The White House posted a bizarre video Wednesday night to celebrate Donald Trump’s return from the NATO summit — and it’s raising eyebrows everywhere.
The clip shows Trump stepping off Air Force One, with Usher’s 2010 track “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)” blaring in the background. It then cuts to footage of him during the summit, all clearly meant to play into a nickname he was jokingly given there: “Daddy.”
That nickname came from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who laughed and said during a tense conversation about the Israel-Iran conflict, “And then daddy has to, sometimes, use strong language.” Trump had just compared the fighting between Israel and Iran to “two kids in a schoolyard” and said, “You can’t stop them, let them fight for two, three minutes, then it’s easier to stop them…”
Rutte’s “daddy” comment was clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek — a jab at Trump’s blunt language the day before, when he told reporters on the South Lawn that neither side “knows what the f*** they’re doing.”
Trump laughed off the nickname, replying, “Strong language, yeah, every once and a while.” When asked later if being called “daddy” meant he viewed other countries as children, Trump leaned in: “He likes me. If he doesn’t, I’ll let you know, I’ll come back, and I’ll hit him hard. He did it very affectionately. ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy.’”
Rubio, standing behind him, couldn’t contain his laughter.
Rutte later tried to clarify, saying he was comparing Europe’s relationship with the U.S. to a child asking a father for reassurance. “That sounds a little bit like a small child asking his daddy, ‘Hey, are you still staying with the family?’”
But for many, the word “daddy” linked to Trump wasn’t just odd — it was uncomfortable. This isn’t the first time he’s been labeled that way.
Back in the 2024 campaign, Tucker Carlson gave a speech in Georgia that many found disturbing. He told the crowd: “There has to be a point at which dad comes home. Yeah, that’s right. Dad comes home. And he’s p***ed… You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now.”
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes called out the speech at the time, saying: “The Republican Party is now very much explicitly running on a campaign of male dominion. Trump’s your daddy.”
The video (below) sparked instant mockery online, with many calling it “cringe,” “weird,” and “straight-up embarrassing.” One user summed it up: “This is not strength. This is a midlife crisis with a soundtrack.”
🎶 Daddy’s home… Hey, hey, hey, Daddy.
President Donald J. Trump attended the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands. pic.twitter.com/asJb5FD2Ii
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 26, 2025
