First Lady Melania Trump has posted a photo showing her appearing to hold hands with President Donald Trump that is bringing all sort of questions and controversy. As seen in the below photo, Melania wrote about the solemn moment, as FLOTUS and President Trump paid their respects on Friday, November 3, at the USS Arizona Memorial. Located at Pearl Harbor, the memorial is a section of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Hawaii. The strange part about the photo that was taken nearby Honolulu, Hawaii, is the manner in which the Trumps appear to be holding hand – or not actually holding hands, according to some viewers of the photo.
Melania’s visit to the Pearl Harbor memorial was usurped, along with the fact that President Trump called it a location he knew about but never visited, by the photo that captured the attention of the Internet. The perplexing part of the hand-holding comes into play when viewers realized they could see Melania’s long nails and fingers from behind, without seeing President Trump’s fingers wrapped around Melania’s fingers, nor in between them. It appears as though President Trump may have curved his hand around Melania’s hand, with the odd photo not showing a normal hand-holding moment.
As reported by the Huffington Post, Melania and Donald have sent body-language experts back to the drawing board to try and figure out the hand-holding moment. It could be that Melania’s fingers are covering Donald’s fingers, but it’s not clear from the photo that Melania posted.
A different photo from Getty Images shows Donald’s pinky finger potentially holding part of Melania’s hand, but that image’s position makes it unclear as well. An additional photo posted by Melania shows President Trump saluting with his right hand, when that right hand wasn’t clasped around Melania’s left hand.
According to Elaine Swann, it looks as if Melania and Donald are sort of touching fingers instead of holding hands. It’s an awkward body language moment that the etiquette expert claims the public has witnessed before when it comes to Mr. and Mrs. Trump’s marriage.
“On first glance, the president and first lady are holding hands. It’s not the traditional way, but they are still connecting by touching fingers. We’ve seen this a lot with this couple. This is not anything new. We’ve seen instances where they just don’t seem that connected and I think this is just another example of their lack of affection — there’s not a lot of affection in this relationship. It does appear odd to me in this particular incident because they’re visiting this memorial here that is very moving in terms of the gravity of the lives that were lost during the Pearl Harbor attack. Normally, when you are connected to your mate, your spouse, your partner, you’d expect to see more of a connection between the two, because when you think about lives lost and then you have your life partner next to you, it does make you want to clasp that person a little tighter, hold them a little closer. For whatever reason, I don’t see that in this particular photo here. It looks to me more like these are two people standing and posing for a photo opportunity. They’re obviously very cognizant of the fact that they’re being photographed.”
[Featured Image by Andrew Harnik/AP Images]
