UPDATE: Donald Trump Takes Office as the 47th US President
- Thread starter DC_Dude
- Start date
Media
Eric Mack, Fox News
Published Aug. 13, 2026, 3:14 p.m. ET
174 Comments
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Add The New York Post on Google
A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who carried the nuclear “football” for former President Bill Clinton says the extraordinary Air Force One shell game departing Ankara, Turkey, last month to protect President Donald Trump from a potential attack was hardly unprecedented.
“It was brilliant,” retired Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson told Fox News Digital. “I wish I had been a part of it. That’s how well done it was.”
But Patterson is warning that exposing the vital national security secrets behind such operations could put presidents, military personnel and the White House press corps in danger for years to come.
Patterson served as Clinton’s senior military aide for a period of two years and was responsible for the president’s emergency satchel, and in a 20-minute interview Wednesday, he explained how presidential decoys, aircraft swaps and other acts of deception are longstanding tools used to protect the commander in chief, his senior officials and the “privileged” Air Force One press corps.
What alarms him, Patterson said, is not that Trump’s security team used the tactic — including the catering truck sleight of hand he was intimately a part of during the Clinton administration — but that details of how it was done are now spilling into public view.
“I hope that they prosecute this to the fullest,” Patterson said. “Whoever leaked that, in my opinion, and having been involved in this, was highly placed in that process.”
9
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson, who carried the nuclear “football” for former President Bill Clinton, warns that exposing national security secrets behind Air Force One operations could put lives in danger.Fox News Digital
“There’s only a few people who actually know exactly what’s going down, and that’s by design,” he added. “So if somebody leaked it, it was somebody involved in the process, and that scares the hell out of me.”
His warning comes as Fox News reported Wednesday that the legacy presidential 747 used as a decoy after Trump secretly switched planes in Ankara, Turkey, last month was not sent into the sky unprotected.
A senior Trump administration official told Fox News that U.S. fighter jets protected the aircraft on its flight to the United Kingdom. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were also aboard with members of the traveling press corps, according to the official. Reporters had been instructed to keep their window shades closed.
Patterson said the fighter escort was exactly the sort of protection he would expect in a high-threat environment.
9
What alarms him, Patterson said, is not that Trump’s security team used the tactic — including the catering truck sleight of hand he was intimately a part of during the Clinton administration — but that details of how it was done are now spilling into public view.Fox News Digital
9
President Bill Clinton waves farewell before boarding “Air Force One” to leave Nashville for Europe on Jan. 12, 1996.USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
“Yes, especially into war zones,” Patterson said when asked whether presidential aircraft are customarily escorted by fighter jets in such circumstances.
“We damn sure always do when we’re going to a theater of high threat,” he said. “We did it with President Clinton in ’97. And we did it with Trump just a couple weeks ago, and we’ll do it with whoever the next president is.”
Enter your email address
By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Trump publicly boarded the familiar blue-and-white presidential 747 before being moved out of sight in an airport catering vehicle and transferred to a smaller Air Force C-32A. The legacy 747 then departed for Britain while Trump traveled separately. He later reunited with the presidential aircraft in the United Kingdom before continuing his journey aboard the newer, Qatari-donated 747.
Trump said Tuesday that he was following the direction of the Secret Service and the military.
Patterson said the broader concept of confusing potential attackers about the president’s movements is routine.
9
Catering trucks are parked at Air Force One on the tarmac before U.S. President Donald Trump departs following the NATO summit on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Ankara International Airport in Ankara, Turkey.AP Photo/Alex Brandon
“We use decoys all the time,” he said. “We use decoy in the motorcade routes.”
“You’ll sometimes see the two beasts will switch out under bridges and overpasses. We do the same thing with airplanes, especially in international trips. There’s always two Air Force Ones that go. Obviously, one’s a decoy, and it’s also a spare for spare parts in case something happens to the primary.
“So we’ve been doing it for years.
