I circled the microphone in the foreground that cast a shadow (circled) on the flag in this picture.
Retracted.
Backlit still isn’t the right explanation.
The light cast from an above angle on the front surface of the flag caused each star to disappear into a shadow crated by the raised “quilting” effect.
The stars are there and they aren’t black.
Sorry.
It looked to me like the blue quilted portion isn’t part of the base flag but hanging in front of it, maybe pinned to it. The quilting might be slightly weighted. In any case covering the stars is quite appropriate for a “No Surrender” or “Surrender Now Or Never” flag. Sending a heckuva message to somebody.