Did Japan's first lady pretend she doesn't understand English to avoid Trump?

Trump found it awkward to be seated next to her for two hours

Rumors were abuzz on Thursday that the first lady of Japan, Akie Abe, pretended she doesn't know how to converse in English to avoid having to talk to US President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit.

The conjecture stems from an excerpt in an explosive interview the president gave to The New York Times. 

In the interview, Trump took shots at former FBI Director James Comey and criticised Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He also issued hidden threats at Special Counselor Robert Mueller who's heading the Russia probe. In addition to all this, he made a revelation that Akie Abe, whom he was seated next to him during a dinner for world leaders and their significant others at the G20 did not have a conversation with him.



A screen shot of the relevant passage shows the transcript of the interview. Essentially, Trump told NYT political reporter Maggie Haberman that it was awkward being seated next to Akie Abe for nearly two hours because she doesn’t know how to speak English.





However, Sam Thielman, a writer for Talking Points Memo, pointed out on Twitter the first lady does know how to speak in English as there is a video of Akie Abe delivering a keynote address at a Ford Foundation event in 2014.