The Playful Presidents — A White House bromance
There was, simply, so much touching.
The two men kissed. They shook hands and held hands and clasped hands. And they embraced and backslapped and shoulder-rubbed.
They were President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, and yesterday they became even more entangled in their grand histoire d’amour.
Macron’s visit to the White House yesterday followed a private dinner between the two leaders and their wives at Mount Vernon on Tuesday, and included a 21-gun salute, a joint news conference in the ornate East Room and a state dinner — the first one Trump has hosted as President.
But perhaps more importantly, the whirlwind, touchy-feely visit offered yet another glimpse into the Trump-Macron relationship, an unlikely friendship told through a series of phalangeal snapshots and freeze frames.
The copious public displays of affection also raised the question of whether Trump and Macron had finally embarked on a true transcontinental bromance or if the two men were merely partaking in an alpha game of one-upmanship.
The answer, said David Givens, director of the Centre for Nonverbal Study, is a little of both.
“It’s more of a playful dominance,” Givens said. “The romance is there and they’re just kind of fooling around, but it’s real.”
Their relationship began last May with a white-knuckled, jaw-clenching, six-Mississippi handshake in Brussels. In an interview with the Journal du
Dimanche at the time, Macron described the physical standoff as “a moment of truth” and “not innocent”. “We need to show that we won’t make small concessions, even symbolic ones, while not overhyping things either,” Macron said. But almost exactly a year later, NBC
News dubbed the duo’s personal chemistry “the art of the feel”, and all the feels have been on full display.
The physicality began almost immediately, as soon as Macron’s limousine pulled up to the White House South Lawn and the men exchanged double-cheek kisses.
The leaders then reviewed the troops together, walking in near lockstep to appreciatively gaze upon the US military, before retreating to the Truman Balcony, where they and their wives all clasped hands and held them triumphantly aloft.
Like nearly all formulaic bromances, the women — in this case, Trump’s wife, Melania, and Macron’s wife, Brigitte — have been relegated to near-silent supporting roles, to be gazed upon but not really heard.
At one point, along the East Colonnade, Trump reached behind him for Macron and the two joined outstretched hands — a scene that in
still photographs seems to capture the graceful agility of two ballerinas rather than two besuited geopolitical allies engaged in a physical and emotional tug-of-war.
In the news conference, Macron sometimes touched Trump’s arm as he spoke. And when the French President finished his prepared remarks, the leaders shook hands, then clasped hands, and then patted hands, before pulling one another close for another partial hug. Then it was time for yet another cheek kiss, as well as a “This guy!” finger-gun point at Macron from Trump’s left hand. “I like him a lot,” Trump enthused. There were also moments of clear power dynamics, as when Trump, in the Oval Office, turned to Macron and said that, in a sign of their “very special relationship”, he was even willing to brush something from his suit.
“In fact, I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off,” Trump said, using a finger to briskly swipe at Macron’s suit. “We have to make him perfect. He is perfect.”