What’s in a photo op? Trump’s psychopathic corruption of American power.

By Michael Shaw

 

“Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

– Mary Howitt

Last week, Donald Trump dimmed the lights in the Oval Office and played a video montage claiming “genocide” against white South African farmers.

He thrust disinformation at President Cyril Ramaphosa—printouts from far-right blogs and sketchy sources, one featuring a Reuters screenshot from the Democratic Republic of Congo that claimed to show “white farmers being burned” in South Africa.

Ramaphosa sat through this propaganda with diplomatic composure, his delegation stacked with white South Africans who could counter Trump’s false narrative in real time.

This wasn’t diplomacy. It was theater of the absurd—the latest and most elaborate example of how Trump has transformed the Oval Office into a demon’s lair.

Like most predators, he understands the power of the controlled environment. There is a long history of hostile creatures enticing others into confined spaces to manipulate or destroy them. Think of the praying mantis, Black Widow spider, jungle cats mimicking cries, the Sirens, Circe, and infamous haunts like that of Hansel and Gretel’s witch or the Bates Motel. Both in fiction and reality, exploiters use their domains to orchestrate coercion and destruction, giving rise to idioms such as “entering the lion’s den” or “like lambs to slaughter.”

In his hands, the Oval Office has become such a platform—a setting for dominance where visitors enter in the name of diplomacy but find themselves entangled in a gladiatorial spectacle.

Setting the Stage

Trump’s transformation of the Oval Office begins with its basic dignity. He’s jammed a speaking podium into these intimate quarters, a jarring breach of presidential tradition that reduces America’s most hallowed political meeting ground to a cluttered soundstage.

The boom mikes themselves become props, positioned prominently in news photos and featured almost fetishistically on the Trump Flickr site, suggesting the world hangs on his every word. Beyond the staging mechanics, the suffocation extends to the gilded excess. He has crowded the room with gaudy gold appliqué, kitsch memorabilia, and a mantle overflowing with trophies.

Most ominously, he has mounted his infamous booking photo at the staff entrance—visible whenever the door opens. As I noted in “Trump’s Mugshot as White House Power Play,” this serves as both a badge of outlaw status and a warning to all who enter: this is where crime and power merge.

The Ambush Ritual

His signature move is the diplomatic ambush, drawing foreign leaders expecting a serious exchange into public humiliation. The February encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky established the template: cameras rolling, aggressive questioning, and deliberate efforts to corner a no longer guaranteed ally on Trump’s terms.

But the South African encounter showed evolution on both sides. Unlike Zelensky, Ramaphosa came prepared with counter-theater: white South African golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, plus businessman Johann Rupert—human props who could directly challenge Trump’s propaganda from personal experience.

When he deployed a multimedia arsenal—dimmed lights, video montages, printed “evidence”—Ramaphosa’s delegates struck back. Rupert contradicted Trump directly, noting that “it’s not only white farmers” who face crime, and that non-whites are the biggest victims. The South African agriculture minister added that most white farmers wanted to remain in the country.

This encounter represents a new phase: prey that has evolved defensive adaptations. Yet it also reveals Trump’s escalating bombardment, resorting to ever more tricked-out displays when his targets refuse his harassment.

Cornering the Press

He also turns his wolfish tactics on journalists. During the Bukele visit, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins came under attack when she questioned the illegal deportation of American citizen Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Bukele’s supermax prison.

Trump pounced, calling her a “very low-rated anchor” before she could complete her question.

The photo captures the gang-up in action. Stephen Miller’s face is hardened in spite while berating Collins, who stands just to his right. He affirms control with his raised hand, claiming CNN is “wanting criminals in the country” during an assault that would involve Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio—three senior officials piling on.

Throughout the confrontation, Bukele remained passive, occasionally nodding—his complicity clear. The message was unmistakable: the Oval Office rolls out the welcome mat for strongmen and autocrats while creating a treacherous environment for journalism.

Barricading the Door

Another staple of the administration’s contempt for the press has been physical exclusion. In defiance of a court order, AP photographer Alex Brandon was barred from the Bukele photo op—a method made crueler for its inconsistent enforcement as Trump punishes the AP for refusing to collude with his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

Entrapment – Systematic and Random

He deploys these methods not just systematically, but on the spur of the moment. In April, Governor Gretchen Whitmer traveled to Washington to seek federal assistance for disaster relief, infrastructure projects, and the impact of tariffs on the automotive industry.

Expecting a private meeting, she was instead thrust into one of those televised ordeals, this one featuring Trump signing executive orders while ranting again about the 2020 election being “rigged.” These often endless, impromptu press conferences—the arrangement of journalists, like supplicants before the Resolute desk—have become another prime feature of Oval Office oppression.

Caught completely off guard, Whitmer instinctively shielded her face with blue folders—a gesture that became an icon of the Oval Office as a political snare. The Whitmer image captures the essence of Trump’s predacious staging: even seasoned American officials can be caught in his web, their shaming immortalized for his satisfaction.

If Only the Sadism and Mirroring Were Just For Show

From the multimedia propaganda for Ramaphosa to the Collins barrage, from the mug shot’s looming presence to the trap set for Whitmer, the perverse transformation of America’s most powerful venue has become a battleground where Trump oversees brute displays of power.

It would be one thing if it were only theater. But it’s not.

The presentation is itself an act of sadism—to inflict pain, assert dominance, and feed Trump’s insatiable ego hunger. That explains his compulsion to pack the chamber with acolytes, to orchestrate hateful tableaus reminiscent of his beloved Ultimate Fighting Championships, to humiliate women who refuse to bend to his will. It’s his instinctual need to shrink the world into something small and smothering—a universe that breathlessly revolves around him alone.

That explains the podium wedged into the Oval Office, the endless press performances often with minions stacked behind him, and the perverse exploitation of journalists’ captive positioning, turning routine photo ops into prolonged ordeals that serve his whims more than his role.

His narcissism explains the one element countless articles about the decor of the Oval Office have consistently missed. The entry doors now feature gilded Rococo mirrors affixed to their backs, serving the dual purpose of allowing dear leader to bask in his reflection while creating a “hall of mirrors” effect to further disorient his victims.

In his first round as president, Trump figured out how to use the echo chamber of social media to gaslight us virtually 24/7. This time, he has leveraged the power of the right and his previous experience to effect that terror in physical terms. The Oval Office is both a setting of rage, threat, and damage and ground zero for his assault on democracy and the collective psyche.

The Oval Office has become a manifestation of Trump’s ultimate goal: not just to dominate his prey, but to shackle us all in the merciless chambers of his diseased mind.