A photograph tweeted out by White House press secretary Sean Spicer has given the world a look inside Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago “situation room”.

The president was at his Florida resort for talks with the Chinese president Xi Jinping when he gave approval for the launch of Tomahawk missiles aimed at one of Bashar al-Assad’s airbases in Syria.



Trump’s team in the situation room, annotated. Photograph: Shealah Craighead/Photoshot/Aval/ZUMAPRESS.com

After dinner on Thursday night, he crammed around a small table in the resort’s reportedly “freshly constructed” secure room for a briefing on the progress of the strike.

The image, released by Spicer on Friday, shows Trump sitting at a table with secretary of state Rex Tillerson, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, national security adviser HR McMaster, chief of staff Reince Priebus, special adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and others. Sitting on the sidelines is adviser Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and the sole woman in the group, deputy national security advisor Dina Powell. Spicer is also in shot, sitting alone in the corner, near the door.

The group was reportedly looking at a secure video feed of defence secretary Jim Mattis, vice president Mike Pence and others telling Trump that 58 of the 59 rockets launched had hit their targets.

The image of Trump and his team was instantly likened to the photograph of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and others watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

I wonder if the similarity to bin laden raid photo is intentional #SyriaStrikes pic.twitter.com/W6h69yGXOL — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 7, 2017

he soooooo wants to have a bin laden raid photo https://t.co/AeDsP10vhQ — Oliver Willis (@owillis) April 7, 2017

The photo was also pored over for clues as to who is in – and out – of the president’s favour.

Most noteworthy was the position of Kushner at Trump’s table and Bannon on the periphery. There were also questions over why so many economy-related aides were present including Ross, treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council. But that could probably be explained by the other business at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s meeting with Xi, where trade was high on the agenda.

why on earth is Mnuchin there? air strikes aren't exactly in the treasury brief https://t.co/ph358IN9JT — Nicky Woolf (@NickyWoolf) April 7, 2017

Part of what's striking is how few national security officials are in Trump's Syria photo.... https://t.co/zDxQE9QgAq — Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) April 7, 2017