There are post-match press conferences and there are post-match press conferences where the president of the United States is speaking to reporters after returning from the World Cup final he photobombed, and the dominant piece of coverage the following morning is not what he said but the unidentified man standing directly behind him who Jon Stewart described as “who in the world” while floating an outlandish theory about his identity, and Trump’s remarks at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sunday night are the second kind.
Trump landed at Joint Base Andrews after attending the World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., where Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in extra time, where Trump was booed by the crowd during the trophy ceremony, where he photobombed Spain’s celebration, and where Spain’s official team account subsequently posted the celebration photograph without him in it. He spoke to reporters upon landing, which is the standard post-event presidential availability that produces brief video clips that then circulate through the media ecosystem. The clip from Sunday night circulated because of the man standing behind Trump.
Stewart flagged the clip Monday night on his program, per Raw Story’s confirmed report published one hour ago, asking “who in the world” the man behind Trump was and floating a theory about his identity that Raw Story describes as “outlandish.” The man’s specific identity and the specific theory have not been confirmed in Raw Story’s article, which ran the headline “Jon Stewart’s mind blown as he spots bizarre man behind Trump,” which is the headline format that confirms the observation without revealing the observation, requiring the reader to watch the clip.
The broader context of the Sunday night clip is a president who attended the World Cup final, endorsed the losing team, presented the trophy to the team he didn’t endorse, was booed, photobombed the celebration, was edited out of the official photograph, and then landed at Joint Base Andrews and spoke to reporters while an unidentified person stood behind him. The man behind him is the thing that produced the Jon Stewart segment. The rest of the evening was already being covered.
Stewart’s theory, whatever it is, has not been confirmed. The man has not been identified. The clip is circulating.
When the most discussed element of the president’s post-World Cup final press conference is the unidentified man standing behind him, what exactly was the World Cup final for?
Sources
Raw Story: Jon Stewart’s mind blown as he spots bizarre man behind Trump
