Trump's Awkward Call With Astronauts Has Folks Asking If Crew Ignored POTUS

The Artemis II space mission for a trip around the moon was launched on April 1, 2026, and the astronauts had a live call with President Donald Trump on April 6. A long pause during the call became awkward as the crew waited for the POTUS to speak, and it has folks wondering if the astronauts wanted to ignore the twice-impeached president on purpose.

NASA's Artemis II astronauts include Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, per NBC News. After speaking to Trump for nearly nine minutes, there was a full minute of awkward silence as the crew waited anxiously for him to speak. Did the astronauts ignore Trump? Or was something else going on?

The live call began fine as Trump was introduced to the crew by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.

"Artemis II crew, we have a very special guest who wanted to be the first person to greet you after your return from the far side of the moon," said Jared, according to a video by Sky News Australia. "Reed, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy, it's my honor to introduce the president of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump. Over to you, sir."

Trump then spoke to the crew, and everything was fine as he praised the astronauts for the mission.

"Well, thank you very much, Jared," Trump said. "And you are doing a fantastic job. And hello, very special hello to Artemis today. You've made history and made all of America really proud. Incredibly proud."

After the Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, spoke, Trump went on a tangent about Canadian hockey star Wayne Gretzky.

"Well, I have to say I spoke to a very special person, Wayne Gretzky," said Trump.

"Who, I think you know, the great one, and I spoke to your prime minister and many other friends I have in Canada. They are so proud of you, and you have a lot of courage," he continued. "I'm not sure if they'd want to do that. I'm not even sure if the great one would want to do that, to be honest with you, but you have a lot of courage doing what you're doing. A lot of bravery and a lot of a lot of — genius. But they're very, very proud of you."

After that, things became awkward as the crew waited for Trump to continue. A minute passed before Reid Wiseman asked the NASA Adminstrator of they'd lost the call.

“Administrator Isaacman, just get a quick comm check to make sure you guys are still on the line and we didn’t have a handover,” he said.

"I am. Yes, I am," replied Trump. "Yeah, I think we might have gotten cut off. It is a long distance. It's a long ways. The reception's been great. There's a little bit of about a nine-second delay."

"I don't know what you heard, but uh I was just saying they're very proud of your brilliant person from Canada on the ship and Wayne Gretzky is a great friend of mine," he continued. "And he's very proud of him and the prime minister I spoke to, they're very very honored that, uh, you have a courageous person from Canada. You have a lot of courageous people from Canada. So, it was very nice. I I'm not sure if you heard me say that, but it was very nice."

The crew assured Trump that they'd heard the Wayne Gretzky bit, and the president invited the crew to visit the White House.