French President Emmanuel Macron arrived at the White House ready to present a strong and unified case for Europe, especially regarding support for Ukraine.
This is how everyone should handle trump and his ilk at every opportunity. Talk over him, call him out on obvious lies, chuckle at him when he says idiotic things. Just generally treat him with disdain and derision. He has this hero status with his followers that could be chipped away at if he's the subject of serious, casual ridicule. Not the stupid, desperate, "mango mussolini" "lord cheeto" junk, but the stuff that makes him feel self-conscious and lash out like a stupid, bumbling old man. This has been the most successful rhetorical/propaganda strategy whenever people have employed it.
He's also not fast enough or coherent enough to respond to it anymore. I think you can cow him. Because I imagine that's what his handlers do every day. He's used to submitting.
He's never been fast or coherent enough to respond to any statement with factual evidence. But the unfortunate this is that his followers don't give a fuck if it's all made up
I'm curious if this is going to be the way leaders treat Trump going forward. And by curious I mean hopeful. Because that debacle in the Oval Office when Elon Musk completely owned him I think has made it clear that powerful people can dominate this man fairly easily. The guy who used to terrorize people in 2016 on the debate stage is gone. He's a dotering old man who doesn't even know where he is half the time. Interviews like this with other world leaders should be able to dominate the conversation fairly easily.
I mean it was pretty well known that in his first term Trump was really awkward in meetings with foreign leaders. His schtick is very much catered toward Americans, and he’s got that aspect down pat. He says shit that flusters and disorients American democrats but when he’s with foreign leaders it becomes much more apparent how much more intelligent literally everyone else in the room is than than him and how utterly out of his league they are, and they’ve always treated him like an idiot child spouting off and often even openly laugh at stuff he says in earnest much to his embarrassment and anger
There is zero chance. I think the only thing that would happen would be he would just shut down all in person meetings in front of a camera. Just like he does with news organizations or press people he doesn't like... He just cries "they treat me badly" and bans them from the White House
If something makes him look or feel bad he just shuts it down.
Every time he says something off the wall. Someone needs to lean in, sock him, and say something like, "think before you speak." Including, and especially his secret service detail. I don't think he can learn to do otherwise, it's just a tangible acknowledgment if his inherent idiocy.
Macron interrupts to say to the face of the orange thug that Europe provided 60% of the money and clearly he is there for negotiations. As he puts it, it is russia who should pay back : first pay compensations to Ukraine, then other countries.
Next a journalist asks the orrange nazi if russia will pay since they are the aggressor ... no answer + diversion + end of press meeting
What does that fucking moron mean when he says "We'll get some land back"? It seems to me that he thinks his allies land actually belongs to him. I know America likes to portray itself as the big boss of the west but that's just make-believe, man... Like movies and shit.
Trump is 78 years old, has diaper plumbing problems and gets bored easily. Why doesn't he retire? He would be surrounded by his adoring fans and he could live off of all of his money for the rest of his days.
Don't forget he was on trial for federal crimes, some of which carried lengthy prison sentences, at the time of his second election win. Literally, his only options were 'become president of the united states' and 'spend the rest of his life in prison'.
I don’t think that Cheeto is capable of stringing together a coherent sentence that has any substance to it. It’s like he’s just trying to get through the interview with little meaningless fluff sentences.
Makes me wonder if he has some yet-to-be-properly-diagnosed aphasia.
It's clear that he's just a pawn of Musk's at this point. And Musk read Project 2025 and his Nazi brain went "fuck yeah let's do that, get that really dumb guy in office again so we can really do shit"
The annoying orange sure does look like a weak dipshit whenever he tries to spew out his bullshit in an environment where he can't control the narrative.
Macron’s strategy was to spend as much time as possible with Trump, hoping to use their relationship to advocate for Ukraine and Europe.
So, I'm not French or European, so this is an outsider's standpoint.
