NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has clarified a remark made during a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday, following media buzz over his use of the word “daddy.”
Rutte addressed reporters later in the day, explaining that his comment was taken out of context and that he was not referring to President Trump directly.
“I didn’t call him ‘daddy,’” Rutte said, according to The Hill. “What I said was that sometimes in Europe, I hear countries asking, ‘Hey Mark, will the U.S. stay with us?’ I compared that to a small child asking his father, ‘Are you still staying with the family?’ So in that sense, I used the word ‘daddy’—but not to describe President Trump himself.”
The clarification came after an exchange during a bilateral meeting between Trump and Rutte at the NATO Summit in The Hague raised eyebrows. During the meeting, Trump used a schoolyard analogy to describe the ongoing tensions between Israel and Iran.
“They fight like hell. You can’t stop them,” Trump said, according to ABC News. “Let them fight for about two or three minutes, then it’s easy to stop them.”
In response, Rutte interjected with a remark that caught widespread attention: “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get them to stop.” Trump appeared to take the comment in stride.
“He did it very affectionately though, ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy,’” Trump joked, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio chuckled beside him, The Hill reported.
