New day, new viral pic of Donald Trump is trending and not for all the right reasons. The US President occupied a top spot on the list of headlines after a picture of him returning to the White House after spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida made its way to the online space.
One would wonder what’s wrong with the aforementioned photograph? However, once a section of the Internet decided to zoom in on the viral pic, it instantly became a controversy as users spotted the US flag lying on the ground of the lawn. An X user reshared the picture on X, writing, “The flag on the ground at the White House. Yikes!” The X post garnered a reply from Trump’s White House, via its Rapid Response 47 account on X.
Rapid Response 47 flagged the post as “More Fake News” and added in their X post, “The beautiful American Flag that was installed by President Trump never touched the ground. It was lowered into a special container out of an abundance of caution during the Marine One landing due to high winds.”
More Fake News. The beautiful American Flag that was installed by President Trump never touched the ground. It was lowered into a special container out of an abundance of caution during the Marine One landing due to high winds. https://t.co/nLFtNd5xT3
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 17, 2025
Trump’s White House, through its Rapid Response 47 X handle, also slammed a news outlet. They shared the same justification in the post and called the story “FAKE NEWS (as usual).”
Some X users seemed to buy the narrative, while others did not. “No container in that photo, and as usual, Trump really thought out the placement of the flagpole, just 1 of many things to be fixed when he moves out of the rental, worst tenant ever,” an X user argued.
Some more comments on the X post surfaced. “Looks like it’s on the ground to me. Prove it wasn’t,” read one of them. “Is the container in the room with us,” another asked. “And you thought putting it into a storage container was respectful,” a third questioned. “I guess the box is invisible,” another one wrote with a hint of sarcasm.
As soon as the viral photo surfaced on the Internet, netizens were quick to slam Trump right away. “He obviously doesn’t really care. He is all performance, all the time. Except when he is too tired to even try,” an X user wrote.
Flag Code violation and a very tired grandpa pic.twitter.com/zQldcseUE2
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) November 17, 2025
“Why is the flag on the ground?” another one questioned, and many others followed. A netizen summed up Trump’s Presidency with these words: “That pic pretty much sums it up.” Another user added, “Mentally and physically incompetent dementia patient being propped up by bad people in the WH.”
And some more comments filled up the space. “The blatant disrespect for our flag tells us everything we need to know,” read another one. Inputs from some more netizens – “Is that a metaphor for our time?” a netizen asked.
Some Internet users thought the fallen flag doubled up as a metaphor for Trump’s Presidential term. “Wow. Another perfect metaphor for this administration,” read one of the many comments. A similar comment on the X post read, “The metaphors are writing themselves.” Here’s what another user had to say: “Metaphor for the death of our republic. Will it rise, again?” and another comment on the X thread read, “There is no better metaphor for this administration.”
