‘NATO Calls Me Daddy!’ Trump Gloats About Forcing Allies to Ramp Up Defense Spending

President Donald Trump joked that NATO calls him “daddy” as he reflected on having forced allies to ramp up their defense spending – repeating a remark made by the alliance’s Secretary General Mark Rutte in July.

The quip came during a wide-ranging sit-down with Politico journalist Dasha Burns and in the middle of a scathing take slamming European leaders as “weak” and “destroying their countries” with migration policies.

Burns pressed Trump on whether he would get “involved in European elections” as a result of what he was seeing, to which the president said he was already involved in Europe but wants to “run” the U.S.

In the middle of the line of questioning, Trump joked: “NATO calls me daddy.”

He continued: “I mean, I have a lot to say about it. Look, I raised, you know, GDP from 2 percent to 5%; the 2 % they weren’t paying and the 5% they are paying. And they’re paying it because when we send things over, NATO pays for it, and I assume they give it to Ukraine.”

“But Europe is being destroyed,” he said.

NATO members agreed in a joint statement in June that they would increase their contributions to the alliance to 5% of each countries economic output – a move Trump praised at the time as a “big WIN” after a months-long pressure campaign.

One month later, sat beside Trump hours after the president had cursed out Iran and Israel for a military exchange that threatened his brokered ceasefire, Rutte praised him as “a man of strength and peace” before awkwardly joking: “Sometimes, daddy has to use strong words.”

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