About

Donald Trump's Presidential Seal refers to a doctored design of the presidential seal that was projected behind the president during the 2019 Student Action Teen Summit. The seal, created by Charles Leazzott, features golf clubs, a wad of cash, the motto "45 is a puppet" and a two-headed imperial bird from the Russian coat of arms to replace the eagle.

Origin

In 2016, graphic designer Charles Leazott created a doctored presidential seal for Donald Trump featuring golf clubs, a wad of cash, the motto "45 is a puppet" and a two-headed imperial bird from the Russian coat of arms to replace the eagle.^[3] The design was used for merchandise "dedicated to the cause of ensuring Donald Trump serves no more than one term as the President of the United States" as stated on his marketplace, OneTermDonnie^[1] (shown below).

Spread

On July 23rd, 2019, at the Teen Student Action Summit in Washington D.C., Trump unknowingly stood in front of the the doctored seal for a full minute (shown below). The seal was "accidentally" projected due to a rushed google search.

On July 25th, 2019, the Washington Post^[2] published an article on Turning Point's Teen Summit and, noticing the doctored seal, they reported that "Neither the White House nor Turning Point knew who created it. On Thursday morning, however, the conservative group announced it had fired the member of its video team who it says was responsible for displaying the fake seal." That day, Redditor Telecomteardown posted an image of the doctored seal to r/politicalhumor^[4] and gained over 22,600 points (86% upvoted) in a day (shown below, left). Twitter user @PalmerReport^[5] also mentioned the incident in a list of things that happened to Trump on July 25th (shown below, right). The tweet garnered over 6,800 likes and 1,900 shares in a day.

Various Examples

External References