‘Gross!’: Trump’s Latest White House Makeover Backfires After Critics Spot One Newly Engraved Detail Outside the Rose Garden
President Donald Trump just gave another part of his Washington makeover, and the internet is not here for it.
This time, it’s the Rose Garden.
According to new photos, the former reality star added more of his personal touch at the White House that no one asked for.
The shots show the White House’s classic white columns and arched windows, now capped with a gold cursive sign reading “The Rose Garden.”
Below it, another sign spells out “Presidential Walk of Fame” in the same ornate script.
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A long row of framed presidential portraits hangs along the wall behind the columns, each one paired with a plaque. Gold, pointed trim runs above the whole display.
In the foreground, the rose bushes look thin, unpruned, some of them dead.
The font is Shelley Script. It’s the same gold cursive used on “The Oval Office” sign that went up in 2025. At this point, it’s a brand.
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“Is this for real? This is unbelievably, undeniably tacky!” one person wrote. Another added, “Even more tacky are Trump’s self serving discriptions of each President and Biden’s picture as an auto pen.” A third called it “horrendous and lacking in style, unsurpassed in its lack of taste.”
“It’s what he has done to the peoples house,” someone wrote. “And I’m afraid if not stopped it will only get worst.”
“Wait!!! Why does it say Rose Garden when the roses are no longer there????” one asked. “It’s disgusting. Even the font is gross.”
X users piled on, too.
—
FadedRoses
(@SUCardinalRule) July 12, 2026
Someone else dropped a before-and-after meme captioned “The West Colonnade before and after Trump.”
One called it the “White Trash House,” comparing it to a motel. Another wrote, “The Rose Garden was ripped up by Trump and replaced with hideous Cheesecake Factory tables and umbrellas. Weird how everything now has to be labeled with tacky Disney-like signage.”
Isn’t the “After” supposed to look better than the “Before”?
— Trump Must Fail (@TrumpMustFail) July 12, 2026
This is far from a one-off.
The “Rose Garden” sign went up in January, mounted just feet above the rose bushes, according to People.
It matched the gold lettering already used on the Oval Office sign. The “Presidential Walk of Fame” went in that fall, a row of portraits Trump added as a tribute to his predecessors. Critics say the whole space has looked more like Mar-a-Lago since 2020, when Melania Trump first added limestone borders to the garden.
Black granite went down as the new colonnade walkway back in April, replacing the grass path that had lined the area for decades.
Then there’s the lawn itself. Crews tore out the Rose Garden’s iconic grass earlier this year. That lawn had been a fixture since President Kennedy requested the redesign back in 1961.
It hosted decades of press conferences, weddings, and state events. In its place: paving stone. Trump defended the swap in March, telling Fox News that wet, soft ground was a hazard for women in heels.
Then there’s the ballroom. Trump’s $600 million project rose out of the demolished East Wing, which had to be torn down entirely to make room. The administration later sought to have it funded with taxpayer money despite claims that private donors will cover the cost.
In May, Trump said the ballroom will double as cover for an underground bunker with a six-story military hospital.
His other pet project hasn’t fared as well. The $16 million repaint of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in “American flag nlue” triggered the worst algae bloom the pool had seen in years. Paint started flaking off the basin soon after it was refilled. Trump blamed vandals, claiming people cut the surface with razor blades.
The gold habit goes back decades. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote in “Regime Change” that Trump’s first wife, Ivana, had a taste for gilding everything, according to the Daily Beast.
That taste became a Trump trademark, and it’s now stamped across the most famous house in the country.
The White House shrugs off the backlash every time. Officials call the changes bold and necessary and brush off critics as overreacting to paint and signage.
But the gold keeps going up, and the internet keeps begging him to stop destroying the people’s house.