Washington lawmakers should toughen up, be like their brave French counterparts and challenge President Donald Trump rather than surrendering all the time.
So says a politician from 3,800 miles away in Paris after he damned the U.S. leader as presiding over “Nero’s court” and dismissed his advisor, Elon Musk, as a “buffoon on ketamine.”
AFP reports Senator Claude Malhuret, a veteran French politician who sits with a faction aligned with President Emmanuel Macron in the Senate, last week grabbed global attention with his colourful choice of language as he denounced D.C. and its lawmakers.
“Washington has become Nero’s court, with an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers and a buffoon on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service,” he said in the speech.
He was comparing Trump to tyrannical Roman emperor Nero.
WATCH: French lawmaker tells D.C. counterparts to stop being so submissive
Malhuret also made reference to Musk, owner of social media platform X and the world’s richest person, who is overseeing Trump’s push to drain the swamp in Washington.
The former doctor and minister told AFP he had echoed the “concern” and “anger” of many in the United States during the eight-minute speech, given during a Senate debate on Ukraine and European security.
“I never imagined that an internet user would spontaneously translate it into English and that it would go viral to such an extent, particularly in the United States,” he said in an AFP interview.
He said he had given voice to an unease in the United States about Trump’s behaviour that he claims is felt on both sides of the political divide:
Judging by the very, very, very many messages I have received since then, I think that Americans today feel that their politicians are unable to stand up to Trump.
The Republicans, of course, are afraid of reprisals and so are saying nothing, even those who disagree with him.
And the Democrats are still reeling from their presidential defeat and the party is not yet in working order.
For my part, many of the messages I received asked: ‘How come it has to be a French politician who says this, when no-one there is saying it?’
Malhuret accused Trump of presiding over a “seizure of democracy”, saying “never in history” had a U.S. president “surrendered to the enemy.”
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