President Donald Trump shared that he had a conversation with Emmanuel Macron following the incident where the French president was pushed in the face by his wife, Brigitte.
The incident occurred as the Macrons arrived in Hanoi and was captured by the global media. In the footage, Brigitte Macron’s arms can be seen pushing Macron away on the presidential aircraft’s tarmac.
‘There was a video of the First Lady of France slapping her husband, Emmanuel Macron,’ Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy questioned the president. ‘Do you have any world leader-to-world leader marital advice?’
Trump, who has been married three times, quipped in response: ‘Make sure the door remains closed.’
‘That was not good,’ earning guffaws in the Oval Office, where he was holding a send-off press conference for DOGE head Elon Musk.
‘I spoke to him,’ Trump said of Macron.
‘He’s fine. They’re fine. They’re two really good people. I know him very well, and I don’t know what that was all about,’ Trump said, choosing his words carefully.
‘But I know him very well, and they’re fine.’
That prompted an interjection from Musk. ‘I know a little shiner here,’ said the world’s richest man, whose black eye was visible throughout the event Friday.
Musk only later revealed the source of his injury. ‘I was just horsing around with Little X,’ Musk explained to the cameras and reporters. ‘I said go ahead, punch me in the face.’
‘And he did. Turns out even a five year old punching you in the face …’ Musk explained.
During the incident that drew the question, Macron, 47, could be seen in Associated Press video getting shoved in the when his face touched down in Vietnam Sunday night.
The video showed Brigitte’s, 72, arms emerging from off camera to push the president’s face – in a scene that was visible from below.
Macron then turns to wave through the open door.
The moment quickly made headlines around the world, pressing the French president to deny anything was wrong and claim that they were just playfighting. The couple have been especially close in the days since as they continue their state visit.
The Elysee had been hoping that the visit to Vietnam would showcase France’s reach into the Indo-Pacific, but it has been shadowed by the incident which occurred as the doors of the presidential plane swung open after landing in Hanoi Sunday.
Judi James, a body language expert, told MailOnline that the Macrons have gone ‘overkill’ in their ‘denial rituals’ to silence the rumours, putting on a performance of ‘newlywed-style body language presumably aimed at making us forget the gesture’.
‘The pair seem set on trying to look closer than usual here,’ she said as the couple were pictured together at a reception for members of the French community at the International French School (IFS) in Singapore on Friday.
‘Brigitte is dressed in a very modest, pristine, funnel-neck off-white suit that would be entirely appropriate for a wedding, and she keeps her head tilted down so that her face peeps shyly out of her thatch-style hair.’
Ms James added that there is now a ‘coyly submissive-looking behaviour’ from Ms Macron, pictured holding her husband’s arm with both hands, ‘clinging like a bridge leaving the church, leaning in to suggest closeness’.
But one pose ‘seems slightly off-message here’, she suggests, when Brigitte ‘suddenly takes a more dominant stance’ and reaches her arm out in front of her husband with a pointing index figure, ‘making her look less coy and more assertive’.
Ms James assesses that the couple have made a point of showing closeness in a ‘desperate’ effort to ‘pretend all is well’ and deflect focus from the plane footage, which falls well outside of their usual polished look.
‘When the pair sign a register they both cling to the pen,’ she noted, referring to scenes from inside the Parliament House in Singapore on Friday.
This was ‘again like a bride and groom’, she suggested.
‘They seem to have stepped up their mirroring rituals with poses like the one of them clapping together in total synchronisation, providing a like-minded look of peas in a pod.’
‘When they glance at each other Brigitte performs another coy facial expression, complete with a slightly flirty eye contact and with her lips pursed into a pout,’ she added.
‘Macron responds with what looks like an appreciative smile.’
This is the third time this month that Macron has been the subject of viral video footage at a time when France says it is being targeted by repeated disinformation campaigns as Russia steps up attacks on Ukraine.
Macron testily referred to the other incidents, including the images shot on the train to Kyiv where some accounts falsely claimed he shared cocaine.
But the object Macron removed from the table when the media entered was a tissue.
Erdogan, meanwhile, was filmed holding the president’s finger at a summit.
‘None of these are true,’ Macron said of the videos. ‘Everyone needs to calm down,’ he added.
