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Trump calls Trudeau 'two-faced' after video surfaces of world leaders appearing to mock him

Trudeau and other world leaders were caught on a hot mic at the NATO gathering apparently joking about Trump.

By QUINT FORGEY

President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “two-faced” after video surfaced of various foreign leaders appearing to mock their American counterpart during a private exchange at the NATO meeting in London.

Sitting alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a bilateral meeting in Watford, England, Trump responded to a reporter’s question regarding Trudeau’s comments in the roughly half-minute clip, which has gone viral on social media.

“Well, he's two-faced,” the president said, adding that while Trudeau is “a nice guy,” he was likely upset by Trump’s demands for Canada to increase its defense spending contribution as part of the western military alliance.

“I called him out on that, and I'm sure he wasn't happy about it, but that's the way it is,” Trump said. “Look, I'm representing the U.S., and he should be paying more than he's paying, and he understands that. So I can imagine he's not that happy, but that's the way it is.”

The president’s remarks — as well as a subsequent announcement that he would cancel a planned news conference — came after the release of footage showing Trudeau, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apparently joking about Trump during a reception at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening.

“Is that why you were late?” Johnson is seen asking the group.

“He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top every time,” Trudeau responded.

At another point in the conversation, Trudeau seemed to be recounting his meeting with Trump before members of the media earlier in the day: “I just watched, I watched his team's jaws just drop to the floor.”

Johnson was pressed on his role in the video during a news conference Wednesday, when a reporter asked the prime minister whether he "take[s] President Trump seriously." Johnson dismissed the question as "complete nonsense," and said, "I don't know where that's come from."

During a trio of sessions Tuesday with Macron, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Trudeau, Trump and his fellow leaders spoke to the assembled press corps for a total of approximately two hours, with the American president dominating most of the discussion.

But minutes after publicly addressing the video Wednesday, Trump suggested he would “probably go directly back to Washington” following the conclusion of the day's meetings, and he later confirmed on Twitter that he would not participate in a news conference scheduled for later in the afternoon.

“We won’t be doing a press conference at the close of NATO because we did so many over the past two days,” he wrote online.

Trump’s visceral reaction to the hot-mic moment was unsurprising, given his repeated pledges to restore America’s dignity on the world stage and elicit greater respect from heads of state than former President Barack Obama.

“We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be. They won’t be,” Trump memorably declared in June 2017, announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

Still, Trump has struggled with the finer points of statecraft when attending international gatherings throughout his presidency, committing unforced violations of protocol or explicitly denigrating American allies.

After he asserted in a speech last year before the United Nations General Assembly that his administration had "accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country," world leaders audibly chuckled at Trump's claim, prompting the president to insist a day later: "They didn't laugh at me."

The escalating controversy over the Buckingham Palace video represents a similar unanticipated diplomatic debacle to close out this week's NATO summit, which already saw ample on-camera tension between Trump and other leaders with whom his relationship has grown increasingly strained.

The president engaged in a particularity aggressive series of exchanges Tuesday with Macron, whose tack toward managing the unpredictable Trump has ranged from flattery to direct confrontation.