During a summit in The Hague, Mark Rutte reportedly referred to the U.S. president as “daddy.”
According to Politico, certain EU officials are displeased with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s alleged use of excessive flattery to curry favor with U.S. President Donald Trump.
At the summit held in The Hague on Wednesday, Trump was questioned about his profane remarks concerning Israel and Iran. Before arriving in the Netherlands, the president criticized the two nations for violating the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, stating they “have been fighting so long and so hard that they do not know what the f**k they are doing.”
Trump responded by likening West Jerusalem and Tehran to “kids [fighting] in a schoolyard,” and Rutte, who was sitting next to him, added: “And then daddy has to, sometimes, use strong language.”
Prior to the summit, the U.S. president also shared some private messages from the NATO chief, where Rutte assured Trump of “flying into another big success” in The Hague and hailed the Israel-Iran truce as “truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do.”
Politico’s Wednesday article noted that some Western European officials were “grumbling” about Rutte’s apparent “leaning heavily into public and private flattery” of Trump. One unnamed official told the outlet: “People are so embarrassed. Yes, the summit was a success on the whole. But the sucking up was pretty over the top.”
When later asked by journalists if he thought he was being excessive in flattering Trump, Rutte responded: “No, I do not think so. I think it is a bit of a question of taste.”
He further stated that the U.S. president deserves “all the praise” for his “decisive action” regarding Iran, and for successfully persuading NATO members at the summit to commit to increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035.
Trump told reporters: “I think he likes me. ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy.’ He did it very affectionately.”
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