Random rich white men got to watch Donald Trump handle a major international crisis. Fun!
Over the weekend, a fun-loving guy named Richard DeAgazio went to party with President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, FL.
DeAgazio’s Twitter account describes him as a “Consultant, SAG Actor, entrepreneur, network marketer.” So he was definitely the perfect person to be in the room for a high-level security incident.
On Sunday, North Korean media heralded a weekend launch of that country’s Pukguksong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile—a “Korean style new type strategic weapon system”—as a success, sending world leaders scrambling to address this latest provocation from the aspiring nuclear power.
For President Trump, the launch meant an impromptu huddle with aides—in full view of the uber-wealthy patrons in attendance at the club, to say nothing, presumably, of the foreign workers staffing the dinner that night.
One of those uber-wealthy patrons? Our buddy Richard. He was all too eager to capture the magic of the scene.
“Wow! The center of the action!”
Yes, that’s a series of pictures of the President of the Unites States and the Japanese Prime Minister discussing a diplomatic crisis, taken by a total rando, who just happened to be standing nearby.
Rick also took some fun pics with the person charged with carrying the information needed for Trump to launch a nuclear attack. So…that happened too.
It gets worse.
According to CNN, and seemingly confirmed by DeAgazio’s snapshots: “the patio was lit only with candles and moonlight, so aides used the camera lights on their phones to help the stone-faced Trump and Abe read through the documents.”
As the Washington Post points out, that presents a potentially serious security problem, given the ability for international spy agencies to hack into mobile phones and hijack their cameras—cameras, in this case, which were pointed directly at documents pertaining to North Korean saber-rattling. What’s more, cell phone cybersecurity doesn’t seem to be high on the administration’s priority list, given the fact that as of at least last month, the president himself was still tweeting from an unsecured Android device.
Still, if there’s a single image that embodies the craziness of the evening, it’s this:
A chaotic scene, captured by an anonymous guest at the president’s exclusive club, in which everyone is scrambling to address a volatile international incident. Everyone, that is, except Trump—who sits perfectly still, preening for the camera.
Oh, and the next day he tweeted about Mark Cuban.
Fear not, though: Richard DeAgazio had a GREAT TIME.