“Wow, what a view!”: Trump paused an energy meeting to admire his ballroom renovations, and the internet turned it into a meme
An abrupt change of topic during an energy meeting hosted by Donald Trump has been turned into a green screen meme.
During Friday’s White House talks on energy policy, President Donald Trump briefly derailed the agenda. Instead of focusing on the meeting at hand, he stood up, walked to the door, and admired the renovations to the donor-funded ballroom that are underway. His bizarre interlude from the meeting he was supposed to be participating in was turned into a meme.
Trump paused an energy meeting to admire his "beautiful hall"
The viral scene took place during talks with oil company executives on Friday, Jan 9. While the room sat in silence, Trump raised his hand and stopped the discussion. "Wait a moment, I need to see my beautiful hall," he said.
Then he stood from his chair and walked toward the door. As he reached it, he stared into the space beyond. "Wow! What a view! This is the door to the hall," he declared.
The ballroom renovations are continuing despite the administration not receiving legal approval from Congress for renovations on the historic building, nor submitting the plans to the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts for review. Secretary Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance could be seen laughing with one another in the video.
Green screen edits took over timelines within hours
Soon after, the clip circulated online with a simple edit of a green screen where the windows should be, courtesy of meme creator @MurdoinkGS. Because the shot framed Trump looking out at the doorway, it invited easy edits. The template reached 3.1 million views, and it spread fast as the remixes poured in.
The most popular edit, created by @joesh*tposts, had a yellow blob smiley face figure with arms and legs and a large butt dancing outside the doorway as Trump watched and praised it. The video has over 5.6 million views and 5.3K retweets.
Other creators put classic viral scenes out the windows, while others put anime waifus in scenic landscapes, supermarket aisles, and other over-the-top scenes in the green-screened video.
As edits multiplied, views climbed into the millions in under 24 hours. While many jokes stayed light, the volume showed how quickly the format clicked as the doorway became a portal to anything people wanted to add to it.
@KrisDesChacals tweeted, "At this point, all you can do is laugh…????"
However, not everyone reacted warmly to what happened at the meeting that originated the meme template.
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat criticized the scene on X. "When will this tragic charade end?" she tweeted. "Hopefully, before he drags the country into the ground, which has happened many times with autocrats before…"
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