Donald Trump mused about his own violent death on Wednesday, just moments after declaring that a NATO summit had been filled with “a lot of love” and unity. The US president, speaking to journalists in Ankara alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, startled the room with a haunting prediction. “That’s the way it goes,” he said when the topic of his possible assassination arose, according to sources present. The remark capped a day of extreme contrasts, during which Trump veered from effusive praise for an alliance he had spent the previous day berating to dark threats against Iran.
Having arrived at the 36th NATO summit under a familiar cloud of resentment, Trump surprised onlookers by directing his affections at the organisation he had earlier accused of freeloading. “We just had our Nato meeting, and it was a great meeting,” he told journalists. “There was a lot of love in that room today, a lot of unity. It couldn’t have gone much better.” The transformation was stark: only hours before, sitting beside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump had aired a litany of grievances, including a perceived lack of support on the war with Iran and Spain’s refusal to meet new defence spending targets.
“Trump praised NATO, threatened Iran, then predicted his own violent death at the Ankara summit.”
Even Zelenskyy, once the target of a notorious public browbeating in the Oval Office, seemed rehabilitated. “We have some good stories to tell,” Trump said, touting a possible deal to end Ukraine’s four-and-a-half-year war with Russia. “He has done an amazing job.” The unexpected comity was partly explained by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who, invited by Trump to describe the harmonious gathering, said: “Sir, all the Europeans attributed [to] you, saving Nato and they want to do what they’re supposed to do and you go right there.”
Darkness descended when the subject turned to Iran. Trump declared a recent 60-day halt to hostilities all but over, after US forces struck Iranian targets the previous day. He asserted that Iran had violated the terms by attacking three vessels in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. “We have a score to settle,” he said, invoking past Iranian transgressions including the manufacture of roadside bombs that killed and wounded US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The threat contradicted his own praise of the deal just two weeks ago as necessary to prevent an economic disaster equal to the Great Depression.
What drove Trump’s sudden shift from harmony to menace – and to the grim musing about his own death – remains unclear. The juxtaposition left allies and adversaries alike wondering which version of the US president they would face next.