“It works,” he added, “and for people to want to have visibility into actually how it works would be particularly troubling, and it would cause reverberations in our American system for years.”
That is why, he argued, demands to expose the mechanics of the latest operation risk doing more damage than the public scrutiny is worth.
9
President Trump secretly departed Turkey on a separate military flight in response to a threat from Iran on July 8 in Ankara, Turkey.AP
Patterson said the protections are intended not merely for Trump, Clinton or any individual president, but to ensure continuity of the presidency itself.
“President Trump’s only got two more years,” he said. “These programs are going to be in place for the foreseeable future, and they’ve been in place in our past for quite a while. So it’s not just about Trump. These programs exist to protect no matter who the president is and the team around him.”
Patterson, who is a conservative and outspoken New York Times bestselling author highly critical of the man he carried the nuclear football for, warned that divisive politics against Trump is dangerous for U.S. national security.
“Like I was with President Clinton — I wasn’t a huge President Clinton fan, but they hired me into that position, the White House did — and I swore an oath to the office of the presidency, and I did it,” Patterson said. “And I think that the people that are working for President Trump right now, whether they like him or don’t like him, or agree with his politics or don’t agree with this politics, they have to understand that we’re there — the Secret Service guys, the apparatus is there — to protect the human being and the office.”
Patterson also revealed that Trump was not the first president he knew of to use an airport catering vehicle as part of a clandestine movement: “As far as I know, President Clinton was the first one to do it.”
Decades before Trump was moved between aircraft in Ankara, Patterson said a catering truck was used to discreetly move Clinton aboard a presidential aircraft during an episode that was never publicly reported at the time.
“I won’t go into a lot of detail, but, President Clinton was incapable of going up the front steps,” he said. “So we used a catering truck to get them onto the back of the airplane, unbeknownst to anybody else that was there except for a few of us. And we never told anybody and nobody ever reported it.”
“And we flew back to D.C. kind of unannounced. And we’ve done it before. I was on with President Clinton in 1997 when we did the surprise visit to Bosnia. So he went to Bosnia on Christmas Eve to surprise the troops. So we didn’t tell anybody then. I was all on that trip the entire way, 36 hours nonstop that day. And we didn’t tell anybody, and the press didn’t know, and they never complained about it.
“And it was important. We wanted to get President Clinton into a war zone without anybody else knowing about it. And that’s kind of what was happening to Trump. They wanted to him out of a potential war zone, without anybody knowing about it.
“We do it all the time. It’s safe, it’s reliable, and the public does not need to know.”
9
U.S. President Donald Trump boards the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, Britain, on Wednesday, July 8, 2026.REUTERS
Past presidents have repeatedly used secrecy and deception for travel into dangerous areas. Clinton used decoy aircraft during a 2000 trip to Pakistan, while subsequent presidents have made covert or tightly held trips to Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine. The precise circumstances and level of knowledge afforded to traveling reporters have differed between administrations.
He noted that the aircraft was carrying not only journalists but an Air Force crew and senior government officials — and, as Fox News has now reported, was protected by fighter aircraft.
“We’re not going to put those people at risk either,” Patterson said flatly of the Air Force personnel.
He argued that some of the media criticism has lost sight of the wider security apparatus involved in presidential travel.
9
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters mid-flight in the press cabin of the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One after changing planes to return to Washington from RAF Mildenhall, Britain, on Wednesday, July 8, 2026.REUTERS
“A lot of what is being spouted on social media and in our mainstream media is factually incorrect,” Patterson said, “and it’s actually troubling because it’s going to endanger not only President Trump, but future presidents to come.”
Patterson called efforts to expose the procedures “incredibly dangerous” and “irresponsible.”
The danger, he said, extends beyond the president.
“It endangers everybody in the process — Secret Service guys, military aide guys, Air Force guys that are on alert, Army guys that are on alert,” Patterson said.
