How a Photographer Caught President Trump’s Note from Secretary Rubio
An AP news photographer captured the remarkable moment President Donald Trump was passed a note by Secretary of State Marco Rubio informing him peace in the Middle East was close.
Photographer Evan Vucci was covering a “typical roundtable event” at the White House when he noticed Secretary Rubio hovering at the back of the room. “President Trump invited him to come over and sit,” Vucci says. “Usually, he has a very calm demeanor, and for some reason he seemed in a hurry.”
Vucci’s photojournalist instincts kicked in and he realized that something was happening in that room. “Our job is to always pay attention to things that seem out of place,” he adds.
Vucci kept his eyes on Rubio and noticed that he had grabbed a notepad to write on, so he kept his lens trained on him. In the blink of an eye, Rubio ripped the paper from the pad so that it was briefly visible to the room. Somehow, Vucci captured that millisecond moment.
After Rubio passed the handwritten note to Trump, he stood up and whispered in his ear. “I knew immediately that whatever that note said was going to be important. So I went to my files and I looked through it and right there, I could see what he had written to the president and it ended up becoming huge news.”
“Very close,” the note read. “We need you to approve a Truth Social post soon so you can announce deal first.”
Shortly afterward, Trump did indeed post to Truth Social saying that “ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.”
Vucci, a veteran photojournalist, says that he tells budding news photographers that the job requires them to not only cover what is happening in front of them, but also to pay close attention to what’s going on around them.
“Any time that something is out of the ordinary, something just doesn’t fit right, or your photographer spidey-sense goes off, pay attention to that, and trust your gut,” he says. “I trusted my gut, and I was able to capture a pretty cool moment just because I knew that what was happening was a little bit different.”
Last year, Vucci captured the dramatic photograph showing Trump surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, PA.
