July 28, 2018 03:51 PM UTC

Watch Where You're Putin That Thing!

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• by: Colorado Pols

SUNDAY UPDATE: Even Fox News picks up on the story.

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If you’ve been paying any attention to the news this weekend — anywhere in the world, apparently — you’ve probably heard about a prank at the State Capitol on Thursday involving a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin that appeared near a space where a likeness of President Trump might eventually be placed.

Here’s CNN’s version of the story:

Visitors to the gallery of US presidents in the Colorado state Capitol could be excused if they did a double take this week.

There, displayed near paintings of George W. Bush and Barack Obama and in a space set aside for President Donald Trump, was a portrait of a very different president: Vladimir Putin.

According to the group that funds the portraits, the mug of the Russian leader was placed in Trump’s would-be spot by an unknown prankster Thursday morning. It was discovered during a tour.

This might not have happened but for one problem: The state hasn’t raised the $10,000 needed for a Trump portrait, leaving an empty spot on the third-floor rotunda in Denver.

Colorado Citizens for Culture, an arts-advocacy group that collects donations for the paintings, said that before the Putin prank it had raised exactly $0 for Trump’s portrait. Since news of the stunt spread, two donors had chipped in a total of $45 by midday Saturday.

The Putin portrait was on display at the State Capitol for a brief period of time on Thursday. The story was first reported by 9News, one day after a story from Fox 31 in Denver that was all about the absence of a President Trump portrait under the Golden Dome. The 9News story referenced the photo above from the Twitter account of state Sen. Steve Fenberg, whose aide apparently snapped a pic of the portrait before it was removed by a State Capitol tour guide.

The 9News story was picked up in a couple of places on Friday, most notably in The Huffington Post, but it absolutely exploded in the last 24 hours; it has since gone viral across the globe, with stories from The Associated Press (published in the New York Times and at ABC News, among others), McClatchy Newspapers, The Hill, and The Guardian (UK). You can even read about the Putin portrait in Italian. Just Google “Putin Colorado” and you’ll see what we mean.

The Russian news outlet RT.com also caught wind of the story, adding this unintentionally-hilarious line at the end of their report:

It also remains to be seen whether the case sparks more collusion theories in the US.

The extensive news coverage prompted another Tweet from Fenberg on Saturday:

If only I got this much press for my bills last session… https://t.co/6niCaY4x3w

— Steve Fenberg (@SteveFenberg) July 28, 2018

Meanwhile, the Putin portrait has been the subject of much consternation among Colorado Republicans, who aired their bizarre complaints on social media in full humorless snowflake mode.

This was obviously a joke, and we dare say, a good one at that.