A new White House portrait just dropped, and it features one of the most iconic moments in recent American history. People have responded with rave reviews, at least if they’re fans of President Donald Trump’s.
Making it even better? What the new portrait replaced.
According to the New York Post, the painting, by Marc Lipp, was gifted to the White House; it depicts Trump in one of the iconic images taken by Doug Mills, a New York Times photographer, just after an assassination attempt last July in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The gift was from Andrew Pollock, a school safety activist whose daughter was killed in the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in 2018; he’s since called for armed teachers in schools and found a sympathetic ear from both Trump and other conservatives.
The portrait — which depicts Trump with blood splattered across his face, his fist in the air — was first unveiled Friday on social media:
The painting drew plenty of positive feedback, including from people who described it as “incredible” and “simply a historic time for the country.”
And then, of course, there were those who noticed that it replaced a portrait of former President Barack Obama.
Which is to be expected; after all, as the Post noted, Trump has added his own flourishes to the White House — including “ornate, gold flourishes to the furniture, fireplace and walls of the Oval Office, reminiscent of the decor at his Mar-a-Lago estate,” and framed front pages of the Post (a favorite newspaper of the Donald’s) covering his political re-ascent since 2021.
It’s worth noting that both the White House and the media confirmed that the portrait of Obama was still up. It’s just in a different part of 1600 Pennsylvania.
The Post noted that this is a “a prime spot, overlooking former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Steinway grand piano.” Prime and apt, given the political company both keep.
As for the current portrait, it’s a fitting memorialization for an iconic moment in the career of a commander-in-chief whose life was almost ended, twice, by deranged liberals during his third presidential campaign. Replacing Obama in White House portraiture — just like he did in real life back in 2017 — is just the icing on the cake.