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The head of NATO fawned over President Donald Trump at a press conference on Wednesday, excusing the president’s foul-mouthed tirade against Iran and Israel as “daddy” using “strong language.”
Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, beamed while sitting next to Trump at The Hague on Wednesday and praised the president for intervening in the conflict between Iran and Israel by sending U.S. bombers to destroy nuclear facilities.
Trump called the mission a “tremendous victory for everybody” and claimed hostilities between Israel and Iran would stop by using an analogy of two children fighting in the schoolyard.
“They’ve had it. They’ve got a big fight, like two kids in a schoolyard. You know, they fight like hell. You can’t stop them, let them fight for two, three minutes, then it’s easier to stop them,” Trump told reporters.
Rutte interjected, “And then daddy has to, sometimes, use strong language.”
The comment was a reference to Trump’s angry rant on Tuesday, where he told reporters that Israel and Iran “don’t know what the f*** they’re doing” after both countries appeared to indicate they would not adhere to a ceasefire promoted by the president hours earlier.
In response, Trump chuckled and added: “Strong language, yeah, every once and a while.”
Even before referring to Trump as “daddy,” Rutte has spent a considerably amount of time praising the president in recent days.
On Tuesday, Rutte sent Trump a long message thanking him for his contributions to the world and insisting no other American president could have swiftly intervened in the Iran–Israel conflict or pushed NATO countries to increase spending on defense. Trump later posted a screenshot of Rutte’s message on social media.
Rutte’s abundance of praise continued on Wednesday as he spent the first half of the press conference attributing the NATO defense spending agreement to Trump.
Rutte defended his flattery toward Trump on Wednesday after a reporter asked if he thought it made him look “weak” to fawn over the U.S. president.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s a bit of a question of taste,” Rutte said.
Calling Trump “a good friend,” Rutte said he “deserves all the praise” for pressuring several NATO allies to increase their defense spending from 2 percent to 5 percent. Trump previously lashed out at NATO partners for relying too heavily on the U.S. for military support.
Rutte said the praise was necessary because Trump had also ensured Iran could not get its hands on a nuclear weapon, although recent reports have questioned the long-term effectiveness of the U.S.’s recent bombing.