The retired officer said presidential protection plans are deliberately compartmentalized so that very few people know the full operation.
9
A timeline of Donald Trump’s catering truck. (Donald Pearsall / NY Post Design)Donald Pearsall / NY Post Design
That is what makes the source of the disclosures particularly concerning to him.
If the tactics become predictable, he argued, planners would have to devise entirely new security procedures.
“If we were to expose everything, we would have to overhaul the entire security apparatus of the United States of America,” Patterson said, warning that doing so could put “the presidency and the Cabinet members in incredible danger.”
9
Members of the White House press pool board Air Force One on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Ankara Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey.REUTERS
Asked whether overexposing such programs could effectively prevent Trump or future presidents from making some high-risk overseas trips, Patterson agreed.
“That’s correct,” he said.
For Patterson, that makes the argument over the Trump flight bigger than one president, one press corps or one flight out of Turkey.
174
What do you think? Post a comment.
The tactics being publicly dissected today, he warned, may be the same ones needed to save a future president — and everyone traveling with that president — tomorrow.
“We just need to leave them alone,” Patterson said.
Man who carried Clinton nuclear ‘football’ reveals what ‘scares the hell out of me’ about Trump’s Air Force One story
ByEric Mack, Fox News
Published Aug. 13, 2026, 3:14 p.m. ET
174 Comments
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Add The New York Post on Google
Originally Published by:
- President Trump announces Karoline Leavitt will leave press secretary role
- Trump not surprised by Secret Service decision to switch planes amid alleged Iranian plot
- Trump White House has ‘huge shoes to fill’ as Karoline Leavitt exits
A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who carried the nuclear “football” for former President Bill Clinton says the extraordinary Air Force One shell game departing Ankara, Turkey, last month to protect President Donald Trump from a potential attack was hardly unprecedented.
“It was brilliant,” retired Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson told Fox News Digital. “I wish I had been a part of it. That’s how well done it was.”
But Patterson is warning that exposing the vital national security secrets behind such operations could put presidents, military personnel and the White House press corps in danger for years to come.
Patterson served as Clinton’s senior military aide for a period of two years and was responsible for the president’s emergency satchel, and in a 20-minute interview Wednesday, he explained how presidential decoys, aircraft swaps and other acts of deception are longstanding tools used to protect the commander in chief, his senior officials and the “privileged” Air Force One press corps.
What alarms him, Patterson said, is not that Trump’s security team used the tactic — including the catering truck sleight of hand he was intimately a part of during the Clinton administration — but that details of how it was done are now spilling into public view.
“I hope that they prosecute this to the fullest,” Patterson said. “Whoever leaked that, in my opinion, and having been involved in this, was highly placed in that process.”
9Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson, who carried the nuclear “football” for former President Bill Clinton, warns that exposing national security secrets behind Air Force One operations could put lives in danger.Fox News Digital
“There’s only a few people who actually know exactly what’s going down, and that’s by design,” he added. “So if somebody leaked it, it was somebody involved in the process, and that scares the hell out of me.”
His warning comes as Fox News reported Wednesday that the legacy presidential 747 used as a decoy after Trump secretly switched planes in Ankara, Turkey, last month was not sent into the sky unprotected.
A senior Trump administration official told Fox News that U.S. fighter jets protected the aircraft on its flight to the United Kingdom. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were also aboard with members of the traveling press corps, according to the official. Reporters had been instructed to keep their window shades closed.
Patterson said the fighter escort was exactly the sort of protection he would expect in a high-threat environment.
9What alarms him, Patterson said, is not that Trump’s security team used the tactic — including the catering truck sleight of hand he was intimately a part of during the Clinton administration — but that details of how it was done are now spilling into public view.Fox News Digital
9President Bill Clinton waves farewell before boarding “Air Force One” to leave Nashville for Europe on Jan. 12, 1996.USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
“Yes, especially into war zones,” Patterson said when asked whether presidential aircraft are customarily escorted by fighter jets in such circumstances.
