President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, called him “daddy” as a way to show his affection.
Rutte praised Trump for dropping an f-bomb while criticizing Israel and Iran’s violation of a ceasefire deal, stating that “daddy has to sometimes use strong language.” A reporter at the NATO Summit asked Trump if he views his allies as his “children.”
“Mark Rutte, the NATO chief, is your friend. He called you daddy earlier. Do you regard your NATO allies as kind of children?” the reporter asked.
“No, he likes me,” Trump said. “I think he likes me. If he doesn’t, I’ll let you know. I’ll come back and I’ll hit him hard. He did it very affectionate[ly]. Daddy, you’re my daddy.” (RELATED: ‘They Want To Spin It’: Trump, Hegseth Team Up To Take On NBC News Reporter Pressing Them About Leaked Iran Report)
WATCH:
The president announced on Monday night that the two nations had reached a ceasefire agreement in a celebratory Truth Social post, though Iran fired missiles at Israel and had continued its fighting. Before leaving for the Netherlands on Tuesday, Trump slammed both Israel and Iran for continuing strikes after announcing a ceasefire.
“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard, that they don’t know what the fuck they are doing,” Trump said.
The U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan on Saturday night in order to stop the nation from developing a nuclear weapon. Trump said that the B-2 bombers “completely obliterated” the sites, though CNN leaked an early assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which alleged that the damage done would set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months.
