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Trump Unknowingly Spoke in Front of Presidential Seal Altered To Insult Him

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When President Donald Trump spoke at Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, he expected to be in a friendly environment.

For the most part, the event was very friendly to the president as he spoke to young conservatives who defend the president from the left’s increasingly unhinged attacks.

At one point, however, a photoshopped version of the presidential seal flashed on the screen behind Trump as he spoke.

The altered seal featured a two-headed eagle — the same as the Russian symbol — with the eagle’s talons gripping golf clubs on the right and what appeared to be cash on the left.

The crowd reportedly shook off the shocking image, but the establishment media has run with the story, delightedly pointing out the connection to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The Washington Post noted the two-headed eagle was “a symbol historically tied to empire and dominance.”

The Independent quoted a legal professor at Washington University who said, “I just think Putin would probably approve.”

The Post pointed out that the website Inktale.com sells merchandise with the same, or a very similar, version of the seal.

A notable difference that’s very clear on the Inktale version but harder to distinguish in the pictures of the Turning Point event is the banner normally held in the eagle’s mouth.

On the actual seal, that banner carries a traditional American motto, E Pluribus Unum, the Latin phrase meaning “out of many, one.”

The banner on the altered seal, however, read, “45 Es Un Titere,” meaning “45 is a puppet” in Spanish. Trump is the nation’s 45th president.

Related:
Mark Milley Fears He Will Face a Court-Martial When Trump Enters White House

Originally, some suggested the altered seal was the work of a prankster or a plant in the organization, or an audience managed to gain access to a projection system displaying images behind the president.

However, CNN reported Thursday that it was the result of a Google search gone wrong, according to someone familiar with the incident.

“One of our video team members did a Google Image search for a high-res png [file] presidential seal,” the source told CNN, adding that the individual “did the search and with the pressure of the event, didn’t notice that it is a doctored seal.”

Note: This piece has been updated to reflect reporting that the incident was an accident, not intentional sabotage as was originally reported.

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Josh Manning is a contributing editor at The Western Journal. He holds a masters in public policy from Harvard University and has a background in higher education. He recently co-authored Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden, the tell-all memoir of Lunden Roberts's tumultuous relationship with Hunter Biden and Stolen Valor: The Military Fraud and Government Failures of Tim Walz.
Josh Manning grew up outside of Memphis, TN and developed a love of history, politics, and government studies thanks to a life-changing history and civics teacher named Mr. McBride.

He holds an MPP from Harvard University and a BA from Lyon College, a small but distinguished liberal arts college where later in his career he served as an interim vice president.

While in school he did everything possible to confront, discomfit, and drive ivy league liberals to their knees.

After a number of years working in academe, he moved to digital journalism and opinion. Since that point, he has held various leadership positions at The Western Journal.

He's married to a gorgeous blonde who played in the 1998 NCAA women's basketball championship game, and he has two teens who hate doing dishes more than poison. He makes life possible for two boxers -- "Hank" Rearden Manning and "Tucker" Carlson Manning -- and a pitbull named Nikki Haley "Gracie" Manning.

He recently co-authored Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden, the tell-all memoir of Lunden Roberts's tumultuous relationship with Hunter Biden and Stolen Valor: The Military Fraud and Government Failures of Tim Walz.
Education
MPP from Harvard University, BA from Lyon College
Location
Arkansas
Languages Spoken
English, tiny fragments of college French
Topics of Expertise
Writing, politics, Christianity, social media curation, higher education, firearms




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