Daddy's coming for the tabs ...
Trump and NATO chief Mark Rutte met in The Hague to discuss Iran and Israel.
— euronews (@euronews) June 25, 2025
"Let them fight for about 2, 3 minutes, then it's easy to stop them", said Trump, to which Rutte replied: “Then Daddy has to [...] use strong language to get it stopped.”
👉Watch the full interaction. pic.twitter.com/82BY3D5aM8
Ed: Who's your daddy? I saw a lot of derision directed toward Rutte for using "daddy" in this way, but he was just extending Trump's analogy. This clip gives better context to Rutte's analogy. But make no mistake: Trump's success in both derailing Iran's nuclear-weapons pursuit and then imposing a cease-fire made a deep impression in Europe. And, I'd daresay, in Asia.
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Once Trump arrived—after many of the other heads of state—U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the condensed conference "the Trump summit." Throughout Wednesday, most had an eye out for a glimpse of Trump, waiting for him to stride out on stage and mete out judgment on whether Europe had done enough to placate him.
It looks like most of Europe has. Trump praised not just "wonderful speeches from the heads of a lot of wonderful countries," but a "terrific" Mark Rutte. The NATO chief is credited by attendees in The Hague with almost single-handedly herding NATO's member states toward an agreement that, even a few months ago, was an outlandish suggestion.
Ed: When Trump promised to make America great again, this is what he meant. No president since Reagan has made that deep of an impression on NATO, in large part because no president since Reagan has had the will to effectively and successfully impose its will on a crisis situation. The demolition of Iran's nuclear-weapons project will resonate for as long as it takes Iran to rebuild it -- if it ever does again.
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🚨 LMAO! Marco Rubio absolutely LOST his composure in the background as Trump is asked about NATO Secretary General calling him "daddy." 🤣
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 25, 2025
REPORTER: "Mark Rutte, the NATO Chief, he called you 'daddy' earlier...Do you regard your NATO allies as children?"
RUBIO: 🤣🤣🤣
TRUMP:… pic.twitter.com/eJEtjQqjeL
Ed: Yes, even with the context, it's still pretty funny. Rubio's reaction was priceless.
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President Trump offered robust support for Europe and a rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the NATO Summit in the Hague on Wednesday, capping a visit that came as a relief to anxious allies across the continent.
The gathering was designed by NATO leadership to appease the president, and it delivered, with nearly all members of the transatlantic alliance agreeing to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense — an historic increase that had been a priority to Trump for several years.
“We’re with them all the way,” Trump said of NATO, sitting alongside its secretary general, Mark Rutte. He later added to reporters, “if I didn’t stand with it, why would I be here?”
Ed: Trump is willing to take more risks in brinksmanship than most people would like. However, the results this week speak for themselves. And don't think that this has gone unnoticed by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Not only has Trump made America the dominant force in NATO again, he's also dispensed with the apologetic nature of that projection of power. Trump reveled in it today, and that will also make an impression.
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Reporter: “Are you interested in restarting negotiations with Iran?”
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 25, 2025
Trump: “I’m not. They fought, the war is done. I just asked him the question as we were walking on the stage. Do you want to draw up a little agreement for them to sign? Because I think we can get them to sign… pic.twitter.com/JzSIYet8S5
Ed: Trump's main point, emphasized by Rubio in the follow-up, is that he's tired of playing the diplomatic game of "indirect" talks. If Iran wants to talk with the US, they can do it directly. Otherwise, what's the point?
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European leaders were relieved by the endorsement of the transatlantic bond from the longtime Nato sceptic, who has repeatedly called for European countries to spend far more on defence and for the US to shift military assets from the continent to other regions.
Despite concerns in European capitals over the scale of the fiscal pressure the target will place on their budgets, leaders lined up to hail the summit’s achievements and Trump’s role in forcing them to spend more. The declaration was about “putting our money where our mouth is”, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.
But the summit communiqué contains just one reference to Russia, citing the “long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security” and one sentence referring to “enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine”.
Ed: Actually, I expect Trump to loosen up more support for Ukraine after this. With his success on Iran and on India and Pakistan, I'd bet he wants to press Putin harder for a ceasefire in Ukraine, too. Plus, this emotional exchange with a Ukrainian journalist resulted in a surprising suggestion of more ABM support for defense.
