President Donald Trump has a short, sweet defense of his stunning posting spree that leaked private text messages from European leaders.
“It just made my point,” he told the New York Post on Tuesday morning.
The president appeared to suggest that he felt stung by two-faced treatment from world leaders.
“They’re saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s have dinner, let’s do this, let’s do that.’ It just made my point,” he continued.
The president, 79, shared text messages from French President Emmanuel Macron and NATO chief Mark Rutte on Truth Social on Monday, after Macron spoke out against his threat of new tariffs on European allies if they stand in the way of his plan to wrench Greenland away from Denmark.
A French official later confirmed the message from Macron was legitimate.
“My friend, We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland,” the message from Macron read.
“Let us try to build great things. i can set up a g7 meeting after Davos in Paris on thursday afternoon. I can invite the ukrainians, the danish, the syrians and the russians in the margins. let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us. Emmanuel.”
One minute after leaking the message from Macron, Trump shared an edited image of himself, standing opposite European leaders in the Oval Office, sitting next to a map showing Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela under the U.S. flag. He went on to attack the United Kingdom—another NATO ally—present a long list of reasons why the U.S. should acquire Greenland, and leak a fawning text from Rutte.
“Mr. President, dear Donald - what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible,” the message reads. “I will use my media engagements in Davos to highlight your work there, in Gaza, and in Ukraine,” Rutte wrote. “I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Cant wait to see you. Yours, Mark.”
The posts came as he threatened 10 percent tariffs, effective Feb. 1, on eight European nations opposed to his bid to take over Greenland. Polls show the majority of the some 57,000 residents of the world’s largest island overwhelmingly opposed joining the U.S.
Trump, who was traveling to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum during his posting spree, went on to brag about his unknown Syrian initiative: “I did a great job. You know what I did? I stopped a prison break.”
He continued: “We did a good job with Syria. They had a prison break. European prisoners were breaking and I got it stopped. That was yesterday,” Trump said.
“European terrorists were in prison. They had a prison break. And working with the government of Syria and the new leader of Syria, they captured all the prisoners, put them back to jail, and these were the worst terrorists in the world, all from Europe.”
For his part, Macron delivered a sharply worded rebuke to Trump’s aggressive tariffs at the business hub in Zurich on Tuesday—paired with a string of thinly-veiled jabs against the U.S.
“We do prefer respect to bullies. We do prefer science to politicism. And we prefer the rule of law to brutality,” Macron, 48, said.
“Having a place like Europe—which is predictable, loyal, and where you know the rule of the game is the rule of law—is a good place.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
