Depending on which sources you’re reading, the Obamas were quite gracious or incredibly rude to the Trumps while greeting them for the traditional coffee prior to going off to the Inauguration on Friday. (Because Michelle looked briefly to one side after Melania Trump handed her a gift in a Tiffany’s box — either cruel disgusted side-eye or, like, looking for an aide to hand it to, since Barack was choreographing the two couples to stand together. Besides, isn’t grabbing a handful of box usually Donald Trump’s thing?) We’re going to go with “quite gracious,” especially considering you pretty much have Donald Trump bounding out of the SUV to shake the hand of the guy he’s evicting, and Melania bringing up the rear, forgotten, and then Trump heading into the White House ahead of all three of the unnecessary hangers-on:
And yes, the gift hand-off is a bit awkward, so let’s read as much into it as possible, never mind Michelle leaning in for a friendly hug before taking the gift. Is this the contemptuous throwing of shade or the acknowledgement that we are in a sort of awkward arrangement where something has to happen with this box while we do the photo op, and oops, we didn’t plan for this? YOU BE THE JUDGE!
So after the pictures, it’s time to go in to coffee, and off goes Donald, who seems to have forgotten, again, that lady who was riding around in the SUV with him. She seemed familiar somehow.
Fortunately, the Obamas were there to welcome with the forgotten wife:
How To Fix: Crepey Skin
Maybe Donald simply bounded forward to hold the door for the ladies!
But was Donald just being chivalrous? Roll 212!
We see Barack Obama gesture to Trump to move him inside, and Donald heads off to the portal without Melania — back, and to the left, back, and to the left! — but waits for the ladies to come along. Chivalry or narcissism? We’re going with not really thinking things through, plus narcissism, but we’ll admit we may be biased.
Thank Crom we have a 24-hour hews cycle to parse these moments. At least the Trumps looked happy when they were having lunch:
Also, your historical note: When Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower rode together from the White House to the Capitol for Eisenhower’s inauguration, Ike waited in the open limo rather than go in for coffee, and then angrily asked Truman why he’d gone and released Eisenhower’s son from duty at West Point to attend the inauguration. Ike was furious at the breach of military discipline. Yeesh, these kids.
[USA Today / The Mirror / Randi Mayem Singer on Twitter / WaPo]
