The Bizarre Brigitte Macron 'Moment of Closeness' Pushing Incident Takes an All-Too Familiar Turn

On Monday, my RedState colleague Rusty Weiss brought you the wild story of a moment caught on video between French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, where the Mrs. appeared to aggressively shove her husband in the face with both hands, apparently not realizing the cameras were rolling.

The moment happened as they were getting ready to exit France's version of Air Force One (known in some circles as "Air Macron"), which had just touched down in Hanoi, Vietnam, as the couple's Southeast Asia tour was getting underway.

In response to the international news reports and the video going viral on social media, French officials spun it as the two having a "moment of closeness" and a "moment of togetherness," even though Mrs. Macron seemingly refused to take the gentlemanly offer of an outstretched arm from Mr. Macron. The French leader later boiled it down to them merely "horsing around," and said it was unnecessarily being blown into "a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe."

But while most, if not all, people who watched the video clip were fully able to draw their own conclusions without needing their hands held by the media, some "news" outlets here in the United States are busy painting the incident as one that was helping "fuel Russian disinformation" about Macron:

It’s… what? pic.twitter.com/axeMfza2KO
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) May 27, 2025

And don't you love the quotes around the word pushing as if it was questionable whether or not pushing even happened?

NPR, of course, had a similar take:

Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, told NPR that it's not surprising that a video showing a world leader in such a position would go viral — or that it would be used to promote a certain agenda.
"In today's digital environment, I think it is not a question of whether it goes viral, it's to what ends people want to use that video for," he said. In this case, Macron — and other disinformation experts — say Russia is seizing the moment to try to make him look weak.

What's "disinformation" about opining that the video appeared to show President Macron as a victim of domestic abuse? Here it is again, for those who missed it:

That was French President Emmanuel Macron's explanation Monday for video images, filmed by AP, that showed show his wife, Brigitte, pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before they disembarked from their plane to start a tour of southeast Asia. pic.twitter.com/egMnTfEQFy
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 27, 2025

Now, I get that the images that circulated a few weeks ago of what some people were calling a cocaine baggie next to Macron were fake news:

When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs.

This fake news is being spread by France’s enemies, both abroad and at home. We must remain vigilant against manipulation. pic.twitter.com/xyXhGm9Dsr
— Élysée (@Elysee) May 11, 2025

... but just because the Russians are allegedly involved in a "disinformation campaign" about Macron doesn't make the observations about the pushing video any less valid.

Russia is going to do Russia things, no question about it. But unfortunately, the "bbbbut Russia" MSM are going to do MSM things, too, by way of insulting our intelligence, which is a big reason why trust in the journalism industry is at all-time lows.

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