proposal also requires Ukraine to hold elections after the signing of the agreement. “This is the partners’ vision,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine is also asking that all prisoners since 2014 be released at once, and that civilian detainees, political prisoners and children be returned to Ukraine.
Mr. Trump spends a great deal of his public and private time in the Oval Office. Here, he fields phone calls from allies, hosts hourslong staff meetings and takes questions from reporters while cameras roll.
It’s not unusual for presidents to decorate the space to their own tastes. They often choose art or items meant to evoke meaning and a historical connection to past political eras.
But in his second term, Mr. Trump has placed a connection to his lavish decorating style above all else. His tastes veer toward the gilded, triumphal style of Louis XIV, a theme that shows up in his own properties.
Mr. Trump has regularly added to or swapped out items in the Oval, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. Some of Mr. Trump’s changes go beyond the decorative — he has installed a red button on his desk that lets him instantly order a Diet Coke.
Most objects on the walls are from the White House archive. But a few things, including gold angel statuettes placed above two of the doorways, were brought in from Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
Donna Hayashi Smith, the White House curator, and several members of her team spend time pulling portraits and other items from an archive to show Mr. Trump for approval. The president has also traveled to a vault below the White House to see items in person before choosing to display them in the Oval, Ms. Leavitt said.
Mr. Trump was recently shown a portrait of the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, which now hangs near the fireplace. Ms. Leavitt said the president added this portrait, the only one of a woman in the office, because he “admires” Mrs. Kennedy.
The Oval Office makeover is among the many changes Mr. Trump has ordered at the White House, including paving the Rose Garden, remodeling the Lincoln bathroom and demolishing the East Wing to build a massive ballroom.
The Golden Stage
Why all the gold?
“He’s a maximalist,” Ms. Leavitt said, citing Mr. Trump’s background in real estate and hospitality. “So he loves showing people who come in, the renovations, his office, his gift shop.”
She added that when traveling overseas, Mr. Trump proudly talks about the White House to world leaders as he invites them to visit him in Washington. “This is the people’s house. It is also the epicenter of the world,” Ms. Leavitt said. “And he genuinely does have a great respect for the White House.”
Almost as soon as he took office, Mr. Trump began adding gold accents to the Oval. By his first bilateral meeting, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in February, there were five gold-framed portraits surrounding the fireplace and nine gold antiques on the mantel. By his October meeting with President Alexander Stubb of Finland, the gold had proliferated.
Mr. Trump also added ornately framed mirrors on two doors leading to other parts of the West Wing. One of them, shown below, covers a peephole where the president’s aides have, in the past, looked through to monitor the progress of meetings.
Now, if the door is closed, they can no longer see what is happening inside the Oval.
The sheer amount of gilded appliqués on the walls of the Oval Office has sparked internet rumors that they are plastic furnishings purchased from Home Depot, painted in gold. Mr. Trump has denied those claims, saying that the appliqués are authentic gold.
A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the process, said that the underlying materials are made of plaster or metal, then covered with real gold leaf. A craftsman from Florida regularly travels to Washington to gild the appliqués by hand, often when the president is away on the weekends, that official said.
Gold is a metaphor the president uses to visually show his success, said Robert Wellington, an art historian at the Australian National University and author of “Versailles Mirrored: The Power of Luxury, Louis XIV to Donald Trump.”
“He’s really setting up a kind of stage — a gilded stage for his presidency,” Mr. Wellington said. “His style is to amass things together to make this look of ‘rich.’ ”
Aside from the gold, Mr. Trump has hung more than 20 portraits in the Oval Office. In addition to Mr. Washington’s above the fireplace, portraits of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Abraham Lincoln, James Monroe and Franklin D. Roosevelt are also on the walls.
Mr. Trump has ruminated about the fate of Mr. Harrison, who died shortly after he was inaugurated, to people who have visited the Oval Office. He has said that the portraits of his predecessors are there to remind him of how quickly fate can change.
Most other presidents had just a few portraits or scenery paintings in the Oval.
George W. Bush, June 2005
Barack Obama, October 2014
Even the lighting in the Oval has not gone untouched.
During his first term, Mr. Trump had lights replaced in the Oval to make sure he was better lit during televised appearances.
Now, between the gold and the overhead lights, the room is very bright. The president has recently discussed installing chandeliers, a White House official said.
The Resolute Desk
In this space, Mr. Trump has ceremonies, like awarding medals to the Kennedy Center honorees or the 1980 Olympic hockey team. He has also hosted business leaders, like Apple’s Tim Cook, or other politicians, like New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Mr. Trump has recently taken to sitting at the Resolute Desk while people stand behind him at events.
Other presidents have used the Oval Office in a more structured, organized way than Mr. Trump does.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. used it as a space for briefings with his staff; the list of attendees was tightly controlled by his senior aides. President Barack Obama often arrived at the office in the late morning, worked there until dinner and continued his evening working in the executive residence. President George W. Bush would reach the Oval by early morning, and in the days and months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the office became the backdrop of some of his most significant national addresses.
Mr. Trump treats the Oval Office as something akin to a boardroom or center stage. His most loyal aides are often in the room with him, helping workshop social media posts or fetching documents at his request. Meetings often run long, and sometimes get folded into unrelated events, because the president enjoys looping in more people as the day goes on.
One day this month, Mr. Trump welcomed a conga line of reporters, political allies and at least one cabinet secretary for meetings. He took phone calls and diverted to other subjects, including his plans for the East Wing ballroom. By the end of the day, he was several hours behind his official schedule, according to a person familiar with his schedule.
Smaller details in the Oval Office were still in the works recently. A gold statuette of an eagle flying over the Constitution was added last month near the flags behind the desk.
But Mr. Trump is most likely finished putting up new items, Ms. Leavitt said.
The Oval Office in 360
Tap and drag the image to explore on your own.
Additional photo credits:
George Washington portraits above the fireplace: White House Historical Association (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan administrations); Everett Collection, via Alamy (Jimmy Carter administration)
Photo of gold coasters and Diet Coke button: Doug Mills/The New York Times
Gifts to Trump: Doug Mills/The New York Times (plaque from Apple); Tom Brenner for The New York Times (FIFA Peace Prize trophy); Eric Lee/The New York Times (Washington Commanders football); Doug Mills/The New York Times (Rolex desk clock)
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