Trump moves to make Oval Office a national monument aiming to prevent future major changes
Official White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian
President Donald Trump has made his mark on the White House in many ways — including the massive ballroom construction project and the several gold touches he’s added throughout the West Wing.
Fresh off a midterm election defeat, Trump signed a proclamation Thursday aiming to prevent future presidents from making major changes to the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room.
“We’ve had tremendous victory in this office,” Trump said. “So we’re making it a national monument, and it will not be allowed to be touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape.”
The proclamation designates the Oval Office, the outer Oval Office and the Cabinet Room as a national monument, which Trump said will make them “impossible to knock down and change in any meaningful way.”
Trump said the interior of the Cabinet Room, which serves as a meeting room for the president and his top advisers, is “pretty much the same” as before, but he also said it has been “substantially upgraded” and that he added new chandeliers.
Trump also said “no major modification” will take place to the Cabinet Room or Oval Office “without the approval of Congress.”
The president indicated that the proclamation he signed declaring the rooms national monuments would have to be sent to Congress to be ratified.
“So we’re going to be declaring it a national monument, and we’re going to send it over to Congress, have it ratified,” he said.
Asked by a reporter asked whether a future president could remove the gold accents that the president has hung in the Oval Office, Trump indicated that a future leader could, but “very carefully.”
In October 2025, Trump himself made major structural changes to the White House, tearing down the East Wing with little notice or oversight, as part of the plan to build the White House ballroom.
Construction has continued since then, drastically changing the White House grounds. On Wednesday, speaking publicly for the first time following the GOP’s midterm losses, Trump touted the ballroom project as he invited reporters to the construction site to witness the raising of the final beam.
At the Wednesday event, Trump acknowledged the criticism he has received for focusing his attention on the White House projects.
“And you know, when I get criticized, like, ‘Why are you working on the White House?’ I’m doing it because the White House is the ultimate symbol of America, and it’s got to be pristine,” Trump said.
Former CEO of Apollo Global Management Leon Black (C) arrives to testify at a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill on June 26, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Private equity billionaire Leon Black filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court against the House Oversight Committee and Chairman James Comer before failing to appear under subpoena for a deposition under oath before the panel as part of its probe into the government’s investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
After Black filed the suit and failed to appear for the deposition, Comer signaled that the committee may move to hold Black in contempt of Congress — but said he wants to gain consensus and examine the legal path ahead before proceeding.
“This is unacceptable,” Comer, R-Ky., said. “We’re very disappointed. I don’t think I need to tell anyone in here how important of a witness Mr. Black is to this investigation. So we’re going to huddle up as a committee and talk about next steps with respect to Mr. Black, and we’ll go from there.”
“I would hold him in contempt right now,” Comer added. “Of all the powerful billionaires and political people we brought in for interviews and depositions, this is the first time anyone’s filed suit. I don’t want to do anything to harm our chances in court.”
In June, the panel issued subpoenas to Black after he appeared for a transcribed interview and refused to answer questions. The subpoenas called for his appearance for a deposition, as well as the production of purported nondisclosure agreements that Epstein survivors have discussed with committee investigators.
Black’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asserts the subpoenas are “invalid to the extent they exceed OGR’s delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection to OGR’s legislative purpose.”
Black’s attorneys also contend that the subpoenas would also “expose women who value their privacy,” who have no known or public connection to Epstein — while contending that the committee lacks statutory authority to enforce its subpoenas in federal court.
Black is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief preventing the committee from compelling compliance with the subpoenas.
“The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority and completely ignores its responsibility,” said Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich. “This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black. We were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit in response to an abuse of Congressional power.”
Black, who maintained a social relationship with Epstein since the mid-1990s and eventually paid him more than $170 million for “tax and estate planning advice,” according to the Senate Finance Committee, appeared in June before the Oversight panel as part of its ongoing Epstein probe.
Black has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, though his financial payments to Epstein served as a lifeline to the convicted sex offender in the years after Epstein’s 2008 prison sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
With time running short on the 119th Congress, Comer and Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, both believe Black is trying to run out the clock — complicating the committee’s effort to conclude its investigation before the end of the 119th Congress.
