Friedrich Merz said nothing as Donald Trump launched a wave of verbal attacks — he’s not the only one to have sat in silence.
Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.
A confession, dear reader: Many years ago, in a journalism class (editor’s note: really?) in Dublin, the lecturer said that “British people can’t type,” and I — a British person who can type at speeds sometimes exceeding 10 words an hour — said nothing.
As was for me then, so is for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz now.
This week, Merz — a man who was once congratulated on his tan by none other than U.S. President Donald Trump himself — was back in the Oval Office, sat in near-silence as the FIFA Peace Prize-winning American leader and bombing enthusiast threatened to “embargo” Spain for not spending more on defense and for condemning U.S. strikes on Iran.
That’s made Merz about as popular in Spain as the incorrect pronunciation of paella.
Incidentally, I initially misread the name of the U.S. mission against Iran, Operation Epic Fury, as Operation Eric Fury. Turns out there’s an American hip-hop artist called Eric Fury, who has songs called “World Wide Web Of Lies” as well as “Tax Return” and “Tax Return 2.” Imagine how angry he’d be if he had to fill in a Belgian tax return! It’d be a double album. I digress.
Merz also remained silent as Trump slammed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on an array of issues — “this is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” he said — and threatened to escalate his trade war with Europe. To be fair to Trump (editor’s note: are you feeling OK?), Starmer really isn’t Winston Churchill; he’s not even Owen Churchill, who invented the flippers that divers wear.
But Merz isn’t the only leader who has sat and watched as a supposed ally is slammed.
Four long years ago, Josep Borrell, then the EU’s top diplomat, went to Moscow and stood idly by as his host, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, called the EU an “unreliable partner” and accused the bloc’s leaders of lying about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s poisoning. To make matters worse, just after that awkward news conference, Borrell learned from what was then called Twitter (and is now called Hell, I believe) that Russia had kicked out three EU diplomats for attending demonstrations in support of Navalny.
Borrell was then forced to suffer a far worse fate upon his return to Brussels — being called to explain himself before members of the European Parliament!
And let’s not forget the 2021 diplomatic incident that became known as Sofagate, when European Council and Commission big cheeses Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara. The two dudes took the two available seats, leaving von der Leyen on a somewhat nearby sofa. Perhaps Michel didn’t say anything about the diplomatic snafu because his polo-neck was too tight.
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Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best one from our mailbag — there’s no prize except the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far preferable to cash or booze.
“Voilà! In France, austerity is pronounced oysterity!”
by Giovanni Cellini