Spicer tweets out photo of Trump, advisers being briefed on U.S. airstrike on Syria

A photo purporting to show President Donald Trump huddled with advisers at what appears to be a makeshift Mar-a-Lago situation room during Thursday’s U.S. missile strikes in Syria was tweeted out by Sean Spicer on Friday. 

The photo quickly drew comparisons to the picture of then-President Barack Obama and White House officials watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2010. For example, they appear to have both been taken from a very similar angle. 

Mr. Trump is joined in the room by a mix of his top staffers. According to Spicer, the president and his team were being briefed via a video screen on the strikes by Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford. 

The people surrounding Mr. Trump in the room include both political aides and cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Also present are chief of staff Reince Priebus, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Joe Hagin, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, national security aide Michael Anton, Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and Spicer himself. 

Toward the back of the room sit chief strategist Steve Bannon and political aide Stephen Miller. Everyone in the room is staring directly at the screen, with the exception of Kushner, who appears to be glancing in Anton’s direction. 

The photo, Spicer said in his tweet, had been “[edited] for security.”