The Trump Whisperer

Mark Rutte’s mission was to keep the world from burning while pretending the emperor could still count to ten.

It was a scene that could make even the furniture in the East Room cringe: Donald Trump basking in the glow of Mark Rutte’s compliments, nodding like a Roman emperor being told the crops were bountiful. The newly minted NATO Secretary-General, once Europe’s pragmatic Dutch prime minister, now recast as the alliance’s designated Trump whisperer, sounded like a man mistaking survival strategy for sincerity. “Your leadership,” he cooed. “Your vision of peace.” The adjectives came thick as syrup; the self-delusion, thicker still.

In truth, Rutte wasn’t there to flatter Trump’s ego; he was there to keep him from detonating the world order by accident. Europe, desperate for a ceasefire in Ukraine and a stable Washington, had quietly deputized Rutte as the one man who might soothe the beast. His task wasn’t diplomacy in any classical sense, it was damage control, disguised as deference. The goal was simple: convince Trump that ending the war would make him look brilliant before he decided to prove it by doing something catastrophic.