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Donald Trump’s dialogue with @myroslavapetsa:
— Ostap Yarysh (@OstapYarysh) June 25, 2025
— Is the US ready to sell Patriots to Ukraine?
— Are you living in Ukraine?
— My husband is there.
— Is your husband a soldier?
— Yes.
— Wow. That’s tough. … We're going to see if we can make some Patriot missiles available. pic.twitter.com/1idiI4OFtU
Ed: Trump specifically vented about Putin being "misguided," too. Worth watching.
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You can imagine the guffaws and hair-pulling from the Trump-is-Hitler crowd at the thought that anyone would see him as a suitable candidate for this prize. But as much as we’d love to watch their heads explode as he walked up to accept the award, we think Trump should take himself out of the running.
Sure, he probably did more for world peace when he bombed Iran’s nuclear sites than any president since Ronald Reagan did when he left Michael Gorbachev high and dry at Reykjavík and sparked the end of the Soviet Union.
But why in the world would Trump want to join the ranks of other Nobel Peace Prize winners?
Ed: The Nobel Peace Prize collective looks more like Mos Eisley Cantina these days -- a "wretched hive of scum and villainy," as Issues and Insights lays out. They give five examples of why joining this club is no real honor. It reminds me of the Pulitzer hive these days, actually.
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Three years solitary confinement + 20 year prison sentences, right? https://t.co/CguHt1GBot
— sarainitaly 🌷🌷🌷 (@sarainitaly) June 25, 2025
Ed: Those are the rules. Right?
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🚨The U.S. Dept. of Education has found California in violation of Title IX for letting males compete in girls’ sports.
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) June 25, 2025
CDE & CIF must restore records, titles & awards to female athletes AND send apology letters to every girl robbed by this discrimination.
This is fantastic. pic.twitter.com/lrYiSF0f4q
Ed: We may cover this in more detail, but let's get this good development out there. This is what I voted for, among other things.
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It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor. We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous. He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart, he’s got AOC+3, Dummies ALL, backing him, and even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him. Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country!
Ed: Indeed, but it's just the latest degradation of urban politics on a long spectrum of incompetence and performativity.
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Liberal white people vote for candidates like Mamdani (and Kamala) for their own self-gratification and to affirm their moral self-image. It’s a low-stakes, low-effort symbolic act that signals progressive values and solidarity with “the little guy” while they live out their… https://t.co/Yv5ya6q80Z
— Storm (@stormrobinson) June 25, 2025
... while they live out their lives in isolated bubbles that insulate them from the consequences of progressive policies.
These people assume the lower class can only survive with handouts instead of opportunities for upward mobility that naturally exist in a strong capitalist society. They don’t care about the inefficiency of things like government-run grocery stores because they assume it’s good enough for the lower class while they get Whole Foods delivered. They don’t care if rent control leads to slums because they don’t have to live in them. They don’t care if defunding the police makes the city unsafe because when shit hits the fan, they have the wealth and resources to pack up and leave.
It’s performative altruism. A way for them to wash their hands of the privilege they pretend to resent without actually doing anything meaningful for the people they pretend to care about.
Ed: We used to call these people "limousine liberals." That's now an insult to liberals. These are progressive elites who condescend to hoi polloi in all things that they do.
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The former governor also made far fewer campaign appearances than Mamdani did, perhaps thinking that he could reprise Joe Biden’s basement campaign strategy and coast on his name recognition.
Or perhaps Cuomo thought, as those who ran against Trump in the Republican primary in 2016 did, that Mamdani’s views would be disqualifying. Mamdani said about the police in 2020: “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.” He has refused to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, just as he has refused to condemn the phrase globalize the intifada.
Or perhaps Cuomo imagined that the city’s business class, some of whom had begun to map out plans to get themselves and their businesses out of the city if Mamdani won, would spook voters.
Ed: Or maybe -- and I'm just spitballing here -- having the only real competition to a jihadi-loving socialist be a predatory creep that sent thousands of elderly New Yorkers to their deaths and then lied about it was a BAD IDEA. The entire primary was insane. Are those two really the best that Democrats could do in a mayoral race for America's largest city and capital markets? REALLY? Every Democrat in the nation should be embarrassed.
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