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Project 2025 plan calls for demolition of NOAA and National Weather Service

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Project 2025 plan calls for demolition of NOAA and National Weather Service

Among its many sweeping calls for change in American government, a conservative platform document known as Project 2025 urges the demolition of some of the nation’s most dependable resources for tracking weather, combating climate change and protecting the public from environmental hazards.

“Break up NOAA,” the document says, referring to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its six main offices, including the 154-year-old National Weather Service.

“Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity,” the document says.

Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science.

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The call to dismantle a vital federal department has raised the hackles of experts who say NOAA provides not only important free data, such as weather forecasts and satellite observations, but also life-saving information about hurricanes, heat waves, atmospheric rivers and other extreme events — many of which have been shown, through myriad studies, to be worsening due to global warming.

“The National Weather Service, and NOAA more generally, is a key agency in tracking what’s happening with our climate — and in particular the ways in which humans are changing the climate,” said Matthew Sanders, a lecturer at Stanford Law School and the acting deputy director of the Environmental Law Clinic.

“To propose undercutting, breaking up and quote-unquote streamlining NOAA is really an effort to block and make less available information about climate change in order to serve an agenda of climate change denial,” he said.

The 922-page document was published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

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Among its arguments for dismantling NOAA are concerns about the agency’s mission as well as its size. It notes that NOAA is the largest agency under the U.S. Department of Commerce, uses about half of the department’s $12 billion annual operational budget in a typical year, and contains more than half of its personnel.

“This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable,” the document says. “That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized.”

Satellite imagery of a storm over California.

Satellite imagery of a California storm from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

(NOAA / National Weather Service)

The plan also states that forecasts provided by private companies such as AccuWeather are more accurate than those provided by the National Weather Service, and so it recommends that the NWS “fully commercialize its forecasting operations,” or enter partnerships to sell its data.

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In a statement, AccuWeather’s chief executive Steven R. Smith said the company has not suggested that the NWS commercialize its operations, nor does it agree with the view outlined in the plan. AccuWeather relies on NOAA’s weather data as one of 190 sources in its forecast engine, and also partners with NOAA and dozens of other government agencies to share life-saving weather alerts with the public, Smith said.

“AccuWeather is extremely proud of our track record of superior accuracy, but it has never been our goal to take over the provision of all weather information,” he said.

In fact, AccuWeather is only one of many agencies and research institutions that depend on NOAA’s ground instruments, satellites, balloons, weather models and forecasts to aid in their own outlooks and analyses, according to Robert Rohde, chief scientist at Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit organization focused on environmental data science.

“Lots of people rely on the information that NOAA has collected and provides, and NOAA in turn has provided one of the most comprehensive weather monitoring systems in the world,” Rohde said.

Breaking up the agency would not only be detrimental to the American public, it would also be harmful to the advancement of science, according to Rohde. Blaming NOAA for climate change alarmism is akin to wanting to “shoot the messenger,” he said.

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“NOAA has been a key resource in the federal government in providing information about climate change and communicating the risks, and they do so in a very responsible way,” Rohde said. “I don’t think they hype it up — they’re not saying the world is ending. But it is a risk on the horizon that has impacts, and the world is changing, and I think we need to face that with open eyes.”

Scott Smullen, deputy director of communications with NOAA, declined to comment on Project 2025, saying “we don’t speculate on what might or might not happen with the agency.”

A woman holds a sign that reads "Project 2025" and shows an image of the White House.

A woman holds a Project 2025 fan at the Iowa State Fair, in Des Moines, recently.

(Charlie Neibergall / Associated Press)

The section of Project 2025 pertaining to NOAA was authored by Thomas Gilman, who served as assistant secretary of commerce and chief financial officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce during Donald Trump’s presidential administration.

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Prior to that appointment, Gilman was chief executive of Chrysler Financial and spent more than four decades in the global automotive industry, a sector closely tied to oil and gas interests. Gilman is currently director of ACLJ Action, an advocacy organization “dedicated to liberty, constitutional government and religious freedom,” according to its website. He is also chairman of Torngat Metals, a rare earth development company.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request to speak with Gilman for this article.

