Mark Rutte, newly appointed Secretary General of NATO, has learned the hard way that parental metaphors are best avoided when Donald Trump is within earshot. It all began during a public appearance in The Hague, in the midst of the 2025 NATO summit, when the Dutch statesman likened the former U.S. president to a paternal figure—sending half the diplomatic corps into damage control and igniting a field day in newsrooms across the globe.
The comment came on the heels of one of Trump’s typically unfiltered remarks. Responding to the renewed conflict between Iran and Israel, he quipped, “they fight like two kids in a schoolyard. Let them go at it for a couple of minutes, then you break it up.” Rutte, attempting to offer a metaphor of his own, added: “And sometimes, daddy has to raise his voice to make them stop.”
That was enough. The phrase ricocheted through headlines and social media, and “Daddy Trump” was trending once again—complete with its full symbolic baggage of strongman swagger, patriarchal dominance, and performative masculinity. Rutte, realizing the magnitude of what he’d unleashed, quickly walked back the comment: “I didn’t mean to call him ‘daddy.’ I was referring to the transatlantic relationship—how European countries sometimes ask me, ‘Mark, will the U.S. stay with us?’ It’s a bit like a child asking their father if he’s still part of the family.”
But by then, the clarification was too late. Trump had already shared the quote on Truth Social and gone further, posting a private message from Rutte in which the Dutch leader praised the U.S. military action in Iran as “decisive” and “extraordinary.” “Thank you for doing what no one else dared to do,” Rutte had written. Confronted by reporters, he dismissed any embarrassment: “It was a private message, but there was nothing in it that couldn’t be shared publicly.” Which, translated from diplomatic to plain English, means: yes, I wrote it—just don’t shout it.
Trump, unsurprisingly, capitalized on the moment. It wasn’t the first time he had been affectionately—or strategically—called “daddy.” In 2023, golfer John Daly told Tucker Carlson that he and other players “want Daddy Trump back.” Trump gleefully reposted the quote at the time, and again months later. Daly has reportedly referred to him as “daddy” ever since they met in 1992.
Carlson, too, played on the motif at a 2024 rally, comparing the American electorate to a hormone-crazed teenage daughter giving her father the middle finger. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home,” Carlson said. “And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now.’”
In the language of American conservatism—and the pop culture ecosystem that feeds into it—calling Trump “daddy” is no longer just ironic. It signals the yearning for a disciplinarian-in-chief, the fantasy of a patriarch who returns home to restore order after the liberal children have trashed the living room. And Trump, as always, knows exactly how to play the part.
So as NATO grapples with deepening rifts, a war in Ukraine, and volatile dynamics in the Middle East, its newly minted Secretary General finds himself explaining why he accidentally called the most polarizing figure in global politics “daddy.” Trump, meanwhile, takes the confusion, the discomfort, the contradiction, and spins it into brand capital. Because really, what kind of strongman doesn’t bomb his enemies and post your DMs for the world to see?
