Donald Trump has reoccupied the Oval Office and reinvented some traditions that he had earlier promoted.
Probably the key one is a red valet button that allows him to summon a waiter with glasses of chilled diet coke.
He also reinstated a bust of Winston Churchill which was made by Jacob Epstein (1880-1959)*. There are in fact two of them, one in the White House Art Collection and the other in the British Embassy in Washington. It’s not a great surprise to find that Trump is a fan of Churchill, just as Boris Johnson, the only UK politician to actually attend his inauguration is. The two and their political methods (i.e. inability to tell the truth) were quite closely linked at one point and might be so again.
The first Churchill bust appeared in the Lyndon Johnson White House in 1965. The second bust was displayed by George W Bush from 2001 while the first was being restored. Obama from 2009 did not have it in the Oval Office but it returned with Trump in 2017 only to go again with Biden in 2021.
Traditions are disputed
*Epstein lived near to Churchill in central London and numerous versions of the Churchill bust exist including some in British museums. Epstein produced a significant body of work including in 1955 a war memorial for the then TUC HQ in Great Russell St
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Epstein
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/01/21/controversial-bust-winston-churchill-oval-office-trump
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