In recent weeks, Trump has distanced himself from the plan — stating on social media that he knows nothing about Project 2025 and that he has “no idea who is behind it.”

However, the plan includes contributions from other members of his Republican administration, including former budget director Russell Vought; former deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson; and former chief of staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mandy Gunasekara. Trump’s name is mentioned in the document more than 300 times.

Project 2025 isn’t solely focused on weather. Its sweeping recommendations include plans to restrict abortion and contraceptives, cut social security, outlaw pornography, end marriage equality, end student loan relief efforts and eliminate other federal agencies such as the Department of Education.

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On the environment, it calls for increased Arctic drilling, the deregulation of the oil industry, the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act — President Biden’s landmark climate legislation — and withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, among other recommendations.

Rohde, of Berkeley Earth, said moving away from international goals to reduce fossil fuel emissions “will necessarily lead to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and higher temperatures in the future.” The planet just recorded its hottest-ever daily global temperature, and has experienced a record 12 consecutive months of warming above 1.5 degrees Celsius, an international limit established under the Paris agreement.

Rohde also cautioned that privatizing or commercializing NOAA would lead to less available data for scientific researchers. Such outcomes have already been seen in other countries that have tried similar models, such as France, which only recently committed to making more of its weather archives public, he said.

“You really talk about throwing away the baby with the bathwater if you cut off the access to those measurement programs and those monitoring programs by making them commercial so that only a few organizations will have them,” he said.

A woman talks on the phone near a bank of computer monitors displaying weather data.

A National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard helps to monitor Hurricane Hilary in August 2023.

(Ringo Chiu/For The Los Angeles Times)

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Project 2025 also calls for the repeal of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s America the Beautiful Initiative. That plan, sometimes referred to as 30×30, seeks to conserve at least 30% of the U.S.’s land and waters by 2030, and has been hailed by environmental groups as a critical step for reversing habitat and species loss and ensuring access to nature for future generations.

Project 2025 says the initiative is being used to “advance an agenda to close vast areas of the ocean to commercial activities, including fishing, while rapidly advancing offshore wind energy development to the detriment of fisheries and other existing ocean-based industries.”

But the 30×30 initiative builds on existing legal authorities to achieve the benefits of conservation, including prudent efforts to avoid over-extracting land and water resources, according to Sanders, of Stanford, who also served as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s environment and natural resources division. Withdrawing from such an effort is “not a good idea,” he said.

“I think we find that every time we use one of these authorities to set aside an area for conservation, whether on a short-term or a longer-term basis, we look back at that decision as being enlightened, meaning that it was an exercise in wisdom to promote benefits that benefit humanity long term,” Sanders said.

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Those conservation efforts, as well as the services provided by NOAA and the NWS, are deeply familiar to most Californians.

The agency is often the first to foresee potentially dangerous events — such as atmospheric rivers, extreme heat waves, fire weather conditions or even a rare West Coast hurricane — and disseminate information to the public.

And while Trump has publicly shied away from Project 2025, the former president’s first administration included efforts to roll back more than 100 environmental regulations and pare down the functions of some federal agencies. Trump also appointed climate change deniers to senior posts in the Department of the Interior, the EPA and other departments.

Many Californians may recall a tense 2020 exchange between Trump and Wade Crowfoot, the state’s natural resources secretary, over explosive wildfires and record-breaking temperatures that plagued the state that year.

“It’ll start getting cooler — you just watch,” Trump told Crowfoot at the time.

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“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot countered.

“I don’t think science knows,” Trump said.

To break up NOAA and dismantle the National Weather Service would be like a return to those years “on steroids,” Sanders said, as such efforts would severely hamper the federal government’s ability to understand or take action on climate change.

It would also shift the onus of gathering and distributing critical climate and weather information onto state and local agencies, who are not singularly equipped to handle the magnitude of the challenge.

