Europe Detests Donald Trump. But Can It Hurt Him? Yes—and Here’s How.

And then there was the grandiose state dinner, with a fascinating cast list, from Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff (of course) to Rupert Murdoch and Sam Altman. Two royal families were well represented, with the king’s wife, sister, and elder son, and the president’s current wife, daughter, son-in-law, wife’s chief of staff, and crypto czar. The wines were a symphony of sycophantic symbolism, a 1945 vintage port since Trump is the forty-fifth president, and a cognac from 1912, the year Trump’s mother was born in Scotland, all of which was rather lost on a president one of the most disturbing things about whom is that he doesn’t drink.

It was British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who said that, when dealing with monarchy, you must lay on the flattery with a trowel, as he did so successfully with Queen Victoria. It has finally dawned on Disraeli’s successor at 10 Downing Street that, however much Trump may see himself as a kind of royalty, the trowel doesn’t work with him. You can lick Trump’s boots, and he’ll still kick you in the teeth. Now the worm turned at last. As a spasm of disgust was felt in England, with the mothers or widows of soldiers who’d fallen in Afghanistan saying in blunt terms what they thought of Trump’s “a little off the front lines,” Starmer himself called those words “appalling.”

Of course, Trump can say something outrageous and then immediately contradict himself, as he did the next day when he said, “The GREAT and very BRAVE soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America! In Afghanistan, 457 died.… The U.K. Military, with tremendous Heart and Soul, is second to none (except for the U.S.A.!). We love you all, and always will! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”