The United States was gifted the ominous, glowing orb that became part of a viral meme that came out of President Trump’s first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia in early 2017.
Photos of Trump, Saudi King Salman, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi touching the orb, which Saudi media said was part of a ceremony that “officially activated” a welcome video to the foreign heads of state, prompted a stream of jokes online, with some noting the images looked like a gathering of villains enacting a sinister plot.
A new book titled, MBS, written by New York Times reporter Ben Hubbard, said after Trump departed Saudi Arabia an “orb, slightly used” appeared at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh.
“It sat in a hallway for a number of days, where diplomats passing by would pose for photos,” he wrote, adding that “the orb was hidden away in embassy storage” after “someone apparently worried that the photos would make their way online and cause a scandal.”
Hubbard wrote that the U.S. media’s response to the orb prompted the Saudi government to gift the orb to the U.S.