“We damn sure always do when we’re going to a theater of high threat,” he said. “We did it with President Clinton in ’97. And we did it with Trump just a couple weeks ago, and we’ll do it with whoever the next president is.”
Start your day with all you need to know
Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.Enter your email address
By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
‘We use decoys all the time’
Trump’s July 8 departure from the NATO summit in Ankara involved a carefully staged deception.Trump publicly boarded the familiar blue-and-white presidential 747 before being moved out of sight in an airport catering vehicle and transferred to a smaller Air Force C-32A. The legacy 747 then departed for Britain while Trump traveled separately. He later reunited with the presidential aircraft in the United Kingdom before continuing his journey aboard the newer, Qatari-donated 747.
Trump said Tuesday that he was following the direction of the Secret Service and the military.
Patterson said the broader concept of confusing potential attackers about the president’s movements is routine.
9Catering trucks are parked at Air Force One on the tarmac before U.S. President Donald Trump departs following the NATO summit on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Ankara International Airport in Ankara, Turkey.AP Photo/Alex Brandon
“We use decoys all the time,” he said. “We use decoy in the motorcade routes.”
“You’ll sometimes see the two beasts will switch out under bridges and overpasses. We do the same thing with airplanes, especially in international trips. There’s always two Air Force Ones that go. Obviously, one’s a decoy, and it’s also a spare for spare parts in case something happens to the primary.
“So we’ve been doing it for years.
“It works,” he added, “and for people to want to have visibility into actually how it works would be particularly troubling, and it would cause reverberations in our American system for years.”
That is why, he argued, demands to expose the mechanics of the latest operation risk doing more damage than the public scrutiny is worth.
9President Trump secretly departed Turkey on a separate military flight in response to a threat from Iran on July 8 in Ankara, Turkey.AP
Patterson said the protections are intended not merely for Trump, Clinton or any individual president, but to ensure continuity of the presidency itself.
“President Trump’s only got two more years,” he said. “These programs are going to be in place for the foreseeable future, and they’ve been in place in our past for quite a while. So it’s not just about Trump. These programs exist to protect no matter who the president is and the team around him.”
Patterson, who is a conservative and outspoken New York Times bestselling author highly critical of the man he carried the nuclear football for, warned that divisive politics against Trump is dangerous for U.S. national security.
“Like I was with President Clinton — I wasn’t a huge President Clinton fan, but they hired me into that position, the White House did — and I swore an oath to the office of the presidency, and I did it,” Patterson said. “And I think that the people that are working for President Trump right now, whether they like him or don’t like him, or agree with his politics or don’t agree with this politics, they have to understand that we’re there — the Secret Service guys, the apparatus is there — to protect the human being and the office.”
Clinton’s own catering truck maneuver
See Also
Stunning details emerge of Trump’s catering-truck escape from Turkey — as he ditched Air Force One to con Iran
Patterson also revealed that Trump was not the first president he knew of to use an airport catering vehicle as part of a clandestine movement: “As far as I know, President Clinton was the first one to do it.”
Decades before Trump was moved between aircraft in Ankara, Patterson said a catering truck was used to discreetly move Clinton aboard a presidential aircraft during an episode that was never publicly reported at the time.
“I won’t go into a lot of detail, but, President Clinton was incapable of going up the front steps,” he said. “So we used a catering truck to get them onto the back of the airplane, unbeknownst to anybody else that was there except for a few of us. And we never told anybody and nobody ever reported it.”
“And we flew back to D.C. kind of unannounced. And we’ve done it before. I was on with President Clinton in 1997 when we did the surprise visit to Bosnia. So he went to Bosnia on Christmas Eve to surprise the troops. So we didn’t tell anybody then. I was all on that trip the entire way, 36 hours nonstop that day. And we didn’t tell anybody, and the press didn’t know, and they never complained about it.