“Obviously, we’re running up against the clock at the end of this Congress, I’m sure his legal team knows that. So we’ve got to be smart from here on in,” Comer said.
“What he’s trying to do is to slow the process down of getting us the information,” Garcia, D-Calif., said. “He’s very aware that Comer no longer is going to be the chairperson. But what Mr. Black should understand is that we will be even more aggressive than Chairman Comer as it relates to his testimony.”
“Leon Black provided over $180 million to Jeffrey Epstein. $180 million, and he has yet to tell the committee or the public as to exactly what that funded and why he did it,” Garcia said.
President Donald Trump participates in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, June 24, 2026. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will head to the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, this week as an unstable ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran and Trump’s feud with his NATO allies continue.
The summit will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Beştepe Presidential Compound and chaired by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. The formal opening is scheduled for Tuesday and the event is expected to conclude the following day, when Trump will hold a news conference.
Trump’s trip will be brief. He is expected to leave the White House Monday night and return to the U.S. on Wednesday evening. While in Turkey, the president is expected to take part in a bilateral meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and participate in a number of working sessions.
‘Taking stock’ of NATO
Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Sunday that the summit will measure the progress of NATO allies’ commitment to spend 5% of their GDP on defense and said that the U.S. would also “take stock of our allies’ expanding NATO’s capabilities in support of the burden-shifting going on here on the European continent.”
“Some allies are doing more than others. Poland, the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries lead the way, and Germany is on track for the 5%, reaching it in 2029. But many others are lagging behind,” Whitaker said.
The summit also comes after Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of leaving NATO. As recently as April, Trump expressed frustration with European allies amid the U.S.’s war with Iran, as many members have been reluctant to join military operations in re-opening and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz.
“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO,” Trump said in April when asked if he would reconsider the U.S.’s membership after the conflict ends. “I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
More broadly, Trump has been extremely critical of NATO allies over their ability to share the burden of contributing to the post-World War II alliance.
Whitaker said, “The United States remains a proud NATO member,” but “we have responsibilities elsewhere in the world as the world’s only superpower.”
Trump continued his criticism of some NATO allies as recently as last week.
“Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us,” Trump wrote last Thursday on his social media platform.
“The United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing,” the president also claimed on Thursday in a post on social media.
While Trump claims that allies spend “on NATO,” that’s not how the alliance works. Member states must spend 2% of their GDP on their own national defense budgets. The U.S. is NATO’s largest defense spender by virtue of having the world’s largest defense budget. But taken as a percentage of GDP, the US has hovered around 3% range — less than Poland and Baltic allies.
NATO’s involvement in Iran war
Trump’s requests for allies’ support in the U.S. war against Iran goes beyond NATO’s collective defense agreement, which calls for all to respond to an attack on a member country. Yet Trump has framed it as a test of whether allies reciprocate in return for American security commitments.
A senior U.S. official said Sunday the U.S. believes ensuring freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz would be on the agenda, but that many NATO allies don’t have the capabilities to support those operations.
“I certainly believe that the Strait of Hormuz and the protection of the maritime traffic going through there is going to be a subject that comes up,” the official said.
But, they continued, “Many [NATO allies] don’t have the necessary ships or assets to contribute to a meaningful maritime effort” despite the fact that “we’ve had a lot of allies raise their hand and offer to participate.”
Shifting the burden to NATO allies
Two senior U.S. officials said on Sunday that the U.S. plans to further shift the burden of European defense onto European countries, saying that a force posture review currently underway of the military’s presence in Europe “very well may lead” to changes.
Asked about the potential for a U.S. force reduction in Europe, one senior U.S. official confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attended a meeting of NATO defense ministers weeks ago to announce a “six-month or less” review of the U.S. force posture in Europe.
“The main reason being, we continue to have global demands as the United States of America, and we should always be looking at how we’re deployed to our threats,” the official said, adding that any shift in troop placement would be “based on nonpolitical reasons.”
“There should be no surprise that we’re doing a posture review or surprise if that posture review very well may lead to us adjusting our posture because we’re trying to shift burden to Europe,” another official added.
