President Donald Trump’s late-night Truth Social posting spree on Tuesday—doubling down on his Greenland ambitions and threatening any who try to get in his way—also included a flurry of leaked texts from the leaders of NATO, France, Finland, and Norway.
TL;DR: French President Emmanuel Macron invited him to dinner in Paris. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte “can’t wait” to see him. America is threatening to take over Greenland.
Turns out, they text just like us.
Posted on Truth Social, Trump apparently leaked a private text from the French President: “My friend, We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland,” the message from Macron appeared to read.
Social media users were quick to share their thoughts on the text exchange—not so much the threat to blow apart the alliance that has underpinned Western security for decades, but the fact that matters of diplomacy are conducted over iMessage.
“I honestly love this for reasons I cannot articulate,” one X user wrote, alongside a screenshot of the messages.
They continued in a follow-up post: “you can imagine Trump getting *so many texts like this*”. An edited screenshot of the original conversation read: “we are totally in line on real estate. We can do great things on reality television. I do not understand what you are doing running for president.”
“They’re just like us fr fr,” another X user responded. “This feels like when Kanye went crazy and started posting text messages,” another suggested.
In a leaked Sunday message to Jonas Gahr Støre, the prime minister of Norway, Trump reiterates threats of a takeover, now apparent to be rooted in a personal grudge over being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote.
He went on to question Denmark’s claim to Greenland, signing off “Thank you! President DJT”
Leaking an opponent’s private messages (or coming in hot with receipts) is a common power play tactic some social media users have likened to teenage behavior: “Trump is leaking the texts of WORLD LEADERS like he’s a 13 year old girl,” as one X user noted.
Exchanging messages over apps such as WhatsApp or Signal has become common practice in government. And public snafus because of it have become a bit more common, too: Last year, the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, landed in hot water after accidentally adding The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a private Signal group chat in which senior officials discussed Yemen war plans.
Still, it’s rather unsettling to imagine world leaders simply texting sensitive discussions around the fate of geopolitics to one another. Perhaps it doesn’t feel secure enough, or “official” enough.
And in this instance, when it comes to the U.S. President, he appears to have taken diplomacy advice from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Heather Gay: “Receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots.”