Donald Trump made a personal jab at Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, after the French president refused to help him with his war in Iran.
The 79-year-old was speaking at a White House Easter lunch before his rambling address to the nation, and Iran was clearly on his mind. Still smarting over traditional allies’ refusal to get on board with his war, Trump turned his attention to Macron.
“Then I call up France, Macron, whose wife treats him extremely badly, he’s still recovering from the right to the jaw,” he joked, with the audience lapping it up.
Macron’s wife, Brigitte, 72, was seen angrily pushing the French president’s face as they prepared to get off a plane in Vietnam last year.
Macron, 48, was quick to explain, insisting to reporters in Hanoi that he and his wife were just “horsing around.”
The reaction to Trump’s comments in France was one of disgust. According to Le Parisien, the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, said: “That’s not how we talk to each other as human beings. I don’t see what it accomplishes. He wants to make people laugh, but politics isn’t a show; we’re talking about the future of the world.”
Manuel Bompard, Deputy of the French National Assembly, said: “You know the extent of my disagreements with the president of the republic [of France], but for Donald Trump to allow himself to speak to him like that and to speak like that about his wife, I find that absolutely unacceptable.”
Trump continued at the Easter lunch: “And I say: ‘Emmanuel, we’d love to have some help in the Gulf, even though we’re setting records in knocking out bad people and knocking out ballistic missiles, we’d love to have some help... could you please send ships immediately.’”
Leaning into a French accent, Trump imitated Macron’s response, “No, no, no, I cannot do that, Donald, we can do that after the war is won.”
He continued: “I said: ‘No, no, I don’t need [them] after the war is won, Emmanuel.’”
Trump is clearly still rankled by the fact that U.S. allies have not offered him support in Iran. The president has repeatedly urged NATO nations to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz in an attempt to force the Iranian regime to reopen the strategically important waterway.
On Wednesday, Macron was forthright in his position. “It is absolutely true that France, which was not consulted and is not part of the military offensive launched by the United States and Israel, is not taking part,” he said on French TV.
After the Easter lunch, Trump returned to the topic of the Strait. He said, “The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it; they can do it easily.”
He urged those nations to buy American oil and to “build up some delayed courage” to help him in the region.
