Maggie Haberman Roasts World Leaders ‘Bending The Knee’ To Trump After Resisting 1st Term: ‘Hell With It!’
New York Times White House correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman said world leaders like King Charles III are “bending the knee” to President Donald Trump after pushing back during his first term, saying they’re now taking a “hell with it!” approach.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with Trump this week and presented him with a letter from the king, and gushed about the “unprecedented” invitation for a second state visit.
On Friday’s edition of NYT‘s The Daily podcast, Haberman joined Barbaro and colleagues Catie Edmonson and Zolan Cano Young to discuss the week in Trump.
Barbaro wrapped up the episode by calling Starmer’s performance “self-debasement” and Haberman contrasted world leaders “bending the knee” with how they treated Trump the first time around:
MICHAEL BARBARO: I mean, just to really summarize what has happened in this scene, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, having basically been summoned to Washington to make sure that Trump knows that he’s willing to have less U.S. security in Europe, and instead that the UK will spend more on its own security follows up by saying, “Oh, and by the way, our King wants to have you for dinner. It’s going to be amazing! It’s going to be historic!”
The scene is one of kind of, let’s just put it really plainly, self-debasement in the name of impressing Donald Trump.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: There was a whole sideshow in the first term when Trump visited the UK and met with the royal family, and there were all these complaints about how he handled himself and some concerns by people around the royals that they didn’t care for how the Trump entourage was behaving and so forth. That was all very much on the UK’s terms.
This is all on Donald Trump’s terms and using the British royal family, which Trump has been enchanted by since childhood, and he credits his mother for that, as a chit.
And so this is absolutely a change in tone and a change in approach. And it is definitely a bending of the knee of some sorts.
But it is also a reflection of how world leaders have instead of bristling against Trump trying to set the debate on his own terms, are just essentially saying, “yeah, hell with it!” t this point. And that’s pretty different than the first term.
This is a recognition that Trump wants some kind of offering, and this one is pretty clever.
MICHAEL BARBARO: I think we all might have imagined that Trump’s victory in the US meant that there would be lots of dealmaking from within the Republican Party and concessions, but this is something else entirely.
These are America’s strongest allies saying, where do you need me? What do you want? What’s wrong? Here’s your here’s the deal.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: Yes.
MICHAEL BARBARO: And it’s it’s just very striking what an extraordinary exercise of power we’re seeing from this president.
Watch above via NYT‘s The Daily podcast.
