{"id":2233,"date":"2026-06-25T15:11:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2233"},"modified":"2026-06-25T15:11:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:11:05","slug":"solely-to-inflate-trumps-ego-the-one-image-that-explains-how-he-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2233","title":{"rendered":"‘Solely to inflate Trump\u2019s ego’: The one image that explains how he rules"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On Wednesday, representatives of NATO met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in an effort to bolster his reluctant commitment to the alliance. According to reporting by the iPaper<\/u>, they brought \u201cvisual aids\u201d that had less to do with pleading their case than with stoking \u201cTrump\u2019s ego.\u201d <\/p>\n

Read more Air Force colonel blasts \u2018MAGA cult\u2019 after Trump official\u2019s \u2018vulgar\u2019 insult<\/a><\/p>\n

As iPaper political editor James Ball writes, \u201cTrump is not in a good mood with NATO right now. The US President has been repeatedly grousing that the Western alliance was not there for him during his recent conflict with Iran \u2013 he repeatedly demanded that they help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even though he also insisted he didn\u2019t actually need their help. That has left Nato secretary general and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte in the unenviable position of trying to keep Trump onside, just to hold NATO together.\u201d This comes at a precarious moment, in which the war between Russia and Ukraine has reached a critical juncture. <\/p>\n

According to Ball, Rutte is an expert at handling Trump. \u201ceven if it comes at a heavy cost to his own personal dignity.\u201d The former lavishes the latter with praise, concedes when Trump criticizes NATO, and rarely pushes back.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday, however, crossed a new threshold even by Rutte\u2019s standards \u2013 because the secretary general had brought along visual aids to help make his case to the President,\u201d writes Ball. \u201cThese were not complex diagrams explaining defence procurement, or even the current situation on the front lines in Ukraine \u2013 instead, they were ludicrously simple charts designed solely to inflate Trump\u2019s ego.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Ball notes, it was obvious that the charts were \u201ctailored precisely to Trump.\u201d Each was enormous, mounted on its own easel, and had no more than 10 words, the lettering of which was gold and embossed in 1990s Word-Art style, \u201cand the messaging was designed to tell Trump he was a massive success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Republican losers point finger at hot-button issue for \u2018costing me the election\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTHE TRUMP 47 EFFECT,\u201d declared one, showing \u201cNATO Europe and Canada\u201d spending an extra $258 billion in two years. The other blasted \u201cTHE TRUMP TRILLION\u201d while crediting the president with an expanded $1.2 trillion in defence spending since 2016. <\/p>\n

\u201cRutte likely judged his target audience correctly,\u201d writes Ball. \u201cThe US President gets a daily briefing by the intelligence agencies<\/u> about the state of the world \u2013 unparalleled access to what\u2019s going on, unimaginable to most of us. During Trump\u2019s first term, the president himself admitted he found these repetitive, and didn\u2019t like reading much. \u2018I like bullets or I like as little as possible,\u2019 he told Axios. \u2018I don\u2019t need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of Trump\u2019s disdain for reading and lack of focus, briefings became limited to just twice a week, and those briefing the president were advised \u201conly to present one side of the argument, to cut their brief to a page, and to include diagrams wherever possible. Donald Trump\u2019s attention span would not extend to nuance, details, or even to a second page of information.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Ball concludes, \u201cTrump has not got more attentive in the years since. So, ridiculous as they might have made him look, Rutte\u2019s giant, golden, flattering bar charts were probably a good tactic in trying to win the president over to his side. What a way to run the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more What MAGA\u2019 really means when it claims to be a movement of the\u00a0 \u2018working-class\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, representatives of NATO met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in an effort to bolster his reluctant commitment to the alliance. According to reporting by the iPaper, they brought \u201cvisual aids\u201d that had less to do with pleading their case than with stoking \u201cTrump\u2019s ego.\u201d As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n'Solely to inflate Trump\u2019s ego': The one image that explains how he rules - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2233\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Solely to inflate Trump\u2019s ego': The one image that explains how he rules - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Wednesday, representatives of NATO met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in an effort to bolster his reluctant commitment to the alliance. 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