On Friday, less than 24 hours after the Trump Administration launched a volley of Tomahawk missiles at Syria, Sean Spicer held an off-camera press conference to bring White House reporters up to speed. Naturally, the off-camera briefing was partially filmed, mockumentary style, and broadcast across America.
On CNN, Wolf Blitzer was interviewing correspondent Jeff Zeleny when he segued to the daily press briefing, awkwardly picking up Spicer mid-sentence. As per usual, Spicer was gruff and mildly irritated, but seemed unaware he was being filmed. Someone off-camera asked what to do with “the cameras” and Spicer said, without looking at them directly, “Off.” Repeating himself a few times, he then said, “Everything’s off,” and began recounting the timeline of Trump’s decision.
Wow: @PressSec insists that press briefing about Trump's 1st major military action be off camera. Forces the pool camera to stop filming him pic.twitter.com/qzZVj8TEG1
— CAP Action (@CAPAction) April 7, 2017
But CNN’s cameraman, like Warren Beatty on Oscar night or God on election night, had other plans. The cameraman, apparently in full-on no-fucks-given-mode, instead panned to the right and finally came to rest at what appeared to be a giant jar of cheeseballs.
https://twitter.com/embed/status/850395776794714116
As fun as it is dunking on Spicer’s routinely disastrous daily briefings, for once the mishap was only partially Spicer’s fault. What cameraman hears the word “off” and interprets it as “look somewhere else?” Or more specifically, “look at those cheeseballs?” We got your back, Sean. Also, your boss is on the precipice of sinking us in another costly, human rights catastrophe in the Middle East. Maybe focus on that for now? Thanks.