“And it was important. We wanted to get President Clinton into a war zone without anybody else knowing about it. And that’s kind of what was happening to Trump. They wanted to him out of a potential war zone, without anybody knowing about it.
“We do it all the time. It’s safe, it’s reliable, and the public does not need to know.”
9U.S. President Donald Trump boards the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, Britain, on Wednesday, July 8, 2026.REUTERS
Past presidents have repeatedly used secrecy and deception for travel into dangerous areas. Clinton used decoy aircraft during a 2000 trip to Pakistan, while subsequent presidents have made covert or tightly held trips to Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine. The precise circumstances and level of knowledge afforded to traveling reporters have differed between administrations.
‘Incredibly dangerous’ to expose the playbook
Patterson pushed back against criticism that Trump’s operation improperly endangered the reporters and officials who continued aboard the legacy presidential aircraft.He noted that the aircraft was carrying not only journalists but an Air Force crew and senior government officials — and, as Fox News has now reported, was protected by fighter aircraft.
“We’re not going to put those people at risk either,” Patterson said flatly of the Air Force personnel.
He argued that some of the media criticism has lost sight of the wider security apparatus involved in presidential travel.
9U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters mid-flight in the press cabin of the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One after changing planes to return to Washington from RAF Mildenhall, Britain, on Wednesday, July 8, 2026.REUTERS
“A lot of what is being spouted on social media and in our mainstream media is factually incorrect,” Patterson said, “and it’s actually troubling because it’s going to endanger not only President Trump, but future presidents to come.”
Patterson called efforts to expose the procedures “incredibly dangerous” and “irresponsible.”
The danger, he said, extends beyond the president.
“It endangers everybody in the process — Secret Service guys, military aide guys, Air Force guys that are on alert, Army guys that are on alert,” Patterson said.
The retired officer said presidential protection plans are deliberately compartmentalized so that very few people know the full operation.
9A timeline of Donald Trump’s catering truck. (Donald Pearsall / NY Post Design)Donald Pearsall / NY Post Design
That is what makes the source of the disclosures particularly concerning to him.
Patterson says exposure could make future war-zone trips impossible
Patterson warned there could also be a longer-term cost to revealing too much about presidential deception tactics: Future commanders in chief could lose the ability to make surprise visits to troops or enter high-threat regions at all.If the tactics become predictable, he argued, planners would have to devise entirely new security procedures.
“If we were to expose everything, we would have to overhaul the entire security apparatus of the United States of America,” Patterson said, warning that doing so could put “the presidency and the Cabinet members in incredible danger.”
9Members of the White House press pool board Air Force One on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Ankara Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey.REUTERS
Asked whether overexposing such programs could effectively prevent Trump or future presidents from making some high-risk overseas trips, Patterson agreed.
“That’s correct,” he said.
For Patterson, that makes the argument over the Trump flight bigger than one president, one press corps or one flight out of Turkey.
174
What do you think? Post a comment.
The tactics being publicly dissected today, he warned, may be the same ones needed to save a future president — and everyone traveling with that president — tomorrow.
“We just need to leave them alone,” Patterson said.
Niggas worship these sand honkies . Free Palestine bullshitDSA has a race problem
The Arab v. Black collision
Greg Palast
Aug 13, 2026
“I can distinctly remember reporting on a number of Arabic men that willingly referred to Kamala Harris as all kind of b*****s and horrible, horrible names, horrible, horrible opinions.”
— Cleopatra Draper, WVON, “Voice of the Black Community”
A rally for Democratic Socialist candidate for governor, Francesca Hong, Wisconsin.
African-American radio host Cleopatra Draper is worried. The victory of Democratic Socialist Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic primary for US Senate has revealed a growing political schism between Black and Arabic voters. According to the Cook Report, Stevens led El-Sayed by about 8 percentage points in counties with higher Black populations, while El-Sayed underperformed in traditional African-American strongholds like Detroit.
