French President Macron Takes Aim At Donald Trump Over Mockery Of His Marriage: ‘Neither Elegant Nor Of a High Standard’
French President Emmanuel Macron took aim at U.S. counterpart Donald Trump over comments he made about his marriage on Wednesday.
The comment in question was captured on Wednesday by a video shared on the White House’s YouTube page.
There, Trump addressed guests at a lunch event that was closed to press and discussed his ongoing criticism of NATO allies over their reluctance to join U.S. operations in the war in Iran.
“I call up France, [Emmanuel] Macron – whose wife treats him extremely badly. Still recovering from the right to the jaw,” Trump said in the video, which was then taken down from the White House’s page.
He was making reference to a widely circulated video in which Brigitte Macron appeared to push her husband in the face inside the presidential plane during a trip to Vietnam. Emmanuel Macron dismissed the scene, saying they had been “joking as we often do.”
Macron was asked about Trump’s comment on Thursday during a trip in South Korea. “The words that I was able to hear, which you refer to, are neither elegant nor of a high standard. That’s it. So I’m not going to answer it, it doesn’t deserve an answer.”
He went on to reiterate his refusal to join the war in Iran, saying “I’m not going to go in.” “We’re talking about too serious things. We’re speaking of war. We’re now talking about women and men who are at war. Women and men and civilians who are killed. Of the war that is taking place in this region. We’re also talking about the consequences of this war on our economies. I think of our citizens, the Americans live the same thing, the prices of the gas, the gas that goes.”
Trump is also facing pressure at home as he threatens to leave the transatlantic alliance. Republican Rep. Don Bacon is one of them. He said Trump’s presidency “will never recover” from such an attempt.
Speaking to Politico, the lawmaker added that Republicans won’t “be able to field a winning team at national level for several cycles to come” if the president indeed takes steps towards removing the U.S. from the transatlantic alliance.
Several Democrats have already come out to reject leaving NATO. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed in a social media publication that “Senate will not vote to leave NATO and abandon our allies just because Trump is upset they wouldn’t go along with his reckless war of choice.”
Trump, however, has been slamming the alliance for their members’ reluctance to join the fray. “They haven’t been friends when we needed them,” Trump claimed this week. “We’ve never asked them for much, it’s a one-way street.”
