Joe Biden swaps Winston Churchill for Martin Luther King as he overhauls Oval office

Inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States
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Like any new boss looking to stamp his own personality on his new surroundings, Joe Biden has wasted no time giving the Oval Office a presidential makeover.

Reporters who were invited in to witness the first signings of executive orders after the inauguration noticed new busts of US labour leader Cesar Chavez, civil rights pioneers Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and assassinated former attorney general Bobby Kennedy.

The Joseph Epstein bust of Winston Churchill that has yo-yoed in and out of the Oval Office since Barack Obama’s presidency is missing again.

A portrait of former President Andrew Jackson that was installed by Donald Trump has also disappeared. President Jackson was a plantation owner who built his fortune with slave labour. 

New portraits include those of the scientist and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the wartime president Franklin D Roosevelt and 18th-century political rivals President Jefferson and former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

A selection of framed family pictures include photographs of the president’s late son Beau Biden carrying his other son Hunter, his mother Catherine Eugenia Finnegan, and First Lady Jill Biden.

Joe Biden wasted no time putting his own stamp on the Oval Office
AP

The gold curtains and rug from the Trump era have also gone with furnishings last seen in President’s Clinton time brought out of storage to replace them.

Ashley Williams, the deputy director of Oval Office operations, said: “It was important for President Biden to walk into an Oval that looked like America and started to show the landscape of who he is going to be as president.”

A spokesperson added that the office now reflects how “differences of opinion, expressed within the guardrails of the Republic, are essential to democracy.” 

However, one office feature does remain - Mr Biden is still using what is known as the Resolute Desk, so named because it was built from oak used in the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute. Mr Trump also used this desk.  

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