Latest news with #TrumpPraise
Khaleej Times
15 hours ago
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Dear Donald: Rutte pens pre-Nato love letter to Trump
"Truly extraordinary": Nato boss Mark Rutte sent a gushing, caps-filled, pre-summit note to Donald Trump on Tuesday, showing how far he goes to flatter the mercurial US president, who promptly posted the missive online. "Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do. It makes us safer," Rutte wrote in a message shared by Trump on Truth Social -- and confirmed by the Nato chief's office. Showing himself adept at borrowing the style of the US president, Rutte then turned to the meat of the Nato summit -- spending pledges -- again giving Trump the credit for bringing everyone on board. "Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win," said Rutte. "You are flying into another big success in The Hague this evening. It was not easy but we've got them all signed on to five percent," he wrote. Keeping Trump on board within Nato by all means has been the unequivocal priority for Rutte, as the US leader stormed back to power threatening allies he would not protect them if they did not spend their fair share. To that end, Nato leaders are set to sign up to a pledge to spend five per cent of gross domestic product on defence, despite some last-minute grumbling, notably from Spain. Piling on the praise -- while adopting Trump's habit of writing in capitals -- Rutte said this was "something NO American president in decades could get done." And finally, playing on Trump's known love of pomp and royalty, Rutte signed off with "See you tonight at His Majesty's dinner." Dutch King Willem-Alexander is hosting the world leaders for dinner and has invited Trump to stay over at his palace -- an invitation gratefully accepted.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Video of Trump lauding Bangladesh leader is manipulated
"US President Donald Trump praised Dr Yunus," reads part of a Bengali-language Facebook post on May 12, 2025. It features a blurry video apparently showing Trump commending Yunus during a meeting. "Yunus is a great personality and my friend also. He has recently taken charge of the interim government of Bangladesh," Trump supposedly says. "Dr Yunus will play a big role in making Bangladesh prosperous." Similar posts surfaced elsewhere on Facebook among Yunus's supporters as political parties jostling for power in Bangladesh were demanding the Nobel Peace Prize winner to fix an election timetable. He has since announced polls will be held April 2026 (archived link). The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by a student-led revolt in August 2024, ending her iron-fisted rule of 15 years. Comments to the posts indicate some social media users believed the video was authentic. "Sister will have a stroke if she heard this," a user wrote, referring to Hasina. "America is praising him as they would gain huge benefit," another said. A reverse image search on Google found footage of the meeting published on the verified Facebook page of American news channel Fox News on April 30, 2025 (archived link). But the audio has been manipulated and nowhere in the original clip does Trump refer to Yunus. "I just wanna thank everybody, this is really very impressive and I hope people at home get to see some of it," Trump says. "Nobody's ever done public cabinet meetings. They were quiet for a reason because they weren't impressive, especially in the last administration." The official YouTube account of The White House also published the full video of the meeting on the same day (archived link). An analysis of the audio in the circulating clip using the voice cloning detection tool Hiya in the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, found it is "very likely AI-generated" (archived link). AFP has previously debunked misinformation about Trump and Bangladesh here and here.
