The White House on Saturday released photos of President Donald Trump working from Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Maryland, where has been receiving treatment for Covid-19. The photos, where Trump could be seen signing some papers, quickly turned into buzz on Twitter as netizens alleged the photographs were staged and the papers that Trump was seen signing were blank.
The two photos were taken at Walter Reed's presidential suite and conference room and shared on Twitter by Ivanka Trump and Judd Deere, the White House deputy press secretary. In both the photos, Trump was seen signing papers with files strew across the desks.
While sharing her father's picture, Ivanka wrote: "Nothing can stop him from working for the American people. RELENTLESS!"
However, Twitter users were left unconvinced that the President signed official documents in the photos. Several users alleged the papers he seemed to be working on were blank. Some users even posted close up shots of the papers to show they were not official documents. Others attacked the President saying he was seen golfing before contracting coronavirus but worked when he was admitted to a hospital.
The micro-blogging site's users pointed out that Trump used a permanent marker instead of a pen to sign the document. Shortly after the photos were released, Twitter users began trending "signing," "staged" and "Sharpie" — an American brand popular for permanent markers.
"Next time you're kicking out propaganda, don't shoot so high resolution. You can see he's literally just writing with a sharpie in the middle of a blank piece of paper in the second one," one user commented under Ivanka's tweet.
"What kind of presidential paperwork requires large letters in the middle of a blank sheet of paper with a GIANT sharpie?" another user tweeted.
Ahead of the photos' release, Trump delivered an address in a Twitter video saying he felt "much better" compared to when he was moved to the hospital. He also said his wife Melania was doing well.
"I'm doing well, I want to thank everybody. Our first lady is doing very well. Melania asked me to say something as to the respect she has for our country, the love that she has for our country. And we are both doing well," Trump said. "Melania is really handling it very nicely as you've probably read, she is slightly younger than me just a little tiny bit."