“That’s inherently less efficient and that handicaps informed decision-making — particularly when you’re dealing with something like climate change, which is not a local issue,” Sanders said. “It has local impacts, but it’s a national and international issue, so you need agencies that have the resources and the focus of tracking that kind of problem at a more national level.”

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Fraud-plagued Minnesota sues Trump admin for withholding $243M in Medicaid payments

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Fraud-plagued Minnesota sues Trump admin for withholding 3M in Medicaid payments

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Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration, accusing federal health officials of illegally withholding $243 million in Medicaid payments from the state.

Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Department of Human Services sued the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), arguing the funding freeze violates federal law.

The state is seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately block the action.

The dispute stems from a January notice in which the Trump administration said it would withhold more than $2 billion annually from Minnesota’s Medicaid program over what it described as “noncompliance” with federal regulations, specifically, alleged failures to “adequately identify, prevent, and address fraud in its Medicaid program.”

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison speaks during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Tom Brenner/AP)

State officials say they have not been told specifically how Minnesota is out of compliance or what changes the administration wants to see.

The lawsuit follows a Feb. 25 announcement from CMS that it was deferring roughly $260 million in quarterly federal Medicaid funding to Minnesota, including about $243 million tied to “unsupported or potentially fraudulent” claims. 

CMS said the deferral is part of a broader fraud crackdown and cited unusually high spending and rapid growth in personal care services, home- and community-based services, and other practitioner services.

HEAVILY-REDACTED AUDIT FINDS MINNESOTA MEDICAID HAD WIDESPREAD VULNERABILITIES

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Vice President JD Vance looks on as Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz speaks about combating fraud at the White House complex in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2026. (Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images)

“For decades, Medicare fraud has drained billions from American taxpayers — that ends now,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “We are replacing the old ‘pay and chase’ model with a real-time ‘detect and deploy’ strategy, using advanced AI tools to identify fraud instantly and stop improper payments before they go out the door.”

Minnesota officials contend the move improperly uses a funding “deferral” mechanism and amounts to denying the state due process before any formal finding of noncompliance.

WALZ SLAMS TRUMP ADMIN FOR TEMPORARILY HALTING MEDICAID FUNDING TO MINNESOTA: ‘CAMPAIGN OF RETRIBUTION’

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The threatened cuts represent about 7% of Minnesota’s quarterly Medicaid funding and could force reductions in health care services for low-income residents, according to Ellison’s office.

“Trump’s M.O. is to cut first, no matter what the law says or who gets hurt, and ask questions later, if at all,” the attorney general said. “These cuts are the latest in a long series of efforts to go around the law to punish Minnesotans — but just as we fought back and won when they illegally tried to cut funding for childcare, hungry families, and our schools, we are suing them again today to make them follow the law.”

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USDA immediately suspends all federal funding to Minnesota amid fraud investigation
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Fearing GOP win, California’s Democratic leader urges unviable party candidates for governor to drop out

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Fearing GOP win, California’s Democratic leader urges unviable party candidates for governor to drop out

Fearing the prospect of a Republican winning California’s gubernatorial race, state Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks on Tuesday urged his party’s candidates who lack a viable path to victory to drop out.

“It is imperative that every candidate honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign,” Hicks wrote in an open letter to the politicians vying to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I recognize my suggestions are hard for many to contemplate and may be even viewed as overly harsh by some.”

Hicks did not name the Democrats he wants out of the race, but such a public admonishment by a party leader is a rarity in California politics.

Even though the odds are relatively low, California cannot risk having a Republican elected as the next governor at a time when President Trump is in the White House, Hicks said.

“[S]o much is at stake in our Nation and so many are counting on the leadership of California Democrats to stand up and speak out at this historic moment,” Hicks wrote. “California’s leadership on the world stage is significantly harder if a Democrat is not elected as our next Governor.”

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Hicks urged Democrats languishing at the bottom of the field of candidates to drop out before the Friday deadline to officially file to run for governor — to ensure their names do not appear on the June primary ballot.

Under California’s top-two primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.

