By Terence Smith
“DERANGED: World’s Most Powerful Man-Baby Trump rants to U.N. about climate, migrants, Gaza, Sadiq’s ‘Sharia’ London, escalators, marble floors and teleprompters!”
The London Daily Mirror’s front page about President Trump’s delusional U.N speech said it all. The Brits and Europeans I just met on an 18-day swing through Italy, France and Spain could hardly believe their eyes and ears at the chaos emanating from their one-time ally, the United States. They are used to outlandish behavior and comments from the “man-baby,” as the Mirror dubbed him, but the U.N. speech was hard to swallow, especially when Trump offered his considered assessment of Europe today: “Your countries are going to hell!”
The people I met along the way were also amazed at the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination and the controversy over the Jimmy Kimmel suspension. But most of their comments focused on the Man Baby, his cabinet appointments, his on-again, off-again tariffs, his revanchist personnel policies and, most inexplicable to them, his opposition to clean energy and wind-power. To a continent that is moving rapidly to electric vehicles, Trump’s love affair with fossil fuels makes no sense.
European media seems almost as obsessed with Trump as their U.S. counterparts. His state visit to the U.K. dominated the front pages, with endless commentary on Melania’s outfits, and there was extensive coverage of the anti-Trump protests in London and Windsor. There was sharp criticism as well of Trump’s wavering policies and pronouncements on Gaza and Ukraine.
Not that there wasn’t plenty of news at home: France got a new P.M. in 39-year-old Sebastien Lecornu, while I was there, and the French public followed the criminal conspiracy trial of former President Nicolas Sarkozy to its conviction. Italy was reveling in the crowds, and money, flocking to Rome in this Jubilee year with a new Pope, while Spain was high on its booming economy.
It was a challenge for a visiting American to explain what was happening at home, much less forecast what is coming next. American politics today is even more inscrutable and confounding across the pond than than it seems up close.