Fact-checking White House plaques targeting former US presidents

New plaques have appeared under the portraits of former American presidents at the White House.

Unlike Donald Trump’s previous statements about his predecessors, which were delivered through speeches, interviews and social media posts, these plaques – installed outside the West Wing – represent a more permanent attempt to shape the long-term vision of past presidents.

The text includes a series of assertions and criticisms of past leaders, including Donald Trump’s immediate predecessors, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

The descriptions also highlight Trump’s willingness to get involved in details, particularly when it comes to how he and his political opponents are portrayed.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the plaques “are eloquently written descriptions of each president and the legacy they left behind.”

BBC Verify took a closer look at some of the allegations appearing on the so-called “Presidential Walk of Fame.”

The plaque also claims that Biden “let 21 million people from around the world flood into the United States.”

The plaque does not specify how those people would have entered the country under Biden, but Trump has repeatedly used variations of the 21 million figure when talking about the previous administration’s record at the U.S. border.

In a presidential address Wednesday night, Trump said that under Biden “our border was open, and because of that, our country was being invaded by an army of 25 million people” and earlier this year he claimed that Biden had allowed 21 million “illegal aliens to invade our country.”

The number of migrant crossings at the US border has certainly reached record levels under Biden, but not to the level declared by Trump – who never provided a source for these claims.

US border officials record “encounters” with migrants – these include people who tried to cross illegally and people who tried to enter legally but failed to follow entry rules.

Biden was elected in late 2020 and during his four years in office, there have been about 10 million migrant encounters at the border, including about eight million on the U.S. southwest border with Mexico.

These figures do not include people who may have crossed the border undetected.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated there were 11 million illegal migrants living in the United States as of January 2022, with the majority arriving before 2010.

Biden’s economic record also came under attack, with the plaque claiming his policies: “caused the highest inflation on record.”

It is correct that inflation – the increase in the cost of living over time – increased significantly during the first two years of Biden’s term, peaking at 9.1% in June 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

However, it is not true that inflation under Biden was the highest on record. This happened in 1920, when inflation reached 23.7%. It was also higher at times in the 1970s and 1980s.

Besides past presidents, Trump also added a plaque for his current term.

It includes bold claims about his record in office since January. For example, he claims that Trump was able to “defeat inflation.”

Although inflation is down from the peak of 9.1% reached under Biden in 2022 – a time when many countries around the world experienced high inflation following the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – it has not been totally “defeated”.

Inflation was still at 2.7% over one year in November 2025, according to the latest official figures. That’s down from 3% in September, when the last inflation update was released.

Average food prices in the United States have increased 1.9% since the November 2024 election.

Listing Trump’s accomplishments, the plaque also claims that Trump ended “eight wars in his first eight months.”

However, some conflicts lasted only a few days and the level of influence Trump played in ending them is disputed.

At least one of the “wars” was simply not a war. Egypt and Ethiopia have experienced some diplomatic tensions, notably over a dam on the Nile, but there has by no means been a war between them.

India’s Defense Ministry also previously rejected Trump’s claim that he would end the conflict with Pakistan, saying the country had not responded to pressure from anyone.

It is true that Trump has successfully helped broker peace deals for some long-standing conflicts, such as between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But it is also unclear whether some peace deals will last, given that fighting has since broken out on the Thai-Cambodia border and between Rwanda and the DRC.

Former President Obama is also under fire with his plaque claiming the 44th president “presided over a stagnant economy.”

There is no official definition of economic stagnation, but it is generally considered a period of slow or no growth.

Obama took office shortly after the 2008 financial crisis, when the U.S. economy collapsed. Using figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis over his two terms, from 2009 to 2017, you arrive at an average annual GDP growth of 1.7%.

Doing the same exercise for Trump’s first term, using the same data, suggests a largely comparable average growth rate, although slowed down by the year Covid 2020.

The plaques don’t just attack Democrats. Former Republican President George W. Bush, for example, is criticized for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while former Democratic President Jimmy Carter is praised for some of his accomplishments.

Neither former Presidents Biden nor Obama have commented on the installation of their plaques.