With nine top Democrats running, the fear is that the candidates will splinter their party’s vote and allow the top two Republicans in the race to finish in first and second place. This is despite Democratic registered voters outnumbering Republicans in the state by almost 2 to 1, and no GOP candidate winning a statewide election since 2006.

Having two Republicans competing in the November election would be devastating to Democratic voter turnout and could hurt party candidates in pivotal down-ballot races.

“The result would present a real risk to winning the congressional seats required and imperil Democrats’ chances to retake the House, cut Donald Trump’s term in half, and spare our Nation from the pain many have endured since January 2025,” Hicks said in his letter. “We simply can’t let that happen.”

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A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that five candidates lead the contest — former Rep. Katie Porter, Rep. Eric Swalwell and hedge fund founder Tom Steyer among Democrats and conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, both Republicans. Hilton and Bianco have led all candidates in other polls over the last few months. No other candidate received the support of more than 5% of likely voters.

After Hicks issued his directive, two influential leaders in California Democratic politics said they shared his concerns.

Lorena Gonzalez, the head of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said she worries that Democratic candidates who are drawing low single-digit support in the polls and remain in the race could tilt the election.

“You’re in a situation where a candidate who pulls 2 or 3% could make all the difference whether there’s two Republicans and anti-union folks in the runoff or if there’s not,” she said.

Gonzalez said that while she believes the legislature, where Democrats hold super majorities in both chambers, would be a check if a Republican was elected the state’s leader, that might not be enough protect Californians from Trump’s destructive policies.

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“We are seeing with Trump how much damage an executive who wants to ignore normal rules of engagement or the Constitution can do,” she said. “We can’t afford that.”

The federation began its endorsement process last week, and there were difficult conversations with gubernatorial candidates not only about their political beliefs, but also about their viability. The umbrella group of unions is expected to make an announcement about any potential endorsement on March 16.

Jodi Hicks, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said it was imperative to block the “real possibility” of two Republicans advancing to the general election because of the deep cuts that the Trump administration has made to health care, including access to abortion.

“Given the severity of this moment, we urge candidates to consider how continuing their candidacy may put California’s values and reproductive freedom at risk,” Jodi Hicks said. “The stakes are too high for all of us, but especially for immigrant communities, transgender individuals, the over 15 million patients enrolled in Medi-Cal, and the over 25,000 patients a week who access essential health care at Planned Parenthood health centers.”

Discussions about the need for some Democrats to exit the race took place at last weekend’s California Democratic Party convention.

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But a politically thorny issue is that nearly all of the Democrats lagging in the polls are people of color, as former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra noted at a candidate forum Monday evening.

“There are people who are calling for candidates to get out of the race,” he said at the gathering hosted by Equality California and the Los Angeles LGBT Center at the Renberg Theatre in Hollywood. “Isn’t it interesting that the candidates they are asking get out of the race are the candidates of color?”

Rusty Hicks, asked about the effect on minority candidates who have spent years or decades of their lives in public service, did not directly answer the question but lauded the field’s accomplishments.

“We have a number of strong candidates. They have incredible stories, and they are reflective of the diversity of our party. That being said, there are some political realities of where we are at at this particular moment,” he said in an interview. “I’m not calling on any specific candidates to move in one direction or the other. I’m just calling on them to assess their campaign and determine if they have a viable [path] and if they don’t, to not file.”

During Monday evening’s gubernatorial forum, Porter said she is concerned about the prospect of two Republicans making the top two.

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“I hear people say to me, it could never happen, but everybody said that about Trump too,” she said at the forum. “And I look at how much harm we’re suffering, and I think about all the political risks that people are facing every day, the risk of an immigrant to leave their home and walk on our streets, the risk of a kid who’s trans to try to play sports even in this state. And I just don’t think we can take any more political risks.”

Times staff writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.

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How President Trump’s Image Permeates the White House and Beyond

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How President Trump’s Image Permeates the White House and Beyond

Since moving back in, President Trump has significantly altered the “People’s House.” East Wing: gone. Oval Office: maximalized. Rose Garden: Mar-a-lago-ified. And the art? Lots of Trump.

