President-elect Donald Trump may not work out of the Oval Office during his first year as president because of planned renovations.
Trump could instead be based across the street in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the Daily Mail reported.
“My understanding is that for the first year of his time in office, President Trump will not have the Oval Office,” said Karl Rove, an adviser to former President George W. Bush.
Rove said the timing of the renovation was President Barack Obama’s fault.
“President Obama could have told the Secret Service, ‘I know you want to modernize the Oval Office with security enhancements — literally strip it down to the bare walls and build it back up so we’ve got bulletproof glass and so forth and so on, security arrangements in it, in my last year in office,’” said Rove.
Instead, Rove says the administration chose to let the next president deal with the renovations.
The White House did not comment on the report. Obama is currently visiting Europe.
Presidents can decorate parts of the White House to their own liking, but there are parts of it that remain off limits to major alterations.
“They are not going to let Trump in and tear down the walls,” Kate Andersen Brower, the author of a book on first ladies, told ABC.
The Lincoln Room and the Yellow Oval Room will remain as they are. But a decorator chosen by the first lady will be able to renovate the living quarters as the Trumps desire.
“Some parts are essentially historic rooms and belong to the American people, not to the families who live there,” Andersen Brower added.
Meanwhile, some have taken a less serious approach to the potential renovations Trump could make. On Jimmy Kimmel’s “Lie Witness News,” the comedian sought to gauge public reaction to some of the more outlandish ideas.
One man interviewed had no problem with Trump replacing the White House with a “50-story penthouse building, gold on the outside, giant T on top,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Sources: Daily Mail, ABC News, The Hollywood Reporter / Photo credit: Nilington/Wikimedia Commons