The “plaid shirt guy” at the Trump rally Thursday night in Billings, Montana, was an instant social media hit.
Standing directly behind President Trump during his 75-minute rant was a plaid-clad young man, at times flashing incredulous, mocking faces directly to the camera as the president incoherently blustered about his critics.
Then he was tossed out of the rally while Trump continued speaking.
That viral sensation is Tyler Linfesty, 17, a Billings-area high-school student who said his moment in the spotlight came about entirely by chance.
“I was randomly chosen” to stand behind Trump, he told the Daily Beast. “When people signed up to go to the rally, their names were placed into a draw and I was chosen. Because I won, I got an opportunity to meet the president.”
Linfesty said he shook hands with Trump during a photo opportunity and was then placed in the stands along with two friends.
At one point, during the president’s predictable soliloquy on defeating Clinton in 2016—here, awkwardly claiming the electoral college is like running a mile while the popular vote, which Clinton won, is just a 100-yard dash—Linfesty was seen amusedly looking around, muttering to himself, “What?!”
He flashed a Jim Halpert-like grin and chuckle to the camera when Trump randomly boasted of “knocking the hell out of the terrorists.” He let out a similar look of disbelief when Trump said “our country is thriving.”
And when the president claimed he’s “picked up a lot of support” in his fight against the so-called Deep State, a puzzled Linfesty raised his eyebrows and mouthed to himself, “You have?!”
But none of these reactions were planned attempts to gain attention, Linfesty said. “When he said something crazy, I thought ‘Wow that’s crazy,’ and when he said something I thought was reasonable I thought, ‘well, that’s reasonable.’”
But after enough time had passed with Linfesty’s facial reactions and lack of rapturous applause for the president, Trump’s advance team sent out a replacement, removing him his perch directly behind the president.
A woman in a black blouse approached Linfesty as Trump kept talking mere feet away in the foreground.
“I’m going to take your place now,” he recalled her saying.
“I knew that I was getting kicked out for not clapping so I didn’t fight it,” Linfesty explained.
“Some Secret Service guys took me backstage and told me to wait,” he concluded. “After about 10 minutes they told me to leave and not come back and that was it.”
Video from Inside Edition: