A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
Every president brings a personal touch to the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan brought a collection of bronze saddles and his jar of Jelly Bellys. Barack Obama introduced a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. and a bowl of apples. Donald Trump, in his second term, is bringing gold, a lot of it. So how is that changing the look and feel of the White House and the image the presidency projects? Our colleague Michel Martin posed that question to Robin Givhan. She's a senior critic-at-large at the Washington Post, who recently wrote about what she calls the gilding of the Oval Office.
ROBIN GIVHAN: Well, I think one of the things that most people who have seen pictures of the Oval Office might recall is that over the fireplace mantel, there has long been this large planter filled with ivy. And, you know, the story of that ivy goes back many, many, many presidencies. And that ivy has now been replaced by a series of gold objects. And the pieces that are actually on the mantel are typically used for displaying large floral arrangements for holding desserts and tea cakes and bonbons. So they're not necessarily things that you would naturally see in an office, and they have been part of the White House collection for years.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: So I take it you're not a fan.
GIVHAN: I would say that it looks a bit cluttered (laughter). And when these pieces were first acquired by the White House, there was some concern in Congress that they reflected too much of an appreciation and an ode to the monarchy, which was not at all what the United States was about. And they also reflect an idea about wealth and power and privilege that feels very of a piece with a different time.
MARTIN: You know, this is always a thing, like, what is taste, right? And a lot of people would sort of say, well, taste is sort of ascribing something to being tasteful or not tasteful, is inherently classist. What would you say to that?
GIVHAN: I think that's very true, and I think that to some degree, there is an elitist point of view that would look at that - the way that he's decorated the Oval Office and say that it looks very nouveau riche. And then there are those who could also look at it and say that it's, you know, simply an exuberant celebration of success. But I think one thing that is unnerving is so much of it seems to be situated around this idea of regalness. That is a real departure from the kind of power that the Oval Office has always projected. Part of its power, I think, has come from the fact that it didn't need all of these elements in order to convey authority, that the authority came from this idea of the people and of democracy.
MARTIN: Robin Givhan is Washington Post's senior critic-at-large. Robin, thank you.
GIVHAN: Oh, it was my pleasure.
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