Politics
Trump guts the Education Department with massive layoffs; shock waves reach California
The Trump administration has begun dismantling the U.S. Department of Education by laying off about half of the agency’s employees, casting uncertainty over how — or if — billions of federal dollars for California to help disadvantaged students and those with disabilities will be distributed, how college financial aid and student loans will be managed and how civil rights enforcement will be carried out.
In San Francisco, the regional branch of the department Office for Civil Rights — already backlogged with investigations into school-related discrimination — is expected to be closed, one of the broad effects of the layoffs that advocates say are sending tremors through school systems, including Los Angeles Unified.
“These reckless layoffs will sow chaos and confusion throughout our nation’s public school system,” said Guillermo Mayer, president and CEO of Public Advocates, a California-based law firm and advocacy group. “Instead of bolstering learning outcomes, the immediate effect of these actions is quite cruel. It forces millions of parents, especially parents of students with disabilities, to worry about whether their children will receive the services they need.”
“It strikes fear in the hearts of tens of thousands of low-income students who are now wondering, ‘What will happen to my financial aid? Will I be able to afford college?’” Mayer said.
L.A. school board member Kelly Gonez on Tuesday sponsored a resolution against cuts to federal education funding and addressed the federal layoffs Wednesday.
“We serve one of the most diverse populations in the country,” Gonez said. “We’re proud of serving immigrant families, many students of color and students from low-income backgrounds. So it’s a direct attack on the students and families that make up the majority of our students and that’s why the risk for potential harm is so great. While we’re still assessing, these are very concerning steps that we’re seeing.”
L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said he’s concerned not only about the future levels of federal funding, but about potential policy changes to how it can be distributed, including “possibly a dilution” of the district’s $460 million in annual Title I money for academic support to offset the effects of poverty. California receives $2 billion in Title I funds, which is distributed to school districts.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sought to dispel concerns, saying the administration would abide by congressional funding mandates.
She said the layoffs reflect the department’s “commitment to efficiency, accountability and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents and teachers.”
When Trump took office, the Education Department’s workforce stood at 4,133, according to the administration. After the layoffs take effect, the number would be 2,183 workers, including those who previously resigned, agreed to buyouts or were fired because they were probationary employees.
“We wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward facing programs — the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress — all of that are being met and none of that’s going to fall through the cracks,” McMahon said in a Tuesday night interview on the Fox network.
The accelerated unwinding of the agency had been expected to be triggered by one of President Trump’s executive orders. But McMahon clearly was empowered to act without delay.
It has also become evident that the Trump administration’s effect on education has not been contingent on the existence of the Department of Education, which he pledged to shut down during his campaign, calling it “a big con job” infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists” that misused taxpayer dollars.
The administration has taken swift action to withhold funding to schools and colleges on ideological grounds. A recent policy guide directed institutions to end “discriminatory” diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk losing federal money. Another order ended the status of transgender students as a group protected from discrimination.
Among the latest: the Trump administration’s cancellation last week of $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University because of what the government describes as the school’s failure to stop campus antisemitism. The cancellation came even though Columbia had set up a new disciplinary committee and ramped up investigations of students critical of Israel and its war in Gaza, alarming free speech advocates.
On Sunday Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate who holds a green card, was arrested by federal immigration authorities, touching off a legal fight over his detention. The Trump administration seeks to deport him over his leadership role in pro-Palestinian protests at the university, prompting campus rallies at UCLA, UC Berkeley and other campuses in support of Khalil.
Trump has vowed to deport foreign students he described as engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.” Students say the administration is illegally attacking immigrants and free speech rights.
The University of California and USC are also under federal investigation of allegations that they have not properly addressed campus antisemitism.
Democrat-led states and groups outside government have sued to stop some orders they say are illegal and motivated by Trump’s hostility to what he characterizes as “woke” indoctrination in education.
On March 6, California joined seven other states suing the Trump administration over cancellation of grants worth $250 million to them — $600 million nationwide — for teacher training programs funded through the Education Department. The administration said the programs promote inappropriate and “divisive ideologies” linked to diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI. A federal judge on Monday ordered the programs reinstated while he reviewed the case.
The ‘Final Mission’
Even before she was confirmed by the Senate last week, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was under orders from Trump to “put herself out of job” by dismantling the department.
Immediately following her confirmation, McMahon issued a staff memo, which was vague on details, talking of “Our Department’s Final Mission” — shutting itself down. The department had a pre-Trump budget this year of about $80 billion. Salary and benefits for the department were set at about $917 million.
Before McMahon assumed control, officials working with the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a federal agency but a White House advisory team headed by billionaire Elon Musk, already had gutted the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress, and fired or suspended scores of employees.
Sara Schapiro, executive director of the Alliance for Learning Innovation, is especially concerned about those cuts: “States don’t typically have the capacity to do that kind of research and to store data. They really do rely on the federal government to publish and share gold-standard research that they can then use.”
In earlier statements both McMahon and Trump have spoken of returning authority over education to the states.
However, states already fund the vast majority of education spending and policies are largely made at the state and local school district level. Still, local officials consider the federal funding contribution — about 7% to 20% of budgets — to be vital.
While it is possible for the federal government to step back, it’s a seemingly contradictory position for Trump: He has a concurrent goal of withholding funding if a school system or university does not abide by his directives on what to teach, how to interpret civil rights, especially in regards to transgender students and promoting diversity among employees.
Alex Hertel-Fernandez, associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, said there is “a logical inconsistency between these positions, but that chaos, in some ways, is the point: to throw the sector into chaos, and to force these institutions and schools into spending a lot of time and effort to anticipate what to do to avoid further legal backlash and cuts in funding.”
