Obama-era White House photographer Pete Souza delivered a scathing response to President Donald Trump’s palling around with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on Friday.
Trump sparked anger after he joked with his Russian counterpart about election meddling and getting “rid” of journalists.
Souza showed his displeasure at the exchange on Instagram, where he shared his 2014 picture of former President Barack Obama talking with Putin at the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France.
“Given what just transpired between Comrade minus and Vladimir Putin, I thought it would be a stark reminder to post this photograph again,” Souza captioned the image, below:
“The shot shows the kind of interaction President Obama had with President Putin during his tenure,” Souza told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in February, and was taken during a “particularly tense time between the two countries.”
“You can see in the facial expressions and gestures that this was a very serious conversation,” added the photographer, who frequently uses the pictures he took covering Obama’s time in office to take shots at the Trump administration.
“There are interpreters stood behind them, but I get the impression from Putin’s face that he understood exactly what was being said in English,” he added.
Souza told the Guardian he couldn’t recall “specifically” what was said, but it was about “some of Russia’s actions in the world.”