Photo: AFP / Getty

Donald Trump has yet to set off an international firestorm during his first overseas tour as the U.S. president, meaning that, for all intents and purposes, it is going better than could’ve been expected. And yet the trip has served as a much-publicized, prolonged indignity for the president’s hands, first being swatted away by his wife while on a red carpet, then being swatted away by his wife while stepping out of Air Force One. Even his preferred method of hand-related alpha-male antagonism—crushing opposing world leaders’ hands in a brutally overcompensating, arm-jerking handshake—was countered by the president of Tajikistan.


But holy shit, nothing could’ve prepared Donald Trump’s beleaguered paws for the cucking they would receive at the very literal hands of newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron. The Washington Post describes the two leaders’ “knuckles turning white and their jaws clenching and faces tightening.” This is like watching nature footage of two animals engaged in a dogged fight to the death:


Not only does Macron grasp high on the wrist, smooshing the president’s contentiously sized hands until they are flattened in pain, he dominates the shaking motion, maintaining the grip even as Trump attempts to pull his hand away.



Fortunately for Trump, he was able to reclaim his status as an alpha male piece of shit by shoving another NATO leader aside today. You win some, you lose some.


No doubt Trump yearns for this international indignity to be drawn to a conclusion soon, so he can rest his hands within the velvet slippers of the empty White House while he dodders around, yelling at shadows that frighten him.