President Donald J. Trump has restored the bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Oval Office during his first day as president.
The new addition to the presidential office was spotted as the Mr. Trump was signing an order seeing the “prompt repeal” of Obamacare, his first official state action.
The sculpture of the wartime leader’s head is said to be a replica of one given to 1960s leader Lyndon B. Johnson and first appeared in the Oval Office during former George W. Bush’s administration.
However, it was replaced by a bust of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during Barack Obama’s time in office.
After meeting Mr. Trump in November, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage said he was “especially pleased at his very positive reaction to the idea that Sir Winston Churchill’s bust should be put back in the Oval Office”.
Then-London mayor Boris Johnson famously criticised Mr. Obama’s decision to remove the bust in an article for the Sun, suggesting the decision was fuelled by Mr. Obama’s “ancestral dislike of the British Empire”.
On Friday night, news reports circulated that a bust of Mr. Luther King had been removed from the Oval Office. However, the statue was simply not visible behind a door when reporters were let inside.
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