The kiss President Donald Trump has been showing off to his online followers is not quite the kiss the cameras in the Rose Garden recorded.
Trump reshared a screenshot of an X post on Truth Social on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, that cast a tender exchange between him and First Lady Melania Trump at a White House signing ceremony three days earlier. The executive order he signed that Monday, Oct. 19, dealt with women’s health.
X user @DorothyStangle, whose post supplied the screenshot, wrote that the couple “were spotted in some rare moments of public intimacy” at the signing, HuffPost reported. The post said the two kissed while shaking hands after the order was signed, and that the president thanked his wife and pulled out her chair after she introduced him. The stitched image paired a photo of the near-kiss with a second picture of the first lady at the podium, smiling toward her husband. That kiss photo appears to have originated with The U.S. Sun.
The Lips Landed in Her Hair
Journalist Aaron Rupar posted a clip of the same moment on X on Monday, Oct. 19. “Melania Trump turns her head far to the side as Trump moves in for a kiss,” Rupar wrote. The footage shows the president puckering, his wife swiveling away, and his lips landing on the side of her head, in her hair.
Trump kept hold of her hand after the near-miss. He patted it several times, telling her she had done a great job, and she answered with thanks and a compliment of her own. The two then clasped hands as officials behind them applauded.
A turn to the left put the first lady’s cheek where her husband’s kiss landed, according to body language expert Darren Stanton, speaking on behalf of Covers — a small but visible move away from a warmer exchange. Stanton read the repeated pats on her hand as the president’s bid to regain control of the moment, a gesture he said he had seen Trump use with other politicians, though not with his wife.
Denise Dudley, a clinical psychologist and behavioral expert, told HuffPost the head turn was “absolute nonverbal avoidance” and “rejection.” “But she turns away. She doesn’t turn toward the cameras. They know where the cameras are. She turns away in the other direction,” Dudley said.
Traci Brown, a body language expert, said of the cheek-only kiss: “I don’t know the protocol here, but she doesn’t let him kiss her on the lips, only offering her cheek.” Inbaal Honigman, another body language expert, read the hand-holding this way: “When a couple holds hands, the physical upper hand belongs to the more dominant person, the one who also has the upper hand mentally in the relationship.” Honigman described the contact as a symbolic attempt by Trump to “assert his dominance, driven by his discomfort with all the attention Melania is receiving.”
A Sharpie and Two Signatures
Trump sat beside his wife at the signing, used a Sharpie and admired his own handiwork before sliding the pen toward her with the suggestion that she sign too. Turning to administration officials standing behind him, he said he wasn’t sure her signature meant anything. She replied that his was the one that mattered. Watching her write, Trump remarked that the signatures looked similar; his ran almost three times the size of hers.
A Gold Star Families reception on Oct. 6, closed to the media, had been the last time the first lady appeared beside her husband at the White House. The ceremony was her first major appearance with him since then.
Her Push Becomes a New NIH Division
The order, titled “Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life,” establishes two bodies: a Women’s Health Division at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a White House Women’s Health Task Force. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who recently finished treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lead that task force, which was set to meet for the first time that Monday.
The order directs research into maternal health, mental health, endometriosis, infertility, fibroids, menopause, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, osteoporosis and stroke, though it sets no specific funding goals. The NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health, established in 1990, will partner with the new division to expand its research programs.
The first lady pushed for the order and shaped it in meetings with her husband, Kennedy and other federal health officials. Earlier generations fought for women’s rights, she told the audience, and hers must fight to find cures that let women live full, healthy lives. Her husband called the order historic and praised how much she has accomplished.
Trump expressed surprise at the ceremony that the requirements weren’t already in place. “Who the hell wouldn’t have a women’s health division?” he said, recalling that he asked his wife, “Are you sure they don’t have that?” He then offered unscripted commentary about White House renovations, including the patio stone now covering what had been the Rose Garden lawn.
The signing came about two weeks before the Nov. 3 elections. Recent AP-NORC polling puts approval of Trump’s handling of the presidency at about one-third of women, and a July AP-NORC poll found about two-thirds of women disapproved of his handling of health care.
The executive order rescinded the Biden women’s health research initiative. The Trump White House says the new steps go beyond what was accomplished under Biden, citing the planned use of artificial intelligence, which Trump calls “super intelligence,” and the creation of a government-wide task force rather than a first lady leading the initiative. It remains unclear, as of Oct. 26, whether the order conflicts with Trump’s earlier executive actions curtailing federal programs and policies with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The Oct. 22 retelling has a couple married 21 years sharing a kiss over a handshake. The video says otherwise.