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A Tiny West Wing Office Is Big on Trump Messaging (NYT)
| Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e | 11/14/25 |
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Date: November 14th, 2025 7:21 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret Truth of the Univer$e (One Year Performance 1978-1979 (Cage Piece) (Awfully coy u are)) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/us/trump-oval-office-study-merch.html
By Doug Mills and Ashley Wu
Nov. 14, 2025
President Trump uses the Oval Office study largely as a display space for items adhering to a theme — himself. Neatly arranged on the shelves are signed water bottles, gold trays, pins and matchbooks printed or embossed with his signature. There are also a dozen or so styles of hats that read:
“TRUMP 2028.”
“TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”
“4 MORE YEARS!”
“GULF OF AMERICA.”
And, of course, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
This is one of two large white bookcases in the Oval Office study that hold Trump-themed items, photographed in October.
The top two rows of the shelf hold hats with slogans, all available for purchase on Mr. Trump’s official merchandise website. A few of the hats reference Mr. Trump running for a third term (which is prohibited by the Constitution).
The shelf also has items that are either printed or embossed with Mr. Trump’s signature below the presidential seal.
And some items are more generally related to the White House or the presidency.
The study is part of a small suite of private rooms, including a bathroom and a dining room, that are clustered off the Oval Office for the president’s use.
On the same day in August that several European leaders met with Mr. Trump at the White House to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war, Margo Martin, a communications adviser to the president, posted a photograph on X of Mr. Trump showing items in this room to President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
Earlier that month, video posted to social media showed Mr. Trump presenting items from the room to President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan after a meeting.
The president does not appear to be selling anything from this room to his guests. (Though some items on display are available for purchase on the Trump Store website or the White House Historical Association’s online shop.)
According to a White House official, Mr. Trump uses the Oval Office as his primary office, and therefore wanted to turn the lesser-used study into a gift room for guests. The items in the room are swapped out or restocked at the discretion of Mr. Trump
A second white bookcase in the room, photographed in October, also holds Trump-themed items.
Like the first shelf, this one holds items printed with Mr. Trump’s signature below the presidential seal.
This shelf also has a few hats, along with products from the president’s fragrance line called Victory 45-47.
Books, both by and about Mr. Trump, are also on display.
It’s not unusual for guests of the president to receive gifts or souvenirs. For example, presidential M&Ms with the president’s signature — on display on the shelves in the Oval Office study — are typically given as gifts to guests on Air Force One. (The standard gift on Air Force One used to be cigarettes, shown below.)
But a whole room dedicated to merchandise is more distinctive to Mr. Trump, who used the Oval Office study similarly during his first term. According to a 2022 book by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, who were then Times reporters, visitors could take MAGA- and Trump-themed swag from the room. Speaking on Fox News in June 2024, Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker of the House, called the room during Mr. Trump’s first term a “gift shop.”
Other presidents have used this space as a private office where they could do focused work or take phone calls away from the more visible Oval Office.
The room also became infamous for its role as a meeting place for President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern, as outlined in the impeachment proceedings against Mr. Clinton.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told Architectural Digest in December 2023 that he used the space to work on his speeches. Mr. Biden decorated the walls of the room with a portrait of President John F. Kennedy, an illustration of his childhood home in Scranton, Pa., and drawings and letters from children.
In place of the Kennedy portrait is now a poster with an illustration of Mr. Trump holding up a fist after the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pa., last year, and a framed sheet of dollar bills.
There is no desk in the room.
Jeffrey Furticella, Mika Gröndahl and Junho Lee contributed reporting and production.
Doug Mills has been a photographer in the Washington bureau of The Times since 2002. He has covered every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.
Ashley Wu is a graphics reporter for The Times who uses data and visuals to help explain complex topics. |