Ludovic Marin/Reuters
- Former President Donald Trump privately called French President Emmanuel Macron "a wuss guy," according to a new book.
- Ex-Trump aide Stephanie Grisham wrote in her forthcoming memoir that Trump disparaged Macron.
- Trump and Macron had a tense relationship during Trump's time in office.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Former President Donald Trump privately disparaged French President Emmanuel Macron, calling the European leader "a wuss guy," according to Trump's former top aide Stephanie Grisham.
"He's a wuss guy. He's all of a hundred twenty pounds of fury," Trump said, according to The Guardian's reporting on Grisham's forthcoming book, "I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House."
Trump and Macron had a tense relationship during Trump's time in office. In 2019, the French leader said the NATO alliance was experiencing a "brain death" and criticized Trump's decision to pull US troops from Syria without first notifying NATO. Trump called Macron's comments "a very, very nasty statement" and criticized the state of the French economy.
Grisham, who served in a series of high-level White House roles, wrote that British prime minister Boris Johnson was "one of the few European leaders Trump seemed to tolerate." She recalled the two engaged in conversations about Australia's wild animals and gallbladder surgery during meetings at the 2019 G7 summit in Biarritz, France.
Trump has condemned Grisham and her book, claiming his former press secretary and communications director wrote "bad and untrue things" about his administration because she's "very angry and bitter" over her split from former Trump aide Max Miller.
"Stephanie didn't have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning," Trump told The New York Times in a statement earlier this week. "She had big problems and we felt that she should work out those problems for herself."
source https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-called-french-president-emmanuel-macron-a-wuss-guy-book-says-2021-10