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Over the last year, The New York Times has captured at least nine paintings, posters, memes, and even a mugshot outside the Oval Office, that Mr. Trump added throughout the historic space.

Many of the selections are gifts from his supporters that highlight his political stature and reinforce the idea that Mr. Trump is invincible.

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All presidents or first ladies add to and shuffle the art in the White House.

Barack Obama brought in abstract paintings.

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Family Dining Room, 2015. Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

George W. Bush decorated with images from his Texas roots.

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Oval Office, 2007. Doug Mills/The New York Times

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In Mr. Trump’s first term, Melania Trump added a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi to the Rose Garden.

Rose Garden, 2020. Pool photo by Chris Kleponis

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But never before has a sitting president displayed so much of his own image on the White House walls.

There is an “assertion of symbolic power that he wants to be on view essentially everywhere in that space,” said Cara Finnegan, a communication professor at the University of Illinois and author of “Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital.”

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Even outside his current residence, Mr. Trump’s visage has proliferated in unexpected places — on banners hanging from government buildings, on National Parks passes and on social media, where he has been likened to a king. There has also been talk of a U.S. Treasury-minted coin with Mr. Trump on both sides.

Break with tradition

In recent decades, each president’s official White House portrait has been unveiled in a ceremony hosted by his successor.

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The Carters hosted the Fords:

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East Room, 1978. Associated Press

The Clintons hosted the Bushes:

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East Room, 1995. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

And the Bushes hosted the Clintons:

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East Room, 2004. Tim Sloan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The mood has often been lighthearted, with political party tensions melting away.

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“I am pleased that my portrait brings an interesting symmetry to the White House collection,” George W. Bush joked in a ceremony hosted by the Obamas. “It now starts and ends with a George W.”

In a break with tradition, Mr. Trump did not schedule a ceremony for the unveiling of the Obamas’ portraits during his first term. Joe Biden later did, in a ceremony with a “Welcome Home!” vibe.

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Typically, the latest available presidential portrait — often a realistic oil painting — hangs in the main entrance hall, where heads of state are welcomed.

The Obama portrait was in the spot until April …

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Cross Hall in the Executive Residence, 2024. Tom Brenner for The New York Times

… when Mr. Trump replaced it with this painting by Marc Lipp, a Florida pop artist, last April.

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Cross Hall in the Executive Residence, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

It depicts a striking moment in 2024 when a bloodied Mr. Trump pumped his fist in defiance, soon after being shot at by a would-be assassin during a campaign event.

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Presidential historians have criticized the departure from convention.

Though Mr. Trump had a portrait commissioned for the Smithsonian’s American Presidents collection after his first term, none was confirmed for the permanent White House collection, and the White House said that this is where that portrait would have hung.

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It is not totally unprecedented for a president to hang a painting of himself in the White House during his term. Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland all did, according to the White House Historical Association. But more often than not, paintings of presidents and first ladies are hung after they have left office, historians said.

Flags, fists and faith from fans

In what has become something of a muse for many of the president’s artistic supporters, there are at least three other depictions of the fist-pumping scene in the White House.

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The image “is in people’s garages when I walk around my neighborhood,” said Leslie Hahner, a Texas resident and communication professor at Baylor University, who studies visual political culture. “People love that image.”

Behind the Oval Office, one is in a small room that houses Trump merchandise:

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Oval Office study, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

Another was seen in the West Wing next to a “Still Life with Fruit” painting from 1850:

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West Wing, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

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A statue form was spotted in the Oval Office:

Oval Office, 2025. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

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The sculptor, Stan Watts, told a Utah TV station last year that he believes the president was saved by God that day. Many of Mr. Trump’s Christian supporters have echoed that sentiment.

At least two works by a self-described “Christian worship artist,” Vanessa Horabuena, are among Mr. Trump’s White House collection. He has called Ms. Horabuena, who often paints live in front of an audience, “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world.”

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In 2022, she painted a portrait of Mr. Trump at a booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference. When he saw it, he asked to meet her, Ms. Horabuena’s representative said. She most recently painted Mr. Trump live at a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-A-Lago.

