BREAKING: Fight Just Broke Out In The Oval Office – Look Who Threw The First Punch!
Life in the White House is a whole lot of hustle and bustle. Everything is important, and everything’s got to get done now. Especially all of the things happening in the Oval Office. The President has the incredible responsibility of signing bills into laws, sending out executive orders and building relationships with foreign dignitaries. This comes with its own set of challenges, like the media that feels the need to record every single move that he makes.
The media is extremely vetted before ever getting near the President or any of the other high profile people who enter the West Wing of the White House, however, when there’s only so much President and so many square feet around him to do their jobs, things can get ugly. The media that usually have clearance to be in the Oval office was recently expanded to include the local affiliates of South Korean news organizations while the South Korean leader and his wife are visiting the President and First Lady in Washington.
Since these are people usually unfamiliar with the practices of the White House in general, and the Oval Office specifically, they didn’t quite behave the way they were supposed to. They got so out of hand at one point that the President actually called them down. They pushed and shoved until they displaced the furniture, knocked over a table and lamp and put the President’s bodyguard on extreme alert.
Via Daily Mail:
“A crush of photographers and reporters nearly broke a lamp in the Oval Office on Friday as they elbowed for room to see Donald Trump meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
It’s customary for a limited contingent of journalists, called a press pool, to be allowed into the president’s office to witness him greeting heads of state.
But Moon’s arrival attracted a larger than usual contingent of foreign press from Korean outlets, and the White House gamely tried to accommodate them all.
Few in the group were familiar with how Oval Office photo-ops work.
As they clambered over each other to get the best view, still and video cameras smacked at least one print journalist in the head.
A few photographers pushed a couch. Which nudged an end table. Which sent an expensive lamp tipping over toward its doom.
A quick-thinking Keith Schiller, the former Trump bodyguard who now serves as director of Oval Office operations, saved the day with a one-handed grab.
‘Easy, fellas. Hey!’ a visibly annoyed Trump scolded. ‘Fellas! Fellas! Easy!’
‘Wow, you guys are getting worse.’
Moon seemed amused.
As impatient shutters snapped fast enough to sound like a Washington downpour, the president turned to his Korean counterpart.
‘They knocked the table down,’ he said.
‘It’s actually a very friendly press. Don’t let that get you, although we just lost a table.’
Schiller, one of Trump’s longest-serving aides, was famously dispatched to the FBI quarters on May 9 with a letter telling then-director James Comey that he was being fired.”
It seems that the press was only more out of hand than usual because of the increased presence, but that didn’t keep the President from holding them to his regular standard. One could assume that President Moon Jae-in was smiling because it’s really not his problem to deal with. It would be kind of like if you’re at a friend’s house and their kids are acting up. You just smile and thank heaven it’s their kids and not yours because you don’t have to deal with the problem.
Other news sources reported more about the incident.
1 London reports:
“A crush of photographers and reporters nearly broke a lamp in the Oval Office on Friday as they elbowed for room to see Donald Trump meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
It’s customary for a limited contingent of journalists, called a press pool, to be allowed into the president’s office to witness him greeting heads of state.
But Moon’s arrival attracted a larger than usual contingent of foreign press from Korean outlets, and the White House gamely tried to accommodate them all.
Few in the group were familiar with how Oval Office photo-ops work.
White House director of Oval Office operations Keith Schiller saved an expensive lamp from tumbling to the ground on Friday when a crush of Korean photographers slid a couch into an end table as they jockeyed to get pictures of South Korean President Moon Jae-in.”
Thankfully the incident was shut down in short order, but not before the President’s guards had to put fear in the camera-toting vultures who were a little too enthusiastic about their jobs.
I don’t know if there’s a “you break it you buy it” rule at the White House, but it does make you wonder what a lamp that lights up the executive office might cost. I know that if I were any of these reporters, I’d be watching where I put my feet from now on.