Decorator-In-Chief
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the gold accents going up in the White House, to his orders to bring back classical design to federal buildings, Donald Trump is a president with a very specific aesthetic sensibility—which often is a manifestation of his politics.
Guest: Abdallah Fayyad, policy correspondent at Vox
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Race the rudder. Raise the sales. Raise the sales. Captain, an unidentified ship approaching. Over. |
| 0:07.7 | Roger that. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? |
| 0:12.7 | Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more. |
| 0:19.0 | Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. |
| 0:22.2 | Spend 200 euro on your first campaign and get a free 200 euro credit for the next one. |
| 0:26.0 | Go to LinkedIn.com slash xxx to claim your offer. |
| 0:28.9 | Terms and conditions apply. |
| 0:30.9 | This episode is presented by eBay. |
| 0:34.7 | Rob. |
| 0:35.5 | Everyone loves a deal and a bargain from time to time, don't they? Absolutely, mate. And you know where you can grab a great deal? Talk to me. Where? The eBay app. Yes, you are correct. You didn't need to talk to me. I already knew it. I love eBay. When you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. There's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else. Then when you're selling it's so simple and most importantly free. |
| 0:58.0 | It's free Rob. |
| 0:59.0 | When it's this easy to sell for free and there's great deals on things you love, you can't help but say when it's eBay. |
| 1:05.0 | It excludes vehicles and business sellers. |
| 1:10.0 | Can we talk about it? Sellers. |
| 1:16.2 | Can we talk about the Oval Office? |
| 1:20.1 | If you close your eyes, I bet you can picture it. |
| 1:22.2 | The fireplace, the portraits, |
| 1:26.8 | and ever since Donald Trump has been back in office, the gold. |
| 1:40.8 | Before we really get into it, it's worth talking about what this room has looked like historically. |
| 1:43.3 | If you Google around, you'll see. Joe Biden kept a moon rock in there. |
| 1:46.9 | Also a bust of Martin Luther King Jr., one of Caesar Chavez, too. And all that stuff has been moved. |
| 1:53.8 | Even the moon rock. How did you notice the changes? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.