On Memorial Day eve, May 25, 2026, President Trump returned from an Arlington event and stopped for six minutes outside the White House North Portico to study one of the building's columns. White House press pool video shows the 79-year-old president pointing to the base of the column, walking aides through whatever he was seeing, and running his hands along the stonework.
The inspection takes on a different shape against the renovation plans his administration has already advanced. Rodney Mims Cook Jr., Trump's appointee as chair of the Commission of Fine Arts, has proposed replacing the White House's Ionic columns with Corinthian columns — a more ornate classical style. “Corinthian is the highest order [of column], and that's what our other two branches of government have,” Cook said. Bruce Redman Becker, a Biden-appointed commissioner whom Trump later removed, called the idea “completely inappropriate and at odds with universally held historic preservation standards.”
The pillar inspection sits alongside a documented pattern of Trump-era White House physical changes: the $400 million ballroom, demolition of the Rose Garden, West Wing modifications, and the proliferation of gold accents throughout the residence. Trump turns 80 in June. The Daily Beast followed up with a piece on Trump's “bizarre obsession” the next day after he doubled down on the column inspection amid mockery online.