White House welcomes Trump back after NATO summit
The White House has celebrated President Donald Trump's return from the NATO summit with a provocative music video to Usher's hit 'Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home).' The montage video came hours after NATO chief Mark Rutte was forced to publicly backtrack on an embarrassing blunder in which he appeared to refer to Trump as 'daddy.'
During a meeting of the defence bloc in the Hague yesterday, Rutte and Trump met following the US president's crass comment on the Iran-Israel war. Rutte said on Wednesday that 'Daddy has to use strong language' to get Israel and Iran to sort things out, to which Trump agreed. The NATO chief's comments raised eyebrows across the world, and the new White House video implies the president is in on the joke.
In the video, Trump steps off the plane to crowds lining the streets to catch a glimpse of him as the lyrics 'Daddy's home, home for me / And I know you've been waiting for this loving all day / You know your daddy's home and it's time to play.' The music video features snippets of Trump's meetings at NATO, including with Rutte. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also features in the video. In another section, as Trump is formally introducing himself to officials and working the crowd, Usher sings 'Hey, hey, hey Daddy.'
The video attracted a mixed response from social media users, some praising the creativity of the White House social media team while others asked: 'Who does this appeal to?' 'We are not a serious people,' one critic said, while another added 'not sure this is what Usher had in mind.' MAGA fans who had earlier seen the 'daddy' interaction with Rutte felt like they were 'in on the joke' and praised the White House for the good natured humor. 'Love him or hate him, when Trump shows up, the whole room shifts. You can feel the energy, like it or not, Daddy did walk back in,' one supporter wrote. Another added: 'They said No Kings not No Daddy.' Former prime minister of the Netherlands Rutte was forced to backtrack on his comments later in the day as they gained global notoriety.
He said: 'The daddy thing, I didn't call [Trump] daddy, what I said, is that sometimes... In Europe, I hear sometimes countries saying, 'hey, Mark, will the US stay with us? And I said, 'that sounds a little bit like a small child asking his daddy, 'hey, are you still staying with the family''? So in that sense, I use daddy, not that I was calling President Trump daddy.' But Trump himself appeared to enjoy being called 'daddy' as he was referred to at Wednesday's Nato Summit in the Hague by Rutte, who has led the defence bloc since October 2024. During Trump's whirlwind press conference that marked his final appearance at the summit, a reporter asked him how he felt when Rutte had referred to the American president as 'daddy' earlier in the day. 'No, he likes me, I think he likes me! If he doesn't I'll let you know and I'll come back and I'll hit him hard OK?' Trump told the journalist. 'He did it very affectionately though,' Trump continued. ''Daddy, you're my daddy,'' the president said with a smile.
Trump had earlier said during his meeting with Rutte that he believed the Iran-Israel ceasefire will hold. 'They're not going to be fighting each other, they've had it,' the president argued. 'Like two kids in the schoolyard, they fight like hell, you can't stop them. Let them fight for two or three minutes then it's easy to stop them.' The 'schoolyard' comment prompted Rutte's 'daddy' observation. After less than 24 hours on the ground in the Netherlands, Trump headed back to Washington having secured a major policy change he's pushed for since 2017: a significant boost in defense spending by other NATO countries. At a news conference later Wednesday, Trump described feeling inspired by other NATO countries that were motivated to provide for their own defense by bolstering their own spending.
'They want to protect their country, and they need the United States, and without the United States, it's not going to be the same,' Trump said. 'I left here differently. I left here saying, 'These people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off.' And we are here to help them protect their country.' But Trump was furious during the summit following reporting by both CNN and the New York Times that the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities from Saturday night's bombing was not as severe as they had hoped. He has issued several rebukes of the reporting, taking aim at 'fake news' for trying to discredit the operation while simultaneously demanding the person who leaked incomplete intel be jailed. The head of the CIA John Ratcliffe said last night that the US strikes had left Iran's nuclear facilities 'severely damaged' and set them back years.
His comments go against the claims made in the leaked preliminary assessment, which reportedly suggested that elements of the Iranian nuclear programme remained intact after the strikes. Trump furiously attacked the CNN and Times coverage of the report as 'fake news' and said defence secretary Pete Hegseth would share 'interesting and irrefutable' information about the operation in due course. Trump shared a Truth Social post on Wednesday revealing Hegseth, who he described as the 'Secretary of Defense (War!)' would deliver a major update to the American people on Thursday morning about the success of the mission. The conference will be to 'in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots,' he wrote. 'These Patriots were very upset! After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed, they knew the Success was LEGENDARY. 'Then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times.'
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