The White House wants the American people to know President Donald Trump is working “during the Democrat shutdown.” So it sent out a couple of photos that purport to show the commander in chief doing just that. In truth though, the pictures all look like the result of a photoshoot and are unlikely to convince anyone the president was doing anything but taking “executive time” during the shutdown.
There are several eyebrow-raising details about all the photos, including the fact that the president is always wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap, making them rife for mockery on social media. Plus, there’s the pesky detail that none of the photos actually show Trump meeting with any congressional leaders that could signify an effort to perhaps even talk about the shutdown. Instead we see a president roaming around the White House, chatting with staff, as if he’s just holding tight and waiting for someone else to solve the problem.
The most (unintentionally) funny photo is surely the one showing Trump sitting at his desk on the phone. “I too conduct most of my most important work with a phone in my hand and nothing on my desk, while staring vacantly off into space,” Daily Beast editor Erin Gloria Ryan wrote on Twitter. Producer Rob Hedrick has a question regarding the photo: “Working on what … Sitting on hold?”
Another photo shows Trump walking down a hallway and the third shows him “meeting” with several staff members, including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. It looks like they don’t have a care in the world. “Everyone is very smiley in this picture,” notes Reuters reporter Ginger Gibson.
The conclusion? “An emerging trend is that Trump and his staff have no idea how to stage photos to make it seem like he’s actually working.” Some are calling on President Barack Obama’s photographer, Pete Souza, to do his trolling magic and show what it really looks like when a president is working.
