Donald Trump went all out to impress Xi Jinping, rolling out the red carpet and going out of his way to make the Chinese president feel like royalty.
He even skipped the comfort of the White House to meet Xi Jinping in person, turning the arrival into a carefully staged show of respect.
But somewhere between the military lineup, the red carpet and the cameras rolling, the whole thing took an unexpected turn. The more Trump tried to project power beside another world leader, the more the optics seemed to work against him.
The viral conversation quickly shifted from the lavish welcome to one detail that refused to stay in the background.
By the time the two men stood side by side, people were no longer focused on how far Trump went to impress Xi.
Xi landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sept. 23 for his first state visit to Washington in more than a decade.
Trump was waiting planeside instead of receiving him at the White House, a gesture the AP called rare. Trump almost never meets visiting heads of state at the airfield.
The Chinese leader came down the stairs onto a 100-foot red carpet supported by a 21-person honor guard. He wore a crisp navy suit and burgundy tie with no coat. His wife, Peng Liyuan, wore soft gray, and Melania Trump wore a pinstriped suit.
Then there was Trump. He stood on the tarmac in a long, dark overcoat that hung past his knees and black leather gloves.
It was arguably the kind of outfit made for a January wind chill. Even The Associated Press reported the temperature as a “relatively warm” 63 degrees.
The president pulled off one glove to shake Xi’s hand, with Xi’s hand noticeably above Trump’s — an awkward visual as he tried to project power over the Chinese leader.
People focused less on the pageantry and more on the extreme lengths Trump went through to impress another world leader, while many said his look completely missed the mark — weather and all.
Most wondered what he was hiding, suspecting his new look was tied to what he keeps trying to conceal.
“The gloves are to hide his rotting hands and the coat is to cover his fat,” one person suggested, claiming “the coat makes him look thin.” Another joked, “IMO, he didn’t want to expose his TINY hands because they were smaller than the guest.”
Others went straight to more obvious theories after zooming in on the “Big bruises on the back of his hands today from the weekly infusions. They’re blowing the veins on the back of his hands and it’s bruising worse each time.”
The following day on Thursday, Sept. 24, social media users discovered exactly what Trump was hiding underneath those gloves.
“Now he looks weaker because he tried to cover it up,” one person said.
Trump has a history of using makeup or concealer to cover his severely bruised hands, which his administration blamed on frequent handshaking. But some say it wouldn’t have worked this time around.
“His hands were so bad makeup wasn’t going to do it yesterday (or they forgot it) so he he had to wear gloves. And gloves would have looked weird with no overcoat so they added that…thinking that the whole getup would not look weird.”
Other video clips from the arrival also showed Xi calm and unhurried as he came off the aircraft, reaching out to Trump as he stepped off the stairs.
Not everyone in his own party was impressed this time around.
According to C-Span, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the “lavish welcome” and reminded Trump that his guest is a “brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator.”
A few defenders noted that the military honor guard also wore gloves. But the honor guard’s white parade gloves are part of their uniform, not something they chose for a sunny afternoon.
Trump’s hands have been under a microscope for more than a year now. The White House has repeatedly blamed the bruising on frequent handshaking combined with aspirin use. His physician repeated that explanation after his May physical.
That same exam put Trump at 238 pounds, 14 pounds heavier than in April 2025, and his doctor advised him to lose weight and exercise more. The roomy overcoat did a lot of work on Wednesday.
Last month, cameras caught him struggling to button his suit jacket as he stepped off Air Force One in Houston, then gave up and left it open.
Xi returns to the White House Thursday for another arrival ceremony and a black-tie state dinner. The two couples will share a private tea Friday before touring the National Archives.
Trump will likely be indoors for most of it, where the gloves can finally come off.
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