What is going on with Donald Trump? Social media wanted answers after a camera caught the president in what looked like a full-blown tirade aimed at his Marine One pilot.
For critics, it was the latest chapter in weeks of tense public moments.
And this one came with a picture.
Earlier that day, Sept. 22, Trump took the stage at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
He praised his wife’s international work and weighed in on the U.S. conflict with Iran.
This time, he is going viral after Reuters photographer Kylie Cooper snapped the father of five in the doorway of Marine One at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
In it, he is twisted toward the cockpit. His face is flushed. He is hunched over, mouth wide open, seemingly mid-rant.
Just outside the aircraft, two Marines in crisp dress blues and white gloves stand frozen at attention, saluting. The Presidential Seal gleams beside the hatch. The contrast is almost cinematic.
The officers are dignified; their commander in chief, not so much.
Critics wasted no time calling the moment unpresidential. Others simply asked what the pilot could have possibly done.
Whatever was said stayed inside the cabin. But the photo said plenty, and it sent the internet spiraling over whether the man flying the president just got the earful of his career.
“Who is he yelling at now?” one person asked on X. Another user replied that he was talking to the pilots.
“Unhinged bully,” a commenter wrote. “Always bullying people. Always. What a nightmare to be around,” another person said.
The reactions kept coming.
“STILL hollering at the pilot? JFC,” a fourth user quipped. A fifth joked, “Looks like the pilot is getting a face peel.”
The image carries no sound. What the president said remains unknown. Nothing explains why he appeared to be laying into the pilot. Still, the timing did him no favors. It marked the second Marine One cockpit moment in September to raise fresh questions about his temper.
On Sept. 7, cameras caught Trump pointing toward the pilots before exiting the helicopter at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey. That exchange also was inaudible.
His anger appeared to linger. As he descended the stairs, he passed two saluting Marines without returning the gesture. Moments later, near Air Force One, he flashed a thumbs-up for the cameras. When the White House posted video of the departure, the cockpit exchange was nowhere in it.
The pilots were hardly the only ones caught in the president’s path that month.
After a Sept. 16 appearance in Gastonia, North Carolina, Trump paused near a staircase, pointed at an unidentified man, roared at him, turned, and walked on. The footage never revealed what either man said. Viewers got another heated-looking scene and no explanation.
In December 2025, his words came through loud and clear.
ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott asked whether he would release the full video of a U.S. strike on an alleged drug boat off Venezuela. Trump disputed her account of his earlier promise. Then he branded her “the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.”
As insults go, “obnoxious” was relatively mild. He has a go-to jab: “piggy.”
During a press gaggle aboard Air Force One in November 2025, White House correspondent Catherine Lucey pressed him about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Trump pointed at her and repeatedly snapped, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”
The slur has a long history. He called journalist April Ryan “Miss Piggy” in 2018. In 1996, he aimed the same name at Alicia Machado, the Venezuelan-born Miss Universe winner that year. Nearly three decades later, his playbook still hasn’t changed.
Trump has also had someone shout at him, too.
A protester interrupted his June 2026 speech at a Mack Trucks plant in Pennsylvania, yelling an accusation and raising both middle fingers. Security escorted the man away. Trump did not respond from the stage, and it was unclear whether the president heard him.
This time, the pilot was on the receiving end of Trump’s fury.
At this rate, the Marine One crew may start checking the forecast for his mood before they check the weather. No one knows what he said in that doorway, but viewers keep asking the same question: Is the president losing it?
Quite the shot of Trump disembarking from Marine One last night. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper pic.twitter.com/RjI8yZpug3
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 23, 2026
