Donald Trump's Call With Astronauts Gets Incredibly Awkward: Watch

Following an obscene Easter Sunday social media post and a rambling press conference on his war in Iran, President Donald Trump made an awkward call to the astronauts orbiting the moon, leaving dead air defying gravity along with the crew.

During a live-streamed congratulatory call on Monday, April 6, the 79-year-old president and the Artemis II astronauts experienced a minute-long awkward silence.

The 12-minute conversation occurred as the crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — reached the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth.

After Trump delivered a monologue praising the crew and mentioning his friendship with Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, neither the president nor the astronauts spoke for roughly 60 seconds.

“Today, you’ve made history and made all America really proud,” Trump told the crew. “Humans have never really seen anything quite like what you’re doing in a manned spacecraft. It’s really special.”

Despite Trump’s threats to annex Canada as the 51st state, Canadian astronaut Hansen thanked him on behalf of his country.

“You have a lot of courage. I’m not sure if they’d want to do that,” Trump told Hansen. “I’m not even sure if ‘The Great One’ would want to do that, to be honest with you,” he said, referring to the hockey legend.

“But you have a lot of courage doing what you’re doing, a lot of bravery and a lot of genius, but they’re very proud of you," he added.

That’s when things got weird.

The astronauts didn’t respond; instead, they watched the microphone they were speaking into float through the air.

“Awkward scenes aboard Artemis II as Trump stops ranting and none of the astronauts have anything left to say to him, leading to extended dead air,” posted journalist Aaron Rupar.

The silence ended when Mission Commander Wiseman asked for a "quick comms check" to verify if the president was still on the line. Trump responded, "I am, yes," which drew laughter from Mission Control.

Trump attributed the awkward pause to a "nine-second delay" due to the 252,756-mile distance between Earth and the Orion spacecraft.

“I think we might have gotten cut off,” Trump eventually said, attempting to brush off the silence. “It is a long distance, it’s a long ways. The reception’s been great,” he said.

He told the astronauts he would ask for their autographs when they visited the Oval Office, noting that he does not often ask for them before wandering off to another planet.

“I know you have Mars very much in your mind, so we’ll start thinking about that pretty soon, I think,” he said.

The moment quickly went viral, with some observers praising the astronauts' refusal to "fill the dead air" and others debating whether the lapse was purely technical or a conversational failure. Critics also pointed out the irony of Trump's praise for NASA, given his past attempts to cut agency funding.