Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s resounding victory in Tuesday’s election prompted a wave of congratulatory messages from top global politicians — including many who have previously voiced fierce criticism of the Republican figurehead.
At least one former leader has already scrubbed their social media of remarks critical about the president-elect. Australia’s ambassador to the U.S., former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, deleted a tweet from 2020 labeling Trump “the most destructive president in history.”
The post was removed “out of respect for the office of President of the United States,” Rudd said in a statement.
Given that Trump has promised to use his second term to settle old scores and go after his enemies, these are some of the politicians who may have cause to worry about his impending return to the White House.
David Lammy
Then: “Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy wrote in 2018, when he was a backbench MP, in an article for Time magazine. “He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.”
Lammy also referred to Trump as a “tyrant in a toupee” in the blistering op-ed. And a year earlier, he wrote on social media that the Republican was “a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch this week urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to apologize for Lammy’s comments following Trump’s reelection, a call which Starmer brushed off.
Now: Lammy struck a decidedly more conciliatory tone on Wednesday, congratulating Trump on his win and praising the “special relationship” between the U.K. and U.S.
“We look forward to working with you and JD Vance in the years ahead,” he added.
Ursula von der Leyen
Then: European Commission President Von der Leyen said in 2021 she was “aghast” and “deeply concerned” by remarks Trump made in January 2017 calling NATO “obsolete.”
She hit out at the Republican at an award ceremony to honor former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who served under Trump from 2017 until the end of 2018, when he resigned in protest at Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.
Von der Leyen also criticized Trump in the same speech over his threat to deploy American troops to quell demonstrations in summer 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer.
Praising Mattis for speaking out against Trump, the Commission chief said: “He spoke out unambiguously to condemn acts that he saw as divisive and contrary to American values.”
Now: Von der Leyen posted a statement on social media “warmly” congratulating Trump on Wednesday and stressing the “true partnership between our people, uniting 800 million citizens.”
Donald Tusk
Then: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has repeatedly attacked Trump over the years, rarely pulling his punches.
“Looking at the latest decisions of Trump, someone could even think: With friends like that, who needs enemies?” Tusk said in 2018, when he was European Council president, in response to the U.S. pulling out of the Iran nuclear accord.
He delivered a rhetorical beatdown of Trump at the United Nations in 2019 after the American president gave a speech endorsing nationalism and patriotism.
“I do not agree with this opinion,” Tusk said. “It is false and dangerous, even if it has many followers and powerful propagators.”
He also mocked Trump over his attempt to downplay the dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic and mounted a spirited defense of NATO after the Republican leader suggested that he would encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack any member of the military alliance that did not meet its spending targets.
Former Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak, from the rival Law and Justice party, went so far as to call on Tusk to resign to preserve good ties between Warsaw and Washington.
Now: Congratulating Trump, Tusk wrote Wednesday that he would “look forward to our cooperation for the good of the American and Polish nations.”
Emmanuel Macron
Then: French President Emmanuel Macron’s relationship with Trump during his first term was often thorny.
In 2018, Macron used a speech at the U.N. to decry a “certain nationalism which we’re seeing today, brandishing sovereignty as a way of attacking others” in a thinly veiled allusion to Trump. He also slammed “bilateral agreements” and “new protectionisms” in a jab at Trump’s trade policies.
A year later, Trump called Macron “very nasty” and “insulting” after the French leader described NATO as “brain dead.”
Now: Perhaps it was unsurprising that Macron was among the first leaders to rush to congratulate Trump on Wednesday, with the French president writing on social media that he was “ready to work together” with Trump as they did during his first term.
John Swinney
Then: Scotland’s first minister last week endorsed Kamala Harris over Trump, joking that he did not support Trump because the Republican was “opposed to Scottish independence.”
His comments triggered a statement from Trump’s team calling Swinney’s remarks an “insult to the massive investment in Scotland made by the Trump family.”
Now: “Congratulations to President-elect Trump on his election. Scotland and the USA share many social, cultural and economic links,” Swinney wrote on social media Wednesday.
“In that relationship, we will stand fast in support of our values of fairness, democracy and equality — ideals that America was built upon,” he added pointedly.
Europe’s leaders congratulated Trump. But here’s what they said about him before.
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
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