NATO Boss Calls Trump ‘Daddy’

By Staff, Agencies

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte quickly came to defend US President Donald Trump’s recent offensive tirade against Iran and "Israel", dismissing it as nothing more than a “daddy figure” using harsh words.

Trump on Tuesday lashed out at “Israel” and Iran for breaching a Washington-brokered ceasefire, telling reporters before departing for the NATO summit in The Hague that “Tel Aviv” and Tehran have been fighting so long and so hard that they’ve lost track of what they’re doing

The outburst came hours after he announced the truce, which was reportedly broken soon after by both "Israel" and Iran.

Asked about the remark during a joint press conference the next day, Trump likened the two sides to “kids [fighting] in a schoolyard.”

Rutte, seated beside him, added: “And then daddy has to, sometimes, use strong language.”

Rutte’s flattery wasn’t limited to the stage. Ahead of the summit, Trump published private text messages in which a fawning Rutte praised the US president’s “decisive action in Iran” as “truly extraordinary” and said it “makes us all safer.”

He went on to tell Trump, “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done,” and boasted that “Europe is going to pay BIG.” A NATO spokesperson later confirmed the authenticity of the exchange.

Rutte also used the summit itself to back Trump’s controversial push for NATO members to more than double their military spending to 5% of GDP. At Wednesday’s press conference, he called Trump “a good friend” and said he “deserves all the praise” for forcing the issue.

Asked by a reporter whether such overt admiration made him look weak, Rutte brushed it off: “I don’t think so. I think it’s a bit of a question of taste.”