Trump’s First Post-election Executive Action: Preserving His Oval Office Changes

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Thursday he says will designate the Oval Office and Cabinet Room of the White House as a “national monument” and “federal landmark.”

Those designations, he said, would prevent future presidents from tearing down or otherwise undoing his redesigns of those spaces.

“It won’t be able to be taken down or destroyed, touched or anything else. It will be a — it’s called actually a national monument. It’s a federal landmark,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’ll make it impossible for anybody to ever destroy this incredible space.”

Trump’s bid to preserve the changes he’s made to the White House marks the first executive actions he’s issued since Tuesday’s midterms — and the third event this week focused his attempts to physically remake the White House and the nation’s capital.

That includes a speech he delivered at the Reflecting Pool on Monday ahead of the election, where he spent at least 20 minutes detailing renovations to the historic landmark. He also took reporters to the construction site Wednesday where he is building a White House ballroom, at the site of the demolished East Wing.

The president has spent the last year fixated on a slew of projects across Washington, from attempts to rename and remake the Kennedy Center to a golf course in Washington. The real estate mogul has also redone a number of rooms in the White House, including the marble makeover of the Lincoln Bathroom, and the Oval Office, where golden accents he’s installed line the walls.