It may become the most famous palm reading in Louisiana history after Amelia Grace Thompson asked her mother what President Donald J. Trump wrote on her right hand.
Trump was on his way to a Metairie, Lousiana, fundraiser when he met with supporters Tuesday at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and signed the girl’s palm as she perched on her father’s shoulders.
“Trump was incredibly nice,” said Amelia Grace’s mother, Hillary Thompson, in an exclusive RedState interview.
She said it was not a rally or event, except for a chance for people to see him after he came down off his private Boeing 757 Trump Force One.
“We go down there, and Trump ends up walking around to where we are, and we get to meet him,” she said.
“He writes on her hand: ‘Hi!’ with an exclamation point on it,” she said. “We went home, and we were super excited about it, and in the next two hours, it had already rubbed off.”
Former President Donald J. Trump signs Amelia Grace Thompson’s left palm at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport while greeting supporters for a July 25, 2023, fundraiser. Trump was joined by Pelican State Attorney General Jeff Landry, running in the 2023 gubernatorial contest. Photo courtesy of the Thompson family.
Close call at the gate
As the time to go to the airport got closer, her daughter could not wait to see the president, Thompson said.
“She was like: ‘Daddy, I wanna meet Donald Trump. I wanna meet Donald Trump’-and then, like after it happened, she called everyone and was bragging about it,” she said.
“My daughter has a phone, and she’s like calling her grandparents and her aunts and everyone,” she said. “She’s like: ‘Oh my gosh, Donald Trump wrote on my hands.”
Hillary said she got out of court late, so she had to rush to join her husband and daughter, but she would never have made it were it not for Amelia Grace’s appeal to Lousiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.
“When I get here, Secret Service was not allowing anyone else in, so my daughter actually goes up to the attorney general, Jeff L andry , and was like: ‘Please, please help my mom. She’s at the gate. No one’s gonna let her in.'”
Landry, now running for governor in this year’s off-cycle election, was charmed enough to pull some strings.
“He goes, finds a secret service agent that comes and meets me at the gate and lets me in as a favor to the attorney general,” she said.
When she thanked Landry, he said, “I couldn’t tell her no.”
Leftwing media spins the hand-signing as abuse
Hillary said it still surprises her how much the media twists up its coverage of Trump.
“The media makes him out to be some monster, but in that moment, he was just a kind guy who exchanged pleasantries with our family and put a huge smile on my daughter’s face for the rest of the day,” she said.
Hillary said she did not expect online leftists to attack her and the president.
“Then, this really crazy Twitter page called @PatriotTakes started talking about it and then demonizing the moment and allowing all of their followers to do that as well,” she said.
“Basically, with this consensus between these articles that we were reading is that my daughter was unhappy about it and that we kind of made her do it-where it couldn’t have been further from the truth,” she said.
Online commenters criticized Amelia Grace’s parents for allowing Trump to use permanent ink on the girl’s hand, for allowing her to have close contact with a man they called a criminal, and for forcing their daughter into an uncomfortable situation, Hillary said.
“I don’t think it was a permanent marker. It may have been, but it rubbed off before we could even get home,” she said.
A left-of-center British newspaper ran a story: “Little girl looks bemused as Trump signs autograph on her hand in permanent marker” with the subhead: Social media users questioned what he had written and why he used permanent marker on the child’s skin.
“I guess the people writing the articles don’t live in Louisiana and don’t live around hot weather because the reason she’s like squinting is because it was hot,” she said.
“The reason she looked puzzled is because she’s four–she doesn’t know how to read,” she said.
Close up of Amelia Grace Thompson’s palm, where former President Donald J. Trump wrote a greeting during a July 25, 2023, campaign stop in Louisiana. She is sitting on the shoulders of her father Travis Thompson. Photo courtesy of the Thompson family.
“She was asking: ‘Mommy, what does this say?’ And I’m telling her: ‘Oh, it says, Hi.’–it was…it was this super special moment that they’re now like trying to turn around and demonize the former president about,” the lawyer said. “Just using really, like, crude and lewd language. It’s just; it’s kind of chaos. It’s crazy.”
“Even all of the liberal attorneys I work with couldn’t make any snide remarks because my sweet girl was just so excited she met the president,” the mom said.
Trump chats with Amelia Grace’s father
The attorney said she was impressed that Trump took his time with her husband as he worked the crowd.
“He didn’t just walk away right after,” she said.
After he signed her daughter’s hand, Trump asked her husband Travis about himself, she said.
Trump: Have you done well in life?Travis: I’m a project manager in construction.Trump: I bet you’re really good at it too.Travis: Not as good as you, sir.
“Trump then wished him well before walking off,” she said.
“He was just incredibly kind and attentive in that moment, and we just really appreciated and reveled in that.”