One of her portraits was spotted in the Cabinet room in January.

It shows Mr. Trump, his eyes closed, in front of a mountain with a small cross on the top:

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Cabinet Room, 2026. Doug Mills/The New York Times

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Ms. Horabuena hand-delivered it to the White House, according to her website.

Her other painting shows the president walking through a phalanx of flags. It was seen hanging prominently in a hallway leading to the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office:

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West Wing, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

“He’s positioned as this embattled warrior in a lot of these images,” Dr. Hahner said.

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Historical figures Mr. Trump adulates are co-stars in some of the art he has chosen.

In an image created by the team of White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump is pictured with William McKinley and Henry Clay, who, like the president, championed the use of tariffs:

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West Wing, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

Here, Mr. Trump is with two other Republican presidents, Abraham Lincoln (to whom he has compared himself) and Ronald Reagan (whom he is a fan of):

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West Wing, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

Titled “Great American Patriots,” the piece was painted by Dick Bobnick, an illustrator and Trump supporter from Minnesota. He said he mailed several prints to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but he had no idea his work was on the White House walls until a USA Today reporter called him about it.

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“I could hardly believe it,” said Mr. Bobnick. (He said the print is now his best-seller.)

If not in portraits, Mr. Trump’s image is reflected on mirrors that he has added to the White House complex.

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Two are in the Oval Office …

Oval Office, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

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… making his image visible from the Resolute Desk.

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Oval Office, 2025. Doug Mills/The New York Times

The mirrors, the portraits and the gilding mimic the look of his properties, like Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate.

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Mar-a-Lago, 2016. Eric Thayer for The New York Times

“Trump is obsessed with his image,” Dr. Hahner said. “And he is so controlling of his image.”

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Trump everywhere, all the time

One portrait seen in the White House has become a communication tool between Mr. Trump and his supporters in the real world.

This is his social media profile picture.

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Trump’s Truth Social account, 2025.

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It was seen last October hanging between former first ladies Laura Bush and Barbara Bush in the now-demolished East Wing:

Booksellers Hall in the now-demolished East Wing, 2025. Cheriss May for The New York Times

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The portrait was painted by Lena Ruseva, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, who goes by the name MAGALANGELO. Mr. Trump invited her to his Bedminster golf club in 2022, and she gave it to him as a birthday gift.

“Every time social media or the news quotes the president and I see my artwork alongside it, I feel proud and grateful,” she said.

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For a time, the same portrait hung next to Hillary Clinton, his political rival and a former first lady.

Booksellers Hall in the now-demolished East Wing, 2025. Alex Brandon/Associated Press

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Supporters at that time lauded the placement on social media:

This example of a positive feedback loop demonstrates how Mr. Trump has used social media to redefine the presidency and presidential communication. Ms. Ruseva’s portrait was used on social media, hung up in the real world, then photographed and put back on social media by supporters who praised the president.

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When Mr. Trump was elected to his first term in 2016, Dr. Hahner said that scholars referred to him as the first “meme president.”

Mr. Trump and his internet fans are used to a meme culture based on irony, and rehashing, repurposing and remixing existing images. The collection of White House artwork — much of it originating from his supporters — sits in an uncanny valley between realism and meme-ism, Dr. Hahner said.

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Like memes that multiply, Mr. Trump’s image has been reproduced in other ways, outside the White House.

Last month, a huge banner with Mr. Trump’s face was draped outside the Justice Department headquarters …

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Justice Department headquarters, 2026. Eric Lee for The New York Times

Last year, similar signage was strung over the Labor Department building …

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Labor Department building, 2025. Eric Lee for The New York Times

… and the Agriculture Department building (this one, alongside Lincoln).

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Agriculture Department building, 2025. Eric Lee for The New York Times

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At his request, Mr. Trump’s portrait was recently updated at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery:

National Portrait Gallery, 2026. Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

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Still, Mr. Trump wants more. The White House has suggested that the National Portrait Gallery add a separate section for Trump-related art.

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