American right-wing commentator Candace Owens claims she received a personal call from Donald Trump – at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron – pleading with her to stop discussing theories that France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron is biologically male.
The background stems from several episodes of Owens’ YouTube show “Candace”, where she repeatedly questioned whether Brigitte Macron is actually a woman. According to Owens, Trump called her in February, just days after she concluded the series.
– This phone call is coming from Florida. Pick up the phone and lo and behold… It is President Donald J. Trump! He is calling me and in true President Trump fashion, he jumps right into the narrative. He’s not ‘Hey, how you do?’ Owens explains in her program.
– He just like jumps right into the narrative of exactly how this went down. I am literally… it is hard to catch my breath to comprehend that four days ago I am literally ending a series about Brigitte Macron, and now I’m speaking to the President of the United States and the topic of conversation is about Macron’s wife’s penis.
According to Owens, Trump described how during a White House meeting, Emmanuel Macron, surrounded by Secret Service and escort vehicles, approached him. The French President allegedly asked Trump to contact Owens and get her to stop talking about Brigitte.
– She’s old and this is really, really impacting her, Trump reportedly said.
Refused to “stop telling the truth”
The former president further claimed that he had seen Brigitte Macron up close during a dinner at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and assured that “she looked like a woman”.
Owens states that she questioned Trump’s request and countered by saying that Brigitte Macron, in her opinion, “has had this amazing doctor who specializes in transgenderism surgeries or feminization”. She continued:
– Like you are requesting that I really, and despite your reasoning, which is very sound, that I stop telling the truth.
Owens says she finally responded to Trump jokingly:
– You know, respectfully, Mr. President, it’s not my fault that he married someone with a penis.
A personal favor
According to Owens, Trump tried to convince her by saying that Macron had been “very good” to him and that this was “something he wanted to get out of the way”. He also added a personal compliment in classic Trump style:
– Melania loves you… she says you’re beautiful.
Owens says she agreed to a temporary pause on the topic, concerned it might affect Trump’s ongoing efforts to mediate in the Russia-Ukraine war. However, she emphasized the decision wasn’t permanent:
– This is not long term for me.
Toward the end of the conversation, Trump allegedly tried to win Owens over by suggesting he could appear on her podcast – something he said would generate high viewership numbers, to which Owens responded by returning the compliment:
– Respectfully, Mr. President, I’m apparently good for ratings too, because you’ve got a leader of a country, the president of the country, asking you to ask me to do you a favor.
Foreign policy concern
Owens suggests that while Trump never explicitly stated it, she got the impression that her comments about Brigitte Macron had become a foreign policy concern.
She references information from a third party in Washington, interpreting Trump’s plea as indicating that the French presidential couple believed her statements could affect Macron’s willingness to support an American proposal for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Neither Donald Trump nor Emmanuel Macron has publicly commented on these claims.