Trump Attacks French President Emmanuel Macron For ‘Nasty’ Comments About NATO

French President Emmanuel Macron slammed NATO in a recent interview with The Economist, and President Donald Trump fired back at him on Tuesday calling Macron’s comments “nasty” and “very insulting.”

World leaders have gathered in London to mark the NATO alliance’s 70th anniversary, and leaders from the two of the most important countries – Trump and Macron – are insulting one another.

Macron said on Thursday that NATO was experiencing “brain death.” He later stated that he was not sorry for these remarks and that they served as a wake-up call for the alliance. Macron thinks NATO should focus more on terrorism rather than individual country’s defense spending – which is a known a hot topic for Trump.

 

Trump blasted Macron while standing alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg before a meeting, stating, “I think that’s very insulting to a lot of different forces.” Trump also added that he thought Stoltenberg was doing a great job running the alliance. “It’s a tough statement when you make a statement like that. It’s a very, very nasty statement to essentially 28 countries,” Trump added before making a more personal attack on Macron and the state of France.

“France is not doing well economically at all. They’re starting to tax other people’s products,” Trump told the reporters. “It’s a very tough statement to make when you have such difficulty in France. You look at what’s happening with the Yellow Vests [protest movement]. They’ve had a very rough year and you just can’t go around making statements like that about NATO. It’s very disrespectful.”