Former White House Photographer Says Trump Staged His Situation Room Photo

Peter Rapine Published 10/27/2019 in Funny

Today Donald Trump held a press conference where he revealed that the United States had carried out a mission on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The press conference was short, but not without its own oddities. Trump in usual fashion tried to really hype of the mission, implying that it was more important than the mission Obama orchestrated to catch Osama bin Laden.

He then went on to thank a number of other nations, most notably Russia for their help with this very serious mission.

Here's the moment: Trump downplays the operation to kill Osama bin Laden under President Obama because bin Laden didn't become "big" until the World Trade Center attacks and al-Baghdadi created a caliphate. pic.twitter.com/efLwLu1ROZ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 27, 2019

But what is truly odd, it that along with the press conference the White House released a photo of Trump in his 'war room'.

Besides that fact that the photo is oddly set up, it seems that not everyone in the photo is certain about where to look. And Pete Souza, former White House photographer, gave some context into the timeline of events.

The raid, as reported, took place at 3:30PM Washington time. The photo, as shown in the camera IPTC data, was taken at "17:05:24". https://t.co/XV0MFfFiTt
— Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) October 27, 2019

Sure, it's possible. https://t.co/EQtgvBfJHu
— Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) October 27, 2019

It's entirely possible that the raid was still going on at 5:05pm. Before drawing definite conclusions about the photo, reporters need to nail down the actual timeline of the raid. https://t.co/Iw6tQ1ceGV
— Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) October 27, 2019

Now Souza cannot say for certain that the photo was staged, or that the raid had ended by the time the photo was taken, but it does sound strange when you consider Trump has tried everything in his power to make himself more likeable and presidential than Obama.

Whatever the case may be, it's almost unimportant, staged or unstaged, because either way, this photo will always be more iconic.