Coppins: European Leaders Say Trump Is Susceptible to Flattery, if They Make Him Feel Loved, Maybe They Can Get Him on Their Side

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
ALCINDOR: “It’s really interesting that you say that. You’ve been writing about Europe’s fear of Donald Trump and now, of course, President-Elect Trump, long before the election results were clear. So I wonder when you think about European leaders, what do you expect them to do? Are they going to cozy up? Do they expect Trump to play ball and be receptive to flattery?”

COPPINS: “Yeah. The calculation that a lot of them have made, and they were talking about this six, seven, eight months ago when I was reporting in Europe and they’ve been talking about it more recently as I’ve been checking back in with them. Trump is a man susceptible to flattery. If they make him feel important, they make him feel loved, maybe they can get him on their side. A lot of diplomats I talked to in Europe said the mistake they made in the first Trump term was kind of playing into the antagonistic posture that Trump wanted to have with Europe. Angela Merkel, other European leaders, ended up fanning the flames of that hostility. Trump was the one who started it but they played into it. So in the near term, I think you will see these European leaders try to cozy up to them. They don’t have any other choice. They need the U.S. to stay committed to Ukraine. They need the U.S. to stay committed to NATO. And they know that Trump could wreak havoc on their economies with tariffs. In the long-term, I think what you’re hearing is a lot of European leaders saying we need to disentangle ourselves from America to a certain extent. We clearly can’t count on them to continue to elect presidents like they used to.”