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Saturday, November 21, 2020

Trump beams into virtual G20 summit as world leaders discuss COVID-19


By Mary Kay Linge

November 21, 2020 | 11:54am


World leaders, including President Trump, participate in a virtual G20 meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia today.Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images


President Trump took part in the first of two virtual meetings with world leaders Saturday as part of a coronavirus-throttled G20 summit — in what could be the last international gathering of his presidency.

Trump was set to beam in to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from the White House Situation Room for a meeting chaired by King Salman and attended by the leaders of 19 leading world economies. The international response to coronavirus was expected to be at the top of the agenda.

The lavish gathering that had been set for the Saudi capital was sharply curtailed in September due to the ongoing pandemic, which canceled the elaborate greeting ceremonies and fancy dinners that have become the norm for the annual days-long summit.

But organizers did not abandon the traditional “family photo” of the gathered heads of state.

Instead, they replicated the annual photo shoot by fashioning a collection of full-length pictures of the leaders into a composite image — with a grinning Trump in the first row — and projected the portrait on a wall in Riyadh Friday night.


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