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Daddy issues Fawning on Trump and the art of sycophancy in politics
June 28, 2025
|The Guardian
History may record this week as the one in which Donald Trump came to Europe to discuss defence spending.
History may record this week as the one in which Donald Trump came to Europe to discuss defence spending. Diplomats may remember it as the week the art of obsequiousness reached new highs and the sycophants plumbed new lows. All in the name of taming the president. It seems to have worked.
After Trump returned to Washington from this week's Nato summit in The Hague, the White House posted a video that made clear how his team felt the trip had gone.
The summit had concluded on Wednesday with a joint press conference in which the alliance's secretary general, Mark Rutte, after showering the US president with compliments over Iran, bizarrely referred to him as "daddy".
Rutte was now being widely derided for the summit's "orchestrated grovel" and trying to row back on his choice of language. In Washington, however, Team Trump were enjoying themselves.
"Daddy's home!" trilled the video, which mixed clips of Trump's handshakes with world leaders with footage of crowds awaiting his motorcade, soundtracked by a 2010 song by Usher. "And I know you've been waiting for this loving all day..."
The tone of Rutte's public bootlicking had been muted compared to the text messages he had sent to "dear Donald" ahead of the summit.
هذه القصة من طبعة June 28, 2025 من The Guardian.
اشترك في Magzter GOLD للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة، وأكثر من 9000 مجلة وصحيفة.
هل أنت مشترك بالفعل؟ تسجيل الدخول
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