At the end of February 2025, information spread on the Internet that the US President did not come out to meet his French counterpart when he arrived at the White House. We decided to check if this is true.
Many Russian media reported on the demonstrative disdain that Trump allegedly showed towards Macron: “RIA Novosti", "Gazeta.ru", Lenta.ru, "Moscow 24", "Evening Moscow", "Sight"etc. - as well as users of social networks (X, "VKontakte") and blogging platforms ("Peekaboo", "Zen"). The news also went viral on Telegram, where they wrote about it “Anatoly Shariy"(932,000 views at the time of writing the analysis), "Nevzorov"(511,000), "ZeRada"(262,000), "Solovyov"(257,000), "Observer» (199,000) and other popular channels. Most of the publications are accompanied by a video: the French president’s car drives up to the doors of the White House, he is met by an employee of the Trump administration, Macron waves to reporters and enters the building.
On February 24, 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron, at the invitation of his American counterpart Donald Trump visited Washington, becoming first European leader who met with the current US President after his inauguration. Heads of State discussed possible negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and the conditions necessary for this. Macron named meeting a turning point in the harmonization of European and American positions, although Trump didn't give no specific promises.
On the same day, footage of Macron’s arrival at the White House went viral on the Internet, in which the owner of the residence was absent. Some politicians and political journalists They began to build conspiracy theories that Trump did not meet Macron in person to show how little the relationship between the United States and France meant to him. Moreover, some of the journalists, whose opinions were also referred to by the Russian media, subsequently deleted their messages and noted that they published them hastily.
According to schedule official events with the participation of the US President, on February 24 at 08:00 a conversation between the leaders of the G7 was scheduled, in which Trump and Macron took part from the Oval Office, and only at 12:15 was the official greeting of the French president, when the American leader actually met his colleague at the entrance to the White House.
A significant portion of viral publications use a video of Macron's arrival with the C-SPAN logo. It present and was filmed by TV channel journalists. “French President Macron arrived at the White House for a call with other leaders,” reads the caption under the video. Only a little later that day, C-SPAN published news about how Trump came out to greet his colleague at the northern entrance to the west wing of the White House, and attached a corresponding video. It is noteworthy that the first is posted only on the website, it is not on social networks or on the C-SPAN YouTube channel, unlike the second, on which the leaders greet each other warmly, smile and shake each other’s hands for a long time. But despite being posted on more platforms, the second video was not particularly popular among Internet users.
At the same time, the practice itself, when a foreign leader on a foreign trip is first greeted not by the head of state, but by the head of his protocol service, is not an exceptional event that may indicate disrespect or demonstrative neglect. This has happened before, including when key US partners arrived at the White House. For example, over the past decade, American presidents have failed to greet British prime ministers on their porches at least twice: Barack Obama - David Cameron in 2015 and Joe Biden - Keir Starmer in 2024. After his second inauguration, Trump managed to miss the arrival of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but this did not cause much resonance then.
Claims that one world leader allegedly pointedly ignored another is quite often used to build or confirm conspiracy theories. “Verified” has already analyzed the news about how Macron himself refused shake hands with the same Modi, Trump ignored the hand of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended for a handshake, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany Annalena Baerbock no one didn't meet at the airport during her visit to China. Typically, such statements are based on out-of-context or edited video recordings and are therefore untrue.
Thus, Trump did not actually greet Macron in person when he arrived at the White House early on the morning of February 24, but only because the French president's ceremonial welcome in the presence of journalists was scheduled a few hours later. And in due time, the American leader came out onto the porch of his residence to greet Macron and shake his hand. At the same time, even if he could not do this (for example, due to a busy schedule of events), there would be no gesture of disrespect in this - this has often happened before both with Trump himself and with other US presidents.
Cover photo: The White House /X
Read on the topic:
- "Myth Detector". Manipulation that Trump did not meet Macron at the door during his visit to the White House
- Is it true that Emmanuel Macron tried to hide an €80,000 watch during an interview?
- Is it true that Macron showed an upside-down map of Ukraine during his stream?
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