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Oval Office Facelift: Biden Removes Winston Churchill Bust

On Wednesday, Joe Biden revealed a new look to the Oval Office, inviting reporters inside to watch him sign a spate of executive orders hours after the inauguration ceremony.
Sputnik

Joe Biden has apparently removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, replacing it with a Cesar Chavez bust, in a makeover that took place during his first day as US president.

The redesigned Oval Office "does not have the bust [of the iconic former UK Prime Minister] on display", The Washington Post reported shortly after Biden invited journalists to observe him sign 15 executive orders to undo former US President Donald Trump's legacy.

The newspaper cited a Biden spokesperson as saying that the makeover reflects how "differences of opinion, expressed within the guardrails of the Republic, are essential to democracy".

Additionally, the Oval Office currently feature busts of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Robert F. Kennedy. 

Oval Office Facelift: Biden Removes Winston Churchill Bust

Biden also decorated the office with a large portrait of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as paintings of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington.

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On 21 January 2017, then-President-elect Trump reinstated the Winston Churchill bust after it was removed from the office by Barack Obama in favour of a bust of Martin Luther King Jr.

The change of decoration was slammed by then-London Mayor Boris Johnson, who told The Sun at the time that "no one was sure whether the president [Obama] had himself been involved in the decision".

"Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president's ancestral dislike of the British Empire - of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender", Johnson added.
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