RNC Chair Limits Comments After Trump’s Unusual Hand Placement on His Wife Sparks Backlash

Joe Gruters wanted the internet to wish his wife a happy birthday, but the internet had other ideas.

The chairman of the Republican National Committee spent Sunday at one of the biggest golf events of the year with his wife, Sydney, and the man who handed him the job. He posted a cheerful photo carousel from the day and asked followers to send her a note.

But one slide had people ignoring the birthday girl and zooming in on Donald Trump‘s hand instead.

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The occasion was the final day of the Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club, in the suburbs northwest of Chicago.

Trump served as the tournament’s honorary chairman, arrived with an Air Force One flyover and spent nearly four hours at the course while protesters lined the streets outside, ABC7 Chicago reported.

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Gruters, a Florida state senator and Trump’s handpicked choice to run the RNC, used the trip to mark Sydney’s 45th birthday.

“Happy Birthday to @ssgruters! Please send her a note! We are spending her birthday with President @realdonaldtrump at the @presidentscup Go USA!” he wrote on Instagram.

He shared five photos, and Trump appears in four. The collage post features a thumbs-up, an animated chat and a shot of the couple posing by a tournament sign.

Then there’s Trump’s infamous handshake. Once people saw where Trump’s fingers landed up, nobody talked about the birthday.

Trump’s right hand is wrapped around Sydney’s, but his index finger isn’t tucked beneath her palm the way a handshake normally goes. It’s stretched past her wrist and pressed against the inside of her arm, while his other hand appears to rest on her arm as she beams up at him.

Scrolling down the post and you’ll notice one more detail. Comments on the post have been limited, something Gruters doesn’t seem to do on his other posts, most of which are spent praising Trump. The handful of replies that made it through are birthday wishes.

Gruters hasn’t said why he limited the comments.

On X, where the post was also shared by a social media user, nobody was limiting anything.

“Is he taking her pulse?” one person asked.

“What’s with the finger down the wrist thing,” another wrote.

“That is not by any measure the handshake of a normal person,” a third said. “He’s grabbing her hand & wrist…”

“That is not how any gentleman would ever greet a woman. This is something else entirely,” another user added.

And one commenter thought of someone who might not love the photo at all. “Natalie Harp is going to be SOOOOOOO jealous that another woman is smiling at him. That’s her job.”

The jab lands because Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old executive assistant, has spent weeks under scrutiny for how close she is to her boss. The Daily Beast had published letters she wrote to Trump, including one where she admitted envying people whose only “job” seemed to be “to talk with you, and look pretty.” Just last week, her outfit at the U.N. set off its own firestorm.

Sydney Gruters isn’t just a plus-one, either. She’s running for Congress. The mother of three launched a bid this spring for Florida’s 16th Congressional District, the seat Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan is leaving, after Trump gave her his “Complete and Total Endorsement” on Truth Social.

She won the Aug. 18 GOP primary and faces voters again on Nov. 3.

So the photo doubles as a campaign asset, just not the kind she probably pictured.

Trump’s run-ins with the wives of powerful men have a long paper trail. During his first state visit to Paris in 2017, he gestured toward Brigitte Macron’s body.

Trump told her, “You’re in such good shape,” before repeating the same line to her husband and adding, “Beautiful,” according to CBC News.

Nine years later at the G7 in France, he skipped the usual tug-of-war with President Emmanuel Macron and held onto Brigitte’s hand instead, a moment viewers timed at 13 seconds.

Even his own wife hasn’t been spared. Just days ago, cameras caught Melania trying to break away from him in yet another awkward public exchange.

Sydney Gruters got her birthday photos. Her husband’s comment section is closed. And Trump is once again leaving people asking what, exactly, he was doing with his hands.

And it isn’t the first time his grip on another man’s wife has sent viewers straight to the replay button, after he locked hands with French first lady Brigitte Macron at the G7 in June.