Putin photo gets place of honor in Trump's White House

Trump is leaving no part of the White House unmolested by his terrible taste. This time, it’s not just his fondness for tacky gold-plated decorations or his penchant for slapping his name on everything. Instead, what’s on display is his fondness for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Yes, visitors who walk through the Palm Room, which connects the West Wing to the White House residence, will be greeted by a large picture of Trump and Putin, taken when the two met in Alaska last August for what was supposed to be a peace summit to end the Ukraine conflict.

An aspiring authoritarian like Trump needs an inspo picture of his good buddy to remind him to keep grinding so that someday he can be just as much of a fascist.

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If you need a refresher, the Alaska meeting was the one where Trump fell all over himself to impress Putin, including rolling out a literal red carpet and clapping like a trained seal when he spotted his favorite autocrat. And despite being billed as a peace summit, Trump neglected to invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Who wants that third wheel along anyway, right? Dude would have been a total stick in the mud. 

The so-called summit lasted just a few hours and resulted in nothing for Ukraine or the United States. Putin, though, got much more out of the deal. 

Trump treated the dictator to a showy flyby of fighter jets and a ride in the presidential limousine. And after the nothingburger of a meeting, a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs bragged about how the event put the West in its place: “For three years they [Western media] have been talking about Russia’s isolation, and today they saw the red carpet that greeted the Russian president in the United States.”

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Trump did get one thing out of the summit, however: a cool souvenir photo that Putin gave him as a gift. Trump apparently loves that photo so much that it takes pride of place, hanging above a picture of Trump with one of his grandchildren at a NASCAR event.

In other words, for Trump, two important photos to highlight for White House visitors are one memorializing Trump’s failure to negotiate a peace deal and another memorializing his attendance at a sporting event. Real statesman stuff here.

The pictures are just the latest indignity visited on the Palm Room, already a victim of Trump’s remodeling. Trump removed all the greenery—aka the “Palm” part of the Palm Room—and replaced it with a giant chandelier and a white marble floor. Now, it gives off the same generic rich-guy-with-no-taste vibe Trump has brought to the rest of the White House. 

Thus far, he’s torn down the entirety of the East Wing to make way for his bribe palace of a ballroom. He renovated the bathroom in the Lincoln Bedroom, somehow deciding that a giant chandelier and—you guessed it—marble floor reflected the original Lincoln-era look. He also destroyed the Rose Garden, replacing the lawn with paving stones.

Trump is figuratively and literally trashing the place. When Democrats take back the White House, there will be so much to do to unwind all of Trump’s ugliness, both metaphorical and physical. Tearing down all his crappy Mar-a-Lago facsimiles will be a great

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