Does a viral video accurately represent an interaction between U.S. President Donald Trump and UFC fighter Ciryl Gane said to have refused to shake hands with him? No, that's not true: Ciryl Gane did shake hands with Trump at the White House event that took place on the president's 80th birthday. The video circulating on social media did not include that moment.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @JamesTate121 on June 16, 2026. It opened:
Ciryl Gane ignores Trump. He just got a new fan.
This is what a thumbnail from the video attached to the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @JamesTate121 on X.)
French fighter Ciryl Gane (archived here) participated in the UFC Freedom 250 fight series at the White House, which took place (archived here) on Trump's 80th birthday on June 14, 2026.
Reuters photographed the handshake (archived here) :
(Image source: Reuters.)
In the Reuters image, we see the same set of multiple unique identifiers allowing us to conclude that the photo and the video recording in question were taken on the same day. For example, Gane wears the blue t-shirt with four red stars on his sleeves.
In a close proximity to the two, we see a bold security officer in a dark suit:
(Image sources: on the right -- Reuters, on the left - X; composite image by Lead Stories.)
Furthermore, we can identify the same woman wearing a sleeveless top and a ponytail:
(Image sources: on the right -- Reuters, on the left - X; composite image by Lead Stories.)
A longer version of the clip in question that included the handshake (archived here) and a video of the same handshake scene recorded from a different angle (archived here) were available online, too.
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) showed no reports from reputable news organizations supporting the claim.
