Trump declares the Oval Office a national monument under the Antiquities Act

President Donald J. Trump declared the Oval Office a national monument by Proclamation 11080 of 5 November 2026, invoking the Antiquities Act to protect the room where he conducts the daily business of the presidency. The proclamation was filed for public inspection on 10 November at 11:15 a.m. and published in the Federal Register of Thursday, 12 November 2026 (Vol. 91, No. 217, FR Doc. 2026–23113). The instrument creates the Oval Office National Monument and extends it beyond the President’s own office to two adjoining spaces in the West Wing.

The proclamation rests on section 320301 of title 54 of the United States Code, which authorises the President to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic structures and other objects of historic or scientific interest on federally owned or controlled land to be national monuments. The text acknowledges that the White House and its grounds are Federal property administered as part of the President’s Park by the National Park Service and are already recognised as a National Historic Landmark. Even so, it concludes that the Oval Office “merits specific recognition and protective management as a discrete historic structure of national significance,” and certifies that its boundaries represent the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the protected object.

Three rooms behind the designation

The monument is drawn tightly around the working suite. According to the proclamation, it consists of:

• The Oval Office itself, identified as Room 110.
• The Outer Oval Office, comprising Rooms 106 and 108.
• The Cabinet Room, Room 105.

The text grounds the finding in the room’s architecture and history, citing its “unmatched and unique combination of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship” and its association with events “embedded in our national consciousness.” It records that the distinctive oval design was first introduced in the West Wing under President William Howard Taft and refined in the early 1930s, and that the office has occupied its present location and form since the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Within its walls, the proclamation states, decisions of profound national and international consequence have been taken and heads of state received.

What the Interior Department must do

Management falls to the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the National Park Service, in a manner that protects the monument’s historic character, architectural integrity and association with the Presidency. The proclamation imposes four specific obligations on the Secretary:

• Develop and implement a management plan, in consultation with the White House Office of Administration and other relevant executive departments, agencies and offices, prioritising preservation of structural and significant architectural features.
• Require documentation, review and consideration of alternatives before any action that would substantially alter or demolish the monument or its essential architectural elements.
• Ensure that proposed changes affecting its historic character are evaluated for consistency with its national significance.
• Coordinate with the Committee for the Preservation of the White House and other appropriate advisory bodies.

The Secretary is further directed to take all necessary steps to implement the proclamation.

Carve-outs for the sitting President

The proclamation is carefully bounded in its practical effect. It states that nothing in it restricts the President’s authority to redecorate the monument, select furnishings, or make ordinary operational and security modifications that do not substantially impair its historic structure or architectural character. It also specifies that nothing alters existing statutory exemptions applicable to the White House under the National Historic Preservation Act, and that nothing diminishes the Congress’s authority over Federal property. The document carries billing code 3395–F4–P and was signed, in its own formula, on the fifth day of November in the two hundred and fifty-first year of American independence.

The result is a preservation layer that is procedural rather than custodial: the Oval Office remains the President’s office, in daily use, but any future administration that wants to gut it will first have to document the case, study alternatives and answer to the National Park Service. Because the Antiquities Act was written for landscapes and archaeological sites, applying it to a room in active political use is likely to draw scrutiny from preservation lawyers and from Congress, which the text pointedly leaves in charge of Federal property.

Source: Federal Register, Vol. 91, No. 217, 12 November 2026, Presidential Documents, p. 73135 (official reference: FR Doc. 2026–23113, Proclamation 11080).