Hillary Clinton blasted President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the White House in an interview posted Friday, telling podcast host Kara Swisher that Trump’s “tackied up” decor is “reminiscent” of dictator Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Iraq.
“It’s sad to me — it’s sad that it’s so tackied up, and it’s a reflection of, you know, his narcissistic personality and his need to feel important, including sticking gold embellishments all over the walls of the Oval Office,” the former secretary of state told Swisher on her “Pivot” podcast.
“This is a man who, his mind apparently goes to, ‘Where can I add more gold?’ instead of, ‘How do I get out of Iran without looking like the loser that I am?’”
As first lady, Clinton herself oversaw renovations to the White House Blue Room, but has emerged as a fierce critic of Trump’s massive overhauls to the White House complex, posting, “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” shortly after the administration began demolishing the White House East Wing to make way for the president’s proposed ballroom last year.
“The next president is going to have a big decision. What do you do with a half-finished ballroom?” Clinton said in the interview, referring to it as a “carbuncle on the side of the White House.”
Asked what she would do, Clinton replied: “I don’t know.”
In a statement responding to her comments, White House spokesman Davis Ingle pointed back to the 2016 presidential election, when Clinton lost to Trump.
“Hillary Clinton never had the opportunity to decorate the Oval Office as president because she suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of President Trump, which she has never recovered from,” he said.
Since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump has sought to leave his own mark on the building, affixing gold detailing on the surfaces of Oval Office and throughout the West Wing.
In December of last year, he unveiled the “Presidential Walk of Fame” along the White House Rose Garden colonnade, complete with plaques featuring politically-tinged dings against his predecessors — partisan barbs White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed he wrote himself.
And he’s been publicly preoccupied with renovation projects throughout the District of Columbia, including scandal-plagued efforts to refurbish the National Mall’s reflecting pool and erect a 250-foot “triumphal arch” across the Potomac River.
Speaking with Swisher in Friday’s interview, Clinton joked she’d be willing to take on the role of “Secretary of Taking Down the Gold” after Trump leaves office.
“Wouldn’t that be a good idea? Secretary of cleaning it up, fixing up,” she said.
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