And yesterday in Wisconsin, Francesca Hong, the gubernatorial candidate of the Democratic Socialists of America, was upset in her primary race by David Crowley, the African-American County Executive of the Black township known as Milwaukee.
WVON’s Draper saw this backlash coming. She told me, “The videos that came out of Michigan of Arabic men and how they felt about Kamala Harris was heart-wrenching.”
Uh, oh. It’s not the Mideast conflict that is splitting up the Democratic Party, it’s the Midwest conflict between Black and Arab voters, a division promoted by new friends of the Muslim community, higher-income white progressives.
There are coastal variants. In New York, the DSA celebrated its defeat of five-term Democratic Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in the 13th Congressional District. Way to go, DSA! A brilliant redux of the GOP Tea Party insurgency.
Palast discusses the DSA’s race problem on WVON’s Cleopatra Show.
And then there’s the DSA heartthrob William Lawrence, who won the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s 7thCongressional. Lawrence said that, “Black political leadership are a pillar, frankly, for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power … It really defangs the White Left.” Yep, they really do some pretty good de-fanging. Ever ask WHY?
Lawrence doesn’t have to worry, though. His district, which takes in yuppie-heavy Michigan State college towns, is 81.6% white, allowing Lawrence to write off the tiny 5.5% of voters who are African-American.
Look, I don’t have a dog in this race. But most Americans do. As my guru Jello Biafra would say, these midterm races could be bedtime for democracy. I take my journalist’s non-partisanship very seriously. But I am permitted to take note of the Dems’ preference for circular firing squads.
Back to the question DSA’s Lawrence didn’t ask. WHY do Black and Hispanic leaders “defang” the Left? WVON host Draper says: “I was watching some of the reporting from Black men in Michigan that did not feel confident that El-Sayed could be the victor, and they just wanted a safe bet.”
[Listen to Draper and Palast on WVON’sThe Cleopatra Show.]
Why would Black men go “safe”? Because, as De La Soul explained,“Stakes is high.”
College students and gentry in Madison and Ann Arbor may worry more about Gaza than about food stamps and state employee pensions. I get that. They’re entitled to their opinions. (Emphasis on “entitled.”)
Mandela Barnes campaigning for Governor of Wisconsin in 2026. Photo courtesy of the Mandela campaign.
But I admit to some shock that DSA pushed former Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes out of the Governor’s race. I know Barnes well and for the life of me, I don’t see him as less progressive than DSA’s Hong, except that the soft-spoken, but militant Black man — an auto worker’s son — did not think the State of Wisconsin needed its own foreign policy.
As a kid in my twenties, I had a disagreement with my bud Jesse Jackson, who, though a democratic socialist at heart, pushed Black Capitalism. Reverend had a sophisticated Marxian analysis that in capitalist America, Black folk first need to get some capital to get in the game.
In 2016, to Hillary Clinton’s chagrin, Jackson stuck with Bernie Sanders all the way through the 2016 Convention. But Reverend hadn’t the least question about how he would vote in the general election — for Clinton — given the danger of Trump to his community. Opposing Jackson, some of my Hollywood friends joined up with Bernie or Bust and walked away from the election. So, I ask my friends, How’s bust treating you?
As a statistician (a grim business, nailed to facts), I calculate that the massive Arab community vote for Jill Stein in Michigan handed the state to Trump in both 2016 and 2024. This is based on the findings of the Council on American-Islamic Relations that, for example, in 2024, 59% of Michigan Muslims voted for Stein, the Green Party candidate, while Kamala Harris won only a dismal 14%, half the number of Muslim voters who backed Trump.
Now you see why WVON’s Draper warned that the Muslim rejection of Harris, a Black woman, would create lasting animosity. “I don’t see how you come back from that.”
Palast’s Wisconsin purge report, issued in 2020 by Black Voters Matter.
