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Trump Fumbles Repeatedly While Bragging in Front of World Leaders

Donald Trump essentially told his fellow world leaders to pound sand.

Donald Trump gestures while speaking at a podium while flanked by world leaders
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Donald Trump humiliated himself Monday at a summit of world leaders gathered to sign a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas.

The historic peace deal was signed in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, following the release of the remaining 20 Israeli hostages in Gaza, and the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel, including 1,700 taken over the last two years and held without charges. While both sides have agreed to this first phase of Trump’s 20-point peace deal, it’s still unclear whether peace will persist.

While celebrating his momentary victory in front of his fellow world leaders, Trump spoke incoherently and made several embarrassing comments.

Speaking about being escorted to the signing on Air Force One by Egyptian military aircraft, Trump came across unintelligibly.

“But Air Force One was really—it was covered with Egyptian desert just a few months ago, if you think about it. Just a few months ago it was Egyptian desert, and now it was just a few feet off our window, and it was a spectacular sight, and I appreciate it very much,” said Trump.

It’s not clear what Trump was attempting to convey here. The U.S. president has a tendency to steer into meaningless remarks when speaking without a teleprompter. And that was only the beginning.

In a room full of world leaders the U.S. president claimed that his opinion was the only one that mattered, while directly praising Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has become something of a model leader for those on the contemporary right after he systematically weakened his country’s free press, replacing it with a state-controlled propaganda machine.

“You are fantastic, all right? I know a lot of people don’t agree with me, but I’m the only one that matters. You are fantastic,” Trump said. “He’s a great leader. I endorsed him in the last election he had, and he won by 28 points. You’re gonna do even better next time.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had a pained expression as she stood behind the babbling U.S. president. She looked particularly horrified as Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he’d nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, which the U.S. president lost last week.

In another cringeworthy moment, Trump turned his attention to Meloni to fawn over her appearance.

“We have a woman, a young woman, who’s uh—I’m not allowed to say it ’cause it’s usually the end of your political career if you say it. She’s a beautiful young woman. Now if you use the word ‘beautiful’ in the United States about a woman, that’s the end of your political career, but I’ll take my chances,” Trump said.

He added that Meloni was very respected in Italy. Clearly, he was not party to that respect.

Later, while patting himself on the back for his work on the peace agreement, Trump mistakenly called Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney the “president” of Canada.

After Trump’s remarks, Carney was caught on a hot mic joking, “I’m glad you upgraded me to president!”

“Did I say that?” Trump laughed. He leaned in, adding, “At least I didn’t say governor.”

Trump Spends Peace Summit Whining How He Wants a Police State

Donald Trump waxed poetic about Egypt’s ability to stomp out unrest.

Donald Trump sits with his hands folded between his knees
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump is in Egypt celebrating a historic ceasefire arrangement between Israel and Gaza—but he can’t stop fixating on the imagined crime crisis he believes is taking place back on U.S. soil.

Seated next to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Monday, Trump’s proud exaltation of the authoritarian state offered some startling insight into the way he seems to want to manage America.

“We’re in a country where a friend of mine is a very powerful leader, and my friend of mine is right here,” Trump said. “The reason I call him the general is because he’s both, and he’s good at both, he’s done a fantastic job.”

“They have very little crime, because they don’t play games, that’s why. They don’t play games like we do, in the United States, with governors that have no idea what they’re doing,” the U.S. president continued. “But they don’t have crime. I ask about crime, and they almost don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

Egypt is categorized as “not free” by an analysis from Freedom House, a democracy advocacy organization that formed to rally the world against the threat of Nazi Germany nearly a century ago. Political opposition in Egypt is nearly nonexistent. Civil liberties that are currently taken for granted in the U.S., such as the right to protest or the freedom of the press, are choked by the tight fist of the Egyptian government, which has been dominated by the military since a 2013 coup.

“Most of Egypt’s provincial governors are former military or police commanders,” Freedom House assessed.

Why Trump might admire Egypt’s regime is no secret. Trump has made enemies out of his stateside opposition, publicly calling for the political persecution of Democratic lawmakers who have dared to object to his agenda, including Senator Adam Schiff, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and more.

Just last week, the president threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a nineteenth-century law that would let him utilize the military for domestic purposes, to quell fictitious bedlam that he claims has taken over Democratic cities.

One such area that Trump has homed in on is Portland, Oregon, a city better known for Voodoo Doughnuts and cold brew than hellish riots. Late last month, the president ordered the National Guard to the hipster paradise, but his rationale for sending them was not informed by statistics or data—instead, it was because of something he saw on TV.

“I spoke to the governor, she was very nice,” Trump said at the time, referring to a phone call he had with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek. “But I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different.’ They are literally attacking, and there are fires all over the place.… It looks like terrible.”

