Let's be real: They didn't even look alike.
President Donald Trump was taking questions at a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on Monday, as Business Insider reports, but had a brief bout of face-blindness when dealing with two members of the Finnish press. When Trump asked the Niinsisto to pick the last question, this happened:
Trump asks the Finnish president why he called on the same reporter twice, but they were different women. pic.twitter.com/JAala68MJ6
— Axios (@axios) August 28, 2017
Now, it's hard to tell if POTUS is making a joke here, since jokes he's tried to make in the past have frequently been super cringe-y. But the two women (and there were two of them) are Maria Annala and Paula Vilén — reporters for Finnish publications working the U.S. (Not one very fast blonde woman dominating the conference.)
Annala, however, managed to rescue the crowd from the awkward and made them laugh with her quick wit.
"We have a lot of blonde women in Finland," she said. Nice save!
Even though the two reporters were definitely blonde and definitely sitting next to each other, they were wearing totally different outfits —and don't have similar facial features. Like, at all. PBS News Hour correspondent Lisa Desjardins shared a photo of Annala and Vilén on Twitter shortly after:
THIS. The Finnish journalists @potus had trouble telling apart. They are def. 2 diff. people. So glad I met @maria_annala + @vilenpaula. pic.twitter.com/gthZWwiiJa
— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) August 28, 2017
And, yeah, #confirmed they aren't exactly doppelgangers. Not even close.
While it was probably an honest mistake, it never hurts to have a funny gaffe to soften a week of bad news.