It’s not a question of political positioning — it’s political suicide for progressives to target “establishment” Black and Hispanic leadership. These leaders were chosen by their communities, not because they have passed a policy purity test, but because they can deliver and protect the life-and-death services for those not born on the sunny side of the privilege line.
In 2020, Black Voters Matter Fund issued my report showing that the state was illegally purging tens of thousands of voters from the rolls. Almost all of those who lost their rights were either Black voters in Milwaukee or students in Madison. In other words, these two Democratic demographics are being strangled in the same electoral noose. So, Dems, listen to the wisdom of a great community organizer, Benjamin Franklin, who said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Are progressives conducting a long-overdue purge of the Democratic Party’s ideological weaklings or creating an ugly racial, religious, class divide?
I can’t say. All I know is, stakes is high.
Greg Palast, former adjunct professor of statistics at Indiana University, Gary, will release his series of video reels, Jim Crow Reloaded, next month, as part of voting rights groups’ Save Your Vote campaign. Palast’s opinions are his own. But you know that.
Lmbaooooooo torched that honky
White House gifts Marco Rubio framed ‘Rubio realizing’ meme collage for his 55th birthday — and it’s beautiful
By
Chris Nesi
Published Aug. 13, 2026, 12:52 p.m. ET
389 Comments
Marco Rubio admits he ‘hated’ viral couch photo before memes took off
Add The New York Post on Google
This is Marco Rubio realizing he’s never going to live this down.
The beloved Secretary of State was gifted an epic collage of his most viral “Rubio realizing” memes for his 55th birthday — featuring fan favorites of the country’s top diplomat dressed as an Iranian ayatollah and a “Star Wars” rebel on the ice planet Hoth.
The White House presented the hilarious gift to the unabashed rap aficionado in May — but it only came to light Wednesday thanks to a now-viral tweet from Axios reporter Marc Caputo.
The golden-framed mosaic features 68 individual panels depicting him in various roles — from Robocop to astronaut to the White House Easter bunny — and is signed by administration officials including the president, who wrote “You are great” in gold ink right above his signature.
Rubio has famously worn many hats as one of Trump’s Cabinet members — in addition to secretary of state, he also serves as acting national security advisor. At some point, he was also acting archivist and acting administrator of the US Agency for International Development.
The famous photo that spawned nearly endless variants — and even an online “museum” archive — depicts Rubio sitting awkwardly on an Oval Office couch.
The snapshot was taken Feb. 28 of last year when the president, Vice President JD Vance and top cabinet officials met with Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss an agreement to share the country’s mineral resources as a method of offsetting the US’ investment into its war with Russia.
In every altered photo, Rubio’s interlocked fingers and deflated expression remain unchanged, imbuing the meme with a layer of comic reluctance for each new job he’s suddenly realizing is now his responsibility.
Previous
1of6
Next
The meme closely tracked global events, both in the real and fantastical realm, and each time a new “job” became available, it wouldn’t be long before a new “Marco Rubio Realizing” meme made its debut.
Over the meme’s lifespan, Rubio on the couch has been depicted as the governor of Greenland, the shah of Iran, the pope and a slew of other occupations.
When the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier’s toilets failed in March, Rubio appeared on the couch as a plumber, plunger in hand.
After beleaguered Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced he wouldn’t seek re-election, there Rubio was in full bright-orange hunting blaze, complete with a shotgun, mimicking the Democrat’s infamous 2024 presidential campaign photoshoot in which he appeared to struggle loading a shotgun while hoping to burnish his rugged outdoorsmen credentials.
389
What do you think? Post a comment.
Shortly after the US captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, Rubio appeared wearing a sash adorned with the nation’s flag and gilded accents on the cuffs and collar of a high-ranking military leader, with a gold-handled saber at his side.
Rubio told Lara Trump in a recent interview on Fox News that at first he “hated” the viral meme, but has come to find it funny. He said his slumped posture in the picture was the result of there being no pillow behind his back, which caused him to sink into the couch.
Similar threads
