What is the full, verbatim text of every plaque on the Presidential Walk of Fame and where can it be obtained?
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Executive summary
Multiple news outlets documented that the Trump White House installed new explanatory plaques beneath the portraits on the Colonnade “Presidential Walk of Fame,” and several outlets published verbatim snippets — but none of the provided reporting reproduces the full, verbatim text of every plaque in the installation, so a complete, authoritative transcript of every plaque is not available in the sources reviewed [1] [2] [3].
1. What was requested and what the reporting actually shows
The user asked for the full, verbatim text of every plaque and where that text can be obtained; reporting confirms plaques were installed and that reporters and photo agencies recorded portions of the text, including an introductory plaque and individual lines under specific presidents’ portraits, but the published stories reproduce only selected excerpts rather than a complete word‑for‑word reproduction of every plaque [2] [1] [3].
2. Select verbatim lines reported in multiple outlets
Several outlets printed identical or closely matching verbatim fragments: the introductory plaque reportedly says, “The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the Greatness of America” (reported by AP and local coverage) [2] [4]; Joe Biden’s plaque is characterized in headlines and quotes with the single word “Sleepy” and with language calling him “by far the worst President in American history,” language widely cited in AP, CNN and local press [2] [5] [4]; Barack Obama’s plaque is quoted as reading in part, “Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History,” and it criticizes the Affordable Care Act and the Paris accords [5]; Bill Clinton’s plaque was quoted by Reuters and others: “In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!” [3] [6].
3. What reporting does not provide — and why that matters
None of the supplied stories publishes a complete, line‑by‑line transcript of every plaque for every president; outlets instead highlight the most newsworthy or provocative phrases and include photos of selected plaques [7] [1] [5]. Because the sources do not reproduce the entire set of texts, it is not possible from these materials alone to claim the “full, verbatim text of every plaque” with documentary certainty; where reportage does quote full sentences, those quoted passages are cited above [5] [3] [2].
4. Where the full, verbatim text can reasonably be obtained
The best practical routes to obtain a complete and authoritative transcript are primary‑source images or the White House itself: press photos and wire service images (AP, Reuters, NYT, Getty) show many plaques and are cited in coverage [2] [3] [7]; individual outlets’ photo captions and gallery images can be consulted for higher‑resolution reads [7] [3]. The White House press office is reported as the creator and installer of the display and therefore the originator of the plaques’ text, so an official release or request to the White House press office would be the primary avenue for an official, complete transcript (reporting documents the plaques as a White House installation) [1] [2]. In short: consult the high‑resolution press photos published by AP/Reuters/NYT/CNN and request the official text from the White House press office for an authoritative, complete verbatim record [2] [3] [7] [5].
5. Context, alternative views and caveats
News outlets uniformly note the plaques reflect the Trump administration’s interpretive framing and many fact‑checkers and historians dispute or contextualize claims on the plaques — for example BBC and others flagged numerical and factual claims on the Biden plaque as exaggerated or unverified — which means any transcript should be understood as an administration’s self‑published narrative rather than an uncontested historical record [8] [9] [5]. Reporters who viewed the display emphasized partisan, mocking language for some presidents and laudatory language for others, and photographic evidence published by wire services remains the clearest immediate source for reading the plaques where full textual reproductions are not printed [1] [3] [2].