Amid breaking news of a US-Mexico trade deal, President Donald Trump invited reporters into the Oval Office on Monday to punctuate the moment in an unusual way: allowing them to sit in on a celebratory phone chat with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
But when he punched a button on a phone, the line was dead.
“Enrique?” President Trump said, with television cameras rolling. There was no response. “You can hook him up,” he called out to aides. “You tell me when. This is a big deal. A lot of people are waiting.”
The audience, including top White Houseadvisers and Mexican diplomats, would have to wait a bit longer.
“Hellooo,” the president tried again. “Do you want to put that on this phone please? Hellooo?” – before an aide finally took the receiver and patched President Peña Nieto through.
The awkward, real-time sequence in the Oval Office offered another example of Trump’s willingness to discard protocol and conduct his presidency like a reality show playing out in real time, conscripting those around him in service of the spectacle.
From hour-long Cabinet meetings broadcast live on cable television to White House events and campaign rallies in which he impulsively invites guests on stage to speak, President Trump has employed his showman’s mindset to cast those around him in bit parts for a never-ending series about himself.
“I thought we’d congratulate each other before it got out,” Mr Trump told President Peña Nieto.
Parts of the conversation were so stilted that it took on the air of a hastily arranged photo op. A translator tried to keep up with the Mexican leader’s Spanish, while Mr Peña Nieto promised Mr Trump, who doesn’t drink, a tequila toast.