Donald Trump’s White House insults LGBTQ community, France and Luxembourg in one shot
If Donald Trump’s first overseas visit hadn’t already done enough damage to United States relations with its European allies, his White House has added insult to injury on the way out. It’s not entirely clear how much of this latest incident was intentional and how much of it was mere incompetence, but Trump’s White House managed to offend two NATO allies and the LGBTQ community in one fell swoop.
In a bizarre move first noted by the Daily Beast, Donald Trump’s White House posted a photo of NATO first spouses but omitted the name of the First Gentleman of Luxembourg, Gauthier Destenay (link). It’s not clear if this an incompetent gaffe, or if it was it an intentional homophobic swipe at Destenay, a gay man who’s married to Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. But that was just the start of the trouble.
Donald Trump’s White House also got the name of the First Lady of France wrong, using her maiden name “Trogneux” instead of her current last name “Macron” for no apparent reason. So was this all intentional, or was it mere careless ineptness on the part of a systematically incompetent White House?
On the one hand, Donald Trump’s White House lists the photo as having been taken in the year “2917” – nine hundred years from now – suggesting that the errors may have indeed been incompetent oversights. On the other hand, the captioning lists “Melania Trump” twice, suggesting that perhaps Trump’s White House is indeed just screwing with everyone on purpose. Either way, it’s a bad look all around – particularly considering Trump’s troubling stances toward gay rights and NATO.