Trump Tells Fellow World Leaders He’s “the Only One That Matters”

The president couldn’t help himself.

Donald Trump speaks in front of fellow world leaders
Suzanne Plunkett/Pool/Getty Images
Donald Trump speaks in front of fellow world leaders on Monday

At a meeting of world leaders Monday, President Donald Trump claimed he is “the only one that matters” while heaping praise on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

“We love Viktor,” Trump said onstage at a Gaza “peace summit” in Egypt, where he told the prime minister, “You are fantastic, alright?”

“I know a lot of people don’t agree with me,” Trump went on, “but I’m the only one that matters when—. You are fantastic.”

Trump continued to honor the Hungarian prime minister, who has indeed earned his fair share of critics for striving to dismantle liberal democracy in his country. Since taking office in 2010, Orbán has seized control of independent governmental institutions, curtailed press freedoms, and targeted his political opponents, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people.

“He’s a great leader,” Trump said. “I endorsed him the last election he had, and he won by 28 points. So you’re going to do even better this time if you have another election,” he added, assuring him, “We’re behind you 100 percent.”

With parliamentary elections taking place next spring, Orbán’s ruling party, which has dominated Hungarian politics for 15 years, appears to be trailing a new opposition party in public opinion polls. As the Center for European Policy Analysis notes, this has raised concerns—which may ring familiar here in the U.S.—that if Orbán were to lose, he may refuse to accept defeat and instead challenge the integrity of the vote.

This Is How Slavishly Devoted Marco Rubio Is to Trump

When the president says “jump,” Rubio says “How high?”

Marco Rubio whispers in Donald Trump's ear
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s Cabinet has once again demonstrated that it is just as blindly devoted to the president’s cult of personality as his most ardent MAGA supporters are.

“It’s about transforming the region,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Egypt, right after stating that Trump’s Middle East Peace plan was bigger than “restoring” Gaza. “We have an incredible partner and a long alliance, a tremendous collection of leaders. This is clearly, in my mind—and I think in the mind of everyone in this room—probably one of the most important days for world peace in fifty years. And that’s not an exaggeration.”

“Only fifty?” Trump chimed in.

Rubio then proceeded to exaggerate.

“Maybe 100! Really since the end of World War II.”

Rubio responded to Trump’s comment like a dog would respond to its owner, and he isn’t the only one. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, and countless other Cabinet members have turned positions that are historically aimed to be independent of the president into glorified sycophants.

Peace in Gaza is tenuous at best, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it abundantly clear that he would prefer to keep the conflict going indefinitely. This deal is not a switch to flip, it will take years to fully come into fruition—if it isn’t broken by Israel.

And peace for whom? Rubio’s comments come as Poland prepares its military for increased violence from Russia, as war rages on in Sudan, and as the National Guard tears through the streets of U.S. cities.

Trump Touts Peace While Poland Prepares for War

The president’s attempted victory lap in the Middle East was undermined as the war in Ukraine threatens to expand.

NATO soldiers participate in military drills in Poland.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
NATO soldiers participate in military drills in Poland.

While President Trump continues to tout his supreme international peacemaking abilities, Europe prepares for all-out war. 

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Poland has increased its military spending to the point that it is 4.7 percent of its entire gross domestic product. For reference, military spending is around 3 percent of the U.S. GDP. 

This comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin ratchets up aggression against Poland and its neighbors to the west. Just last month, Russian drones were seen in Polish airspace, forcing the NATO ally to shut down four of its airports as it scrambled to ready its defense systems against the incursion. Poland’s leadership invoked Article Four of the NATO Treaty the next day, calling the ​​situation the “closest” that Poland had come to armed conflict “since the Second World War.” Three Russian fighter jets entered Estonian airspace just days after, in yet another significant display of aggression meant to test NATO’s cohesiveness. 

Now Poland is prepared to stop its former invader’s current one. 

“This is our war,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the Warsaw Security Forum in September. “We decided to arm Poland and modernize the Polish army on a massive scale.”

Poland’s increased military spending has produced a situation where the nation now has more than 210,000 military personnel (trailing only the U.S. and Turkey in NATO); a large territorial defense force; and $50 billion of American-made weaponry, including Abrams tanks, and a Polish version of the U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. Poland is also armed with multiple South Korean rocket launchers and had its soldiers participate in monthslong war games to test out the new equipment.

“In the case of war, Poland will be a very busy country because the military will mobilize, the economy will mobilize, but we would also have to prepare for NATO coming to—and through—Poland,” Armed Forces Operational Commander Lt. Gen. Maciej Klisz told the Journal. 

These developments paint a stark contrast to President Trump’s endless rhetoric in which he presents himself as the “President of Peace,” claiming to have ended six, seven, and sometimes even 10 wars. While that is obviously a severe exaggeration, the war preparations in Poland and the greater European NATO region only further weaken that tenuous claim.