Trump's gilded remodel is now a national monument that still needs Congress's permission to be one

Three rooms. Not one — three: the Oval Office, the Outer Oval Office, and the Cabinet Room, all of them a "national monument" by proclamation this week. You are thinking of cliffs and battlefields. Think of carpet. The designation protects no canyon; it protects a decorating scheme from substantial changes by whoever sits in the room next. Asked in October what he would miss most about the White House, he spoke about the office. Not the country. The office. Then came an order making the remodel permanent, and after it the proclamation making it a monument — and ABC reports he indicated the proclamation would have to be ratified by Congress. Ratified. A thing that declares itself permanent and then applies for permission ... and until the permission arrives, the gold stays up. That is the handsome part of the drafting. The encumbrance operates from the day of signature; the ratification is for later. Three rooms of the working executive, held in perpetuity against the people who come next. The gold stays.