Presidential Walk of Fame --- text of all the plaques.
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Executive summary
The White House "Presidential Walk of Fame" was updated in December 2025 with new explanatory plaques written in the voice and worldview of President Donald Trump; reporting shows the plaques range from effusive self-praise to partisan barbs at recent Democratic predecessors and praise for presidents Trump admires [1] [2] [3]. Available coverage supplies excerpts and representative lines—rather than a complete, verbatim transcription of every single plaque—and some outlets note claims on plaques that fact-checkers have flagged as inaccurate [4] [5].
1. What the installation is and how the plaques were presented
The colonnade exhibit, billed by the White House as the "Presidential Walk of Fame" or "Wall of Fame," displays portraits of U.S. presidents along a walkway outside the West Wing and was fitted with new, caption-style plaques that the White House says were "conceived, built, and dedicated" by President Trump as a tribute to presidents "good, bad and somewhere in the middle" [2] [6]. The introductory plaque itself is partisan in tone, declaring that "The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the Greatness of America," a line publicized by multiple outlets [1] [6].
2. Representative excerpts: Biden and the most prominent barbs
Reporting captures sharply worded lines under Joe Biden’s portrait that call him "sleepy" and label him "by far, the worst president in American history," and one version of Biden’s plaque repeats a claim that he "let 21 million people from all over the World pour into the US"—a specific figure that fact-checkers and the BBC scrutinized as a recurring Trump talking point rather than an independently documented tally [1] [5] [7].
3. Barack Obama and other Democratic predecessors: "divisive" and policy slams
Barack Obama’s plaque is quoted as saying he "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 as the "highly ineffective 'Unaffordable' Care Act" and faults him for signing the Paris Climate Accords—claims summarized directly in CNN, Reuters and Newsweek reporting [2] [3] [8]. Coverage also reports that some plaques accuse Obama of weakening the economy and foreign policy, and even include allegations such as spying on the 2016 Trump campaign—charges that news organizations relay as plaque text rather than independently verified facts [8].
4. Bill Clinton, Hillary reference, and partisan reframing of history
Several outlets reproduce the Bill Clinton plaque’s punchline: "In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!"—an explicit insertion of partisan gloating into the presidential display that underscores the broader intent to reshape historical framing in a Trumpian voice [9] [3] [10]. Reporters note that the plaques for presidents favored by Trump, such as Ronald Reagan, are effusive and laudatory in contrast to the jabs aimed at Democrats [11].
5. Trump’s own plaques and the overall rhetorical pattern
Trump placed two plaques for himself—one for each term—which lavishly praise his record, claim he overcame "the unprecedented Weaponization of Law Enforcement against him, as well as two assassination attempts," declare the start of a "Golden Age of America," and list policy achievements such as ending wars, securing the border and economic claims; outlets note the tone is celebratory and claims-driven [2] [6] [4]. News coverage uniformly observes the pattern: plaques function less as neutral historical captions and more as a czar-like imprint of presidential opinion intended to cement a legacy [4] [6].
6. Limits of public reporting and fact-check concerns
Despite abundant excerpts, none of the major reports reviewed provides a complete, line-by-line public transcript of every plaque in full; instead, journalists published notable quotations and paraphrases while fact-checkers flagged specific assertions—such as the "21 million" immigration figure and other claims—that require independent verification and can be misleading if treated as uncontested fact [5] [4]. Readers should therefore view the plaques as an administration-authored narration now installed in a public space, with many of its more contentious claims already contested in coverage and verification pieces [2] [5].