NATO 3.0
The summit comes fresh off of Rutte’s visit to the White House on June 24, when he said NATO is entering a new phase centered on greater European responsibility while keeping the U.S. engaged in the alliance. Rutte framed the summit as the moment when member countries begin implementing the spending and capability commitments made at last year’s Hague summit.
Rutte said the summit will be the beginning of a transatlantic “defense industrial revolution,” promising announcements of “tens of billions” of dollars in defense-related contracts. He ventured that this year’s summit is “more important” than last year’s in the Hague because of implementation of concrete investments aimed directly at Russia.
“Vladimir, we will defend ourselves,” Rutte addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech to the Atlantic Council last week.
A ‘big gift bag’ for Turkey
Trump said last Wednesday he would not have attended the summit were it not for his relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and suggested he plans to bring a significant offer, or a “big gift bag” for his host — potentially including the sale of dozens of F-35 fighter jets to the country.
“I am going to the summit out of respect for President Erdogan … Except for the fact that it was being held in Turkey by President Erdogan, I don’t think I would have gone to it,” Trump said before a meeting with Rutte in the Oval Office in June.
Turkey is seeking to join the U.S. F-35 program, but it is prohibited from doing so as long as it possesses Russian-made air defenses.
“I’m probably going to do something that’s going to make him very happy,” Trump said.
Ending the war in Ukraine
As has been the case since the war with Russia began in 2022, the issue of Ukraine is also likely to play a key role in the NATO gathering.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Sunday that Trump will meet separately with Zelenskyy on Wednesday afternoon in addition to other meetings with NATO leaders.
A senior U.S. official said Sunday that Trump planned to speak with Zelenskyy about “how we can end the war.”
“So, there are some small areas where Ukraine has made progress. There’s some small areas where Russia has made progress. But, the line of contact has been frozen over the last couple of months,” the official said.
The official said that Trump was hopeful a meeting with Zelenskyy could bring the war closer to an end.
“We’re hopeful that we can make progress towards doing that when, when the president gets together with President Zelenskyy and I’m sure he’ll follow up with President Putin as well,” the official said.
The conversation with Zelenskyy would come after Trump spoke with Putin on Saturday for nearly an hour and a half, according to a Kremlin readout, which noted that the two touched on Ukraine and that Trump “reiterated his readiness” to find a solution to the conflict.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the call.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sept. 15, 2026, in Washington, DC. The committee held the oversight hearing to examine the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — FBI Director Kash Patel is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning for an oversight hearing, the first time Patel is testifying since he clashed with lawmakers over reports of job performance issues more than four months ago.
The hearing comes after the committee’s top Democrat called on Patel to be replaced following a report published in The Atlantic in May that alleged Patel had “bouts of excessive drinking” and job performance issues.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Patel lacks “the experience, judgment, and temperament to lead the FBI” and should be “replaced immediately.” Durbin reiterated those comments in his opening statements on Tuesday morning.
The report in The Atlantic was a focus of several lawmakers’ questions when Patel last testified on Capitol Hill in May with several heated exchanges over Patel’s drinking habits and job performance.
Patel said earlier this year that he’s “never been intoxicated on the job,” following the report. Patel sued The Atlantic over the article, demanding $250 million in damages.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Patel is expected to tout decreased crime nationwide, according to a source familiar with his testimony. President Donald Trump has frequently promoted a decrease in crime, saying on Friday that crime is “under control.”
The director will tout the increase in violent crime arrests, which are up 90%, arresting violent gang members are up 31% and he is expected to say it is the “most prolific run of crime reduction in history,” according to a source.
The FBI saysviolent crime is down 9.3% from 2024 to 2025.
Patel is also expected to discuss the FBI’s efforts to thwart major terrorist incidents and highlight information sharing among law enforcement partners, according to a source familiar with his testimony.
He is expected to talk about how he has made the FBI more nimble as director, accelerating the reduction of bureaucracy of the agency.
Patel’s time at the helm of the FBI has been marked by several controversies, which lawmakers may question him about. Earlier this year, Patel joined in on Team USA hockey’s locker room celebrations in Italy shortly after the team won the gold medal, which drew scrutiny about his use of FBI resources to attend. He was also grilled during a House hearing late last year about his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
