Twitter Reacts to Obama and Putin’s Toast

Following American President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s respective speeches at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hosted a small luncheon for the major delegates in attendance.

Unsurprisingly, Obama and Putin — whose countries has responded differently to the ongoing civil war in Syria, as well as to each other’s responses — were seated next to each other. That’s when, during a small toast with glasses of champagne, the two world leaders looked at one another and clinked their glasses together.

Some reported that said clinking didn’t happen:

Just heard Obama made a toast, tipped glasses with others attending but didn’t tip with Putin which was sitting next to him and looked away

— ukraine-english-news (@discjocke52) September 28, 2015

BREAKING: Putin and Obama did not clink champagne flutes after toast. #UNGA

— Mark Leon Goldberg (@MarkLGoldberg) September 28, 2015

Others said it did:

Obama and Putin clinked glasses confirms WH pool after toast from UN Secretary – awaiting photo evidence

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) September 28, 2015

WH UPDATE: There’s now “solid evidence” – a photo from @ChipSomo of Getty Images – that Obama and Putin clinked glasses #UNGA2015 post toast

— lesley clark (@lesleyclark) September 28, 2015

For reasons that won’t be clear until Internet historians have had ample time to sift through the social media cesspool (hopefully within a few decades, maximum), Twitter lost its collective mind. Especially when the “photo evidence” was finally published:

That’s a pretty intense toast right there. pic.twitter.com/nNP7WXOMJB

— ChandlerCNN (@ChandlerCNN) September 28, 2015

#Obama calls #Assad a ‘tyrant’. #Putin sees Assad as part of the solution. Civilians still being killed. Let’s toast! pic.twitter.com/cJmWzpzvj8

— Sakir Khader (@sakirkhader) September 28, 2015

Putin’s smile is that of a man who has spent years building up an immunity to iocane powder http://t.co/PG7CEF4F6f pic.twitter.com/bWoKpqA2ZN

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) September 28, 2015

Ooh, there’s full video of the Obama-Putin toast. https://t.co/WEGdNz2uba

— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) September 28, 2015

Hell, a few media outlets are even hosting caption contests:

Tweet us your captions for this photo of Obama and Putin clinking glasses of rosé: http://t.co/p36k7J3uvh pic.twitter.com/lMO5uUtr1Q

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) September 28, 2015

[Image via Shutterstock.com]

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