‘Not good’: Trump responds to question about video of Macron being 'slapped across face' by wife Brigitte
30 May 2025, 19:49 | Updated: 30 May 2025, 19:52
Donald Trump has responded to a question from a reporter about a shocking video which appears to show French President Emmanuel Macron being slapped by his wife Brigitte.
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Cameras caught the moment as the couple disembarked a plane as they arrived in Vietnam.
The President says he and his wife were "simply joking" after the video went viral on social media.
In the clip, Mr Macron steps back, looking shocked, before collecting himself and waving at the camera as they exit the plane.
The Elysee initially claimed the images were fake, before later confirming they were in fact legitimate.
At a press conference on Friday evening, the US President said: "I don't what that was all about".
However, he added he has spoken to Mr Macron and that the and the couple are both "fine" and that they're "good people"
When probed by the reporter for any "world leader to world leader marital advice", Trump jokingly said: "Make sure the door remains closed".
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Mr Macron later told reporters that the couple - who met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher - were simply joking around.
"We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife," he said, adding that the incident was being overblown: "It becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe."
His office earlier offered a similar explanation.
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"It was a moment where the President and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by horsing around. It's a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists," his office said.
When asked about the incident, Mr Macron insisted he was "simply joking with my wife as we often do".
Speaking to French media in Hanoi, he dismissed suggestions there had been a “domestic incident”, accusing online trolls of spouting “nonsense.”
“It was nothing,” he added.
The French president went on to outline his frustration with constantly having to explain himself over videos shared online.
