Trump Kicked the Press Out, Then Bribed Them With Food to Write a “Good” Story — Until the Leaked Menu Made It Feel Almost Insulting
President Donald Trump knows how to dominate a room, but during a private lunch tied to his Dec. 28 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy it was the details he tried to shut out that ended up telling the story.
The brief glimpse before the doors closed offered a rare, unscripted moment that felt unusually exposed. No podiums. No prepared remarks.
Footage shows Trump seated at the table, Zelenskyy across from him, and a lineup of other associates whose faces appeared locked into careful restraint. The Ukrainian leader made a visit to discuss the progress of a 20-point peace proposal to end the nearly four-year-old battle with neighboring Russia, according to The Hill.
Trump noticed the press almost immediately and shifted his focus toward getting reporters out, cutting off cameras with a sharp change in attention.
He then instructed one of his State Department legal advisers, Margaret L. Taylor, to tell the chef to feed the assembled press.
“Margaret, if you would, I think you could sit outside and have some food,” Trump said to the rolling cameras. “Would you like to have some food, or do you consider that a bribe, and therefore you cannot write honestly, or therefore you have to write a bad story?”
The move felt less like choreography and more like irritation, as if the presence of reporters had disrupted his sense of control over the setting.
“Omg the discomfort on literally EVERYONE’S face while he says this offensive sh-t…Donald Trump’s time in the White House is the Scott’s Tots of the American presidency,” one person wrote on Threads.
A second wrote, “They all look pretty scared except the Momo in the blue tie. He looks crazy,” while a third noticed that Marc Rubio, “He didn’t even crack a smile.”
Once the press was ushered out, the narrative moved beyond the room itself.
The discussion picked up after a political commentator shared a screenshot of an email sent Sunday afternoon by Politico reporter Alex Gangitano.
The email confirmed that the White House “Pool did in fact get lunch, and we are seated at small round tables on the club patio. For those wondering at home, we were served sliced steak, pigs in a blanket, coconut shrimp, fries and chocolate chip cookies. And water bottles with a Trump label.”
That small observation reframed the entire moment. What was meant to be a sealed-off gathering suddenly became a public snapshot of Trump’s instinct to brand even the edges of a presidential encounter.
Online reaction followed almost immediately, with some zooming in on the images while others pointed to viral photos of past Mar-a-Lago meals, including fast food and unusually small plates.
“That mix of food sounds like it’s leftovers from an event,” one person wrote, zeroing in on how improvised it all sounded. Another added, “Not a vegetable in sight.”
On X, one suggested, “Having seen pictures of the food at Mar-a-Lago, the press is better off brown bagging it.” Another joked, “Let them eat burgers and tots.”
Others leaned into symbolism.
“Trump has made like 4 billion from crypto, and he still feels like it’s necessary to make the government buy his bottled water,” one commenter wrote.
This ain’t food. pic.twitter.com/LvkOe3BaMz
— 504twenty (@504twenty) December 28, 2025
The episode landed squarely within Trump’s long-running conflict with the media.
The pattern of his contentious back and forth with the media has been consistent: confront the press, attempt to shame it, then scramble to recover. Removing reporters from the lunch felt like another assertion of dominance over access and optics.
That friction has also surfaced repeatedly in Trump’s interactions with female reporters, where exchanges have often taken on a sharper, more dismissive edge.
Critics argue those moments suggest more than impatience, pointing instead to a recurring discomfort with questions he cannot easily redirect or silence.
Trump succeeded in removing the press from the room, but he didn’t remove the story.
The stiff expressions inside and the oddly memorable menu outside became the lasting image. Small details—from branded water bottles to sparse plates—revealed how quickly a tightly staged moment can come apart.
