WHO'S THE DADDY?

Parenting expert and therapeutic practitioner Tanith Carey looks at what Donald Trump's 'daddy issues' reveal about the US president, who's 80 soon, and what they could be hiding

- Tanith Carey

It’s hard to imagine how a single remark could unite a whole continent in one giant collective “ICK”. But Donald Trump seemed to have managed it this week when he told his Nato partners at Davos they should really be looking up to him and calling him “Daddy”.

Never mind that most of the European leaders in the room were more likely to view him as something closer to a rampaging toddler, grabbing at things that do not belong to him - like the entire nation of Greenland. Trump claimed he'd been “helping” Europe and Nato, before veering off topic, claiming “they loved me” until he tried to annex Greenland, which he incorrectly then named as Iceland.

In a rambling aside, referring to an offhand remark by the secretary general Mark Rutte six months ago, he went on: “They called me ‘Daddy, right? The last time? [A] very smart man said: ‘He’s our daddy. He’s running it.’”

He went on: “I was, like, running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human being.”

And it became clear: perhaps the US president was not so much addressing the global elite as performing for the spectre of his own father, whose “winner takes all” directives still seem to live rent-free in his head.

Trump’s vision is of a world in which he is the head of the household, footing the (defence) bills and therefore entitled to unquestioning loyalty and gratitude in return. It’s tempting to add his “call me daddy” moment to the growing list of things you cannot believe have come out of his mouth and move on. But look deeper and it becomes clear that this was no throwaway remark. This is a role he’s increasingly embracing and when you look at the psychological reasons behind it, it could offer a hint at why he behaves the way he does and the best way to handle him in return.