President Donald Trump held a ceremony in the White House on Monday to bestow the Medal of Honor on three American veterans, and to provide updates on the ongoing offensive against Iran, in which four U.S. service members have been killed and over a dozen seriously wounded.
One might think this would have been a somber, serious occasion. Trump couldn’t stop thinking about his very nice, very luxurious gold curtains.
“We have a lot of great service members here with us in this beautiful building. Isn’t it beautiful? We’re adding onto the building a little bit, we’re improving the building,” Trump said of ongoing construction on his pet project, a new White House ballroom to replace what used to be the East Wing.
“See that nice drape,” the president continued, pointing to heavy, golden curtains behind him. “When that comes down right now, you see a very, very deep hole, but in about a year and a half from now you’re going to see a very, very beautiful building. I picked those drapes in my first term. I always liked gold. I think we can save a lot of money. I just saved curtains. It will be spectacular. I believe it’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world.”
Trump: “See that nice drape? When that comes down right now you see a very very deep hole, but in about a year and half you’re gonna see a very very beautiful building. And there’s your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks so nice I think I’ll leave it and save money on… pic.twitter.com/jZXTQ02lib
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 2, 2026
The president rambled on for a bit longer on how much money he was spending (or in his view, “saving”) on self-aggrandizing construction projects around Washington, D.C., before getting back to the topic at hand: dead and wounded members of the military.
Trump bestowed medals on three service members. One in person to a Vietnam veteran and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson, and two posthumously to Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, who was killed in Afghanistan, and a World War II veteran, Master Sgt. Roderick W. Edmonds, who passed away in 1985.
Trump told the gathered audience that he had been “shut down” several times over attempts to bestow himself a Medal of Honor. He made similar claims after bestowing a Medal of Honor during his State of the Union address last week. Nevertheless, Trump assured the public on Monday that he will not lose focus on his military ambitions.
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“They said, the president wants to do it really quickly. After that, he will get bored. I don’t get bored. There is nothing boring about this. If I got bored, I wouldn’t be standing here,” he said of the potential timeline of military operations in Iran. “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.”
Trump might say he’s not bored of it yet, but it hasn’t even been a week and his focus already seems to be drifting back to the White House’s interior decor, all while American soldiers die as a result of his war on Iran.
