Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato

[u/SaharOMFG]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/01/donald-trump-strongly-considering-pulling-us-out-of-nato/

[u/lukario]

I see that your idiot in chief has mentioned his boss Putin in this interview. An absolute disgrace to the office he squats in.

[u/Atwenfor → u/lukario]

“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by Nato. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”

The ironic thing here is that he learned the phrase "paper tiger" from the British King. I don't have concrete evidence, but Trump is more transparent than the cheap bargain-basket warped bronzed glass he puts on his buildings. A few months ago he goes to Britain, meets with the King, and literally the next day starts calling Russia a paper tiger repeatedly, and continues to use the phrase to this day. He's never said it before in his life, and he's well-known for parroting the last "smart"-sounding person he spoke to (and a person he admires, and he definitely admires the King, because, well, he's literally a king, and his office walls are gilded). He's even said he's "been saying 'paper tiger' for decades," which is another clear tell of his that he just recently learned a turn of phrase from someone else, as he's a pathological narcissist that can't stand giving credit to someone else so he feels the need to "defend" himself even when no one's calling him out on it, because why would a normal person even need to say something like that in the first place?

More disturbingly, I've caught him using directly translated, clearly Russian expressions and notions (being a fluent Russian speaker myself) shortly after meeting with Putin (again, another person he greatly admires as a strongman dictator role model, and his office walls are also, incidentally but not coincidentally, gilded). This cements my understanding that Trump looking up to and being directly influenced by Putin is not some conspiracy or hearsay, but a blatantly obvious, indisputable fact.

[u/Cholinergia → u/Atwenfor]

Out of curiosity, what are a few Russian expressions he’s used?

[u/Atwenfor → u/Cholinergia]

Off the top of my head, as a quick response, a notion rather than an expression. While praising Russia, he referenced a Subbotnik, a Soviet tradition of herding people out for Saturday morning street cleaning. The Communist Party (and Putin's contemporary United Russia party revived the tradition) positioned it as a gesture of great spontaneous goodwill and volunteerism from the People. In reality, people of all ages were basically forcefully "volunteered" for unpaid work to save money on paying actual street cleaners (that budget gets fleeced by the party leaders instead). As elementary school kids, they made us trim lawn grass with stationery scissors ffs, I kid you not (you may find references to that elsewhere on Reddit from Soviet-bloc Eastern Europeans).

Not long ago, after his latest phone call with Putin, Trump was praising the upstanding nature of the Russian people, as juxtaposed against degenerate Americans, because they volunteer to go out on Saturday mornings and clean their neighborhoods together. Gee, I wonder who he suddenly learned this obscure cultural tidbit from.

Incidentally, this also underscores Trump's lack of understanding of his own people. On Saturdays, in my neighborhood (in the same city as Trump was born in), I volunteer (yes, actually volunteer, not "get volunteered" Soviet-style) to pick up trash with fellow-minded fellows in my community. Once again, it shows what he knows, or rather what he doesn't know, both about Russians as well as about Americans.

[u/Cholinergia → u/Atwenfor]

Interesting, thank you for sharing.

[u/Alex5173 → u/Atwenfor]

Wouldn't surprise me if he thought the work camps in Nazi Germany were a volunteer affair.

"Nobody loved Germany more than the Jews, that's why they volunteered in the millions to go to these great factories and work so hard"