Mystery over Trump’s dinnertime Putin encounter deepens with his claim about Japanese first lady’s English.
It’s yet another element of mystery concerning President Trump and Vladimir Putin — this one centering on the quality of dinner-party chitchat.
Trump says he went over to speak with the Russian president during a dinner in Germany earlier this month because he was unable to speak to his seat mate, the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Akie Abe “doesn’ t speak English… like, not ‘Hello,’ ” Trump told the New York Times in an interview Wednesday.
Not so.
Mrs. Abe, the daughter of a wealthy Japanese family, attended a private Roman Catholic international school in Tokyo before she attended college. The elementary-through-high-school academy, the Sacred Heart School, includes rigorous English-language instruction as part of its curriculum.
Social media swiftly found clips of the 55-year-old Abe making speeches in somewhat accented but perfectly serviceable English.
Trump’s dinnertime encounter with Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg — against the backdrop of a burgeoning investigation of Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election — has come under close scrutiny because the White House did not disclose it for 10 days. Also, no other U. S. official, not even an interpreter, was privy to the conversation.
Putin — who is known to speak English, but sticks to Russian in official settings — used his own interpreter during the dinnertime talk, and there is no U. S. record of what was said other than Trump’s assertion in the interview that the two leaders discussed adoption.
Some social media users gleefully interpreted Trump’s contention that he and Akie Abe were unable to converse as proof that she would prefer to feign incomprehension of English than to engage in conversation with him.
Trump’s behavior with the spouses of world leaders has been a recent talking point, after the president commented during a trip to Paris earlier this month on the physical appearance of France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron .
It seems unlikely, however, that Akie Abe deliberately snubbed Trump.
Even if the Japanese first lady had decided she could express herself better in her native language, there was an interpreter available to assist her as needed. In his interview with the Times, Trump acknowledged the availability of translation assistance, saying that “otherwise, it would have been even tougher.”
Even if the conversational flow did falter, Japanese cultural mores dictate that it would be almost unheard of for a public figure like the first lady, taking part in conversation in a formal social setting, to behave with deliberate rudeness.
