Photographer captures 'awkward' Trump moment: 'Patted the first lady on the tooshie'

Amid the widely publicized White House visit Tuesday by England’s King Charles III, one photographer captured a remarkable moment on camera, one that appeared to show President Donald Trump, as one CBS News reporter put it, patting “the first lady on the tooshie.”

“Trump patted the first lady on the tooshie during [the] arrival ceremony for king and queen,” wrote CBS News reporter Jennifer Jacobs in a social media post on X, alongside an image of the photograph in question, taken by Associated Press photographer Jacquelyn Martin.

The photograph depicts Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Charles and Queen Camilla from behind, the four of them walking on the grounds of the White House in the direction of the Washington Monument. Trump’s left hand, however, can be seen resting on Mrs. Trump’s backside, a gesture that was immediately seized on by the British tabloid the Daily Mirror.

“A clip from a livestream of the greeting shows Trump shaking King Charles' hand, then awkwardly placing his hand on her back,” reads a report from the Mirror. “But shortly after he does so, he slides his hand down and squeezes his wife's butt – just one day after Trump was slammed for a ‘disrespectful’ gesture to Queen Camilla.”