But I've read past material in the French media claiming that Macron has historically strongly favored personal discussions between himself and foreign leaders, having processes that cut out the French foreign office and relied upon his personal interactions. I believe the phrase they used was "hyperpersonalized" diplomacy.
kagis
The article I was thinking of was much longer and focused specifically on France, but here's another talking about it and using the same "hyperpersonalized" term, so I don't think that it's just that author:
The film confirms what Elysée hacks have known for a long time — that Macron runs France’s foreign policy single-handedly with a small team of advisers. During the 115 minutes of the documentary, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian makes an appearance just once and is never filmed speaking. It’s Macron’s diplomatic advisor Bonne who discusses with Macron the French president’s phone calls with Putin, who listens in on the calls and discusses the Elysée’s official statements on the subject. Macron’s advisers aren’t seen challenging the president in any meaningful way.
“[The film shows] a diplomacy that is operated by a handful of people, as if they were running a start-up, as if everything could be resolved with the mobile numbers of ‘Olaf’, ‘Volodymyr’ and ‘Vladimir’, (without neglecting the importance of direct contacts of course),” Le Monde’s Washington correspondent Piotr Smolar wrote on Twitter.
French presidents traditionally have more control over their country’s foreign policy than other western leaders who have to wrestle with strong parliaments or foreign affairs ministries. But for Duclos, the documentary exposes the weaknesses of a hyper-centralized diplomatic machine.
This is talking about a French documentary, which might have driven the article that I read as well.
I don't know whether that's a fair, objective assessment. I don't have the familiarity with French political currents to make that call. But it at least sounds plausible to me.
The problem is that Macron's time leading France has seen several major foreign policy fiascos for France, and a number of them center around what looks to me like Macron getting an incorrect assessment via that personal interaction route.
Macron personally interacted with Australian leadership surrounding the submarine deal, and was confident that French defense contractors had it in the bag. Then, AUKUS went through, and Macron in particular was blindsided.
Macron aimed at personal phone calls with Putin in the runup to the invasion of Ukraine, and was convinced that Russia would not involve Ukraine and that he could personally influence Putin.
I think that there was one other big issue, something where he was negotiating with another EU member, but I can't recall what it was now.
There have also been a few articles that have made it to the English-language press on smaller issues that have made me a little suspicious that Macron hasn't, perhaps, been as effective as someone in the diplomatic corps might have been.
Macron tells cyclone-hit Mayotte islanders to be grateful they are French after facing jeers
French President Emmanuel Macron has faced jeers from locals on the cyclone-battered French overseas territory of Mayotte, telling them they should be “happy to be in France, because if it wasn’t France you’d be 10,000 times even more in the s***.”
Like, Macron might be perfectly right on the financial side, but I am deeply suspicious that that was not the best statement to make, regardless.
Then I remember some point where he was calling Italy a "rogue member of the EU" or similar. At this point, there was Article 7 activity against both Poland and Hungary, and the UK was in the Brexit process. I remember commenting something like "whatever the merit or lack thereof of attacking Italy, you need to end some of the conflicts in the EU. With this, you have one of the six largest members leaving the EU, you're trying to strip voting rights from another, and you're calling another a 'rogue member'. You cannot have this many fights at once. You will paralyze the EU."
Now, okay. I have Trump running my country, and I think that Trump is considerably more objectionable than Macron as a diplomat. But I am hesitant to say that Macron doing one-on-ones or personally-driving diplomacy with foreign leaders has been all that great for France.
I would hardly use AUKUS as an example of Macron's failing, rather an example of Australia sucking US cock for no reason. The AUKUS deal even blindsided most of Australia's own defence force. It is a fucking stupid deal, agreed to by some fucking stupid people and signed by Australia's then fucking stupid Prime Minister. The whole thing stinks of back room shinanigans, will most likely result in zero submarines ever, but unfortunately no diplomacy on France's behalf would have made any difference to the end result.
Macron, like Trump, is a narcissist. It doesn't manifest quite as badly as Trump's narcissism but you can see it everywhere - look at how he interacts with the French parliament or how he acts when French people disagree with him.