Eliminating the department entirely is likely to be a heavy lift because of opposition among Democrats — who appear to have enough votes to block such a move in the Senate. It’s also not clear that all congressional Republicans would go along.
Debate over dismantling the department
The environment for schools and colleges is risky and uncertain, said John B. King Jr., chancellor of the State University of New York and a U.S. secretary of Education under President Obama.
“We’re facing both threats — the threat of loss of funding for critical programs, and the threat of weaponization,” King said. “That weaponization is about bringing control — of what students do day-to-day in the classroom — to Washington.”
Mari Barke, a member of the Orange County Board of Education, said critics are being unnecessarily alarmist as it relates to school districts that serve students through high school.
“Sometimes I think less government is better,” Barke said. “If we could somehow eliminate some of the inefficiencies and waste, that might be a good thing.”
Trump has taken the position that he has full authority over the executive branch — including over funds appropriated by Congress. Using that legal premise, his Department of Education — in concert with Musk’s cost-cutting strike force — had already claimed more than $1 billion in savings from canceled education-related contracts and grants. Trump and Musk say they are targeting waste, fraud and abuse as well as seeking to eradicate left-wing ideology.
Denise Forte, president and chief executive of the Washington-based advocacy group EdTrust, said she has seen no evidence that waste and fraud have been uncovered.
Rather, she said, the new administration is hunting for key words or phrases such as “DEI” in program descriptions and websites and cutting programs that are flagged in that way without meaningful scrutiny.
“That’s not waste, fraud and abuse — that is about undermining our students,” Forte said.
Student loans, civil rights
Trump and his team have spoken of transferring major programs to other agencies rather than eliminating them.
The student loan programs for higher education could transfer to the Small Business Administration, the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Commerce. This move could disrupt services to 43 million students and borrowers who owe the government more than $1.5 trillion. About half of Cal State University students, for example, receive student loans, a portfolio of more than $1 billion.
Trump has already taken action on one sector of the student loans, signing an executive order changing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program by disqualifying workers of nonprofit groups deemed to have engaged in “improper” activities, appearing to include organizations that support undocumented immigrants, or DEI programs.
The Pell Grant program, which awards more than $120 billion to 13 million students each year to help pay for higher education, could also be transferred. About $1.5 billion per year is set aside in Pell Grants for California students.
The Office for Civil Rights — charged with investigating and taking action to stop school-related discrimination — could shift to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Catherine Lhamon, who led the Biden and Obama administrations’ Office for Civil Rights, said she confirmed with staffers that regional offices in San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New York and Philadelphia are closing. Offices in Seattle, Denver, Kansas City and Washington would remain open, she said.
The San Francisco office employed about 50 people who worked on California cases.
“The people in these offices are experts, some with decades of experience,” Lhamon said. “They evaluated complaints and jurisdiction, requested documents, reviewed documents, went to campuses, talked to students, talked to staff, interviewed witnesses about alleged facts, reviewed the law and determined whether a violation had occurred.”
She said the department already was understaffed, with about 12,000 pending cases when Trump took office.
Ken Marcus, who led the department’s civil rights office under President George W. Bush and during Trump’s first term, said that, with the staff reductions, “it will be important to see whether there will be increased hiring at the Justice Department’s civil rights division or other parts of the federal government.”
The impact on California
California receives an estimated $16.3 billion annually in federal funding, or about $2,750 per student. The Los Angeles Unified School District — the nation’s second-largest school system — puts its annual federal support at $1.26 billion.
Not all of these dollars funnel through the Department of Education. Significant federal funding for early childhood education comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, and the gigantic student meal program is housed in the Department of Agriculture. L.A. Unified alone estimates that it receives about $363 million to feed students from low-income families.
About 80% of L.A. Unified students qualify for Title I-funded services, which include tutoring, smaller classes, after-school programs, teacher training, counseling and family engagement. Another major funding area is for students with disabilities.
Billions in research funding flow each year to California universities from federal departments and agencies. A sizable portion comes from the National Institutes of Health — $2.6 billion alone for the University of California last academic year. Federal district judges have halted an attempt by the Trump administration to slash critical NIH grants while cases, including one filed by California, proceed.
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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.”
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
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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Politics
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.”
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.”
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.
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
All presidents or first ladies add to and shuffle the art in the White House.
Barack Obama brought in abstract paintings.
George W. Bush decorated with images from his Texas roots.
In Mr. Trump’s first term, Melania Trump added a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi to the Rose Garden.
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.”
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.
The Carters hosted the Fords:
The Clintons hosted the Bushes:
And the Bushes hosted the Clintons:
The mood has often been lighthearted, with political party tensions melting away.
“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.
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 …
… when Mr. Trump replaced it with this painting by Marc Lipp, a Florida pop artist, last April.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Another was seen in the West Wing next to a “Still Life with Fruit” painting from 1850:
A statue form was spotted in the Oval Office:
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.”
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:
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:
“He’s positioned as this embattled warrior in a lot of these images,” Dr. Hahner said.
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:
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):
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.
“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.
Two are in the Oval Office …
… making his image visible from the Resolute Desk.
The mirrors, the portraits and the gilding mimic the look of his properties, like Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate.
“Trump is obsessed with his image,” Dr. Hahner said. “And he is so controlling of his image.”
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.
It was seen last October hanging between former first ladies Laura Bush and Barbara Bush in the now-demolished East Wing:
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.
For a time, the same portrait hung next to Hillary Clinton, his political rival and a former first lady.
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.
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.
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 …
Last year, similar signage was strung over the Labor Department building …
… and the Agriculture Department building (this one, alongside Lincoln).
At his request, Mr. Trump’s portrait was recently updated at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery:
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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