What world leaders think of Donald Trump

Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama says US president suffers from
‘lack of moral principle’

In Depth

The spiritual leader of Tibetan Bhuddists gave his
unflattering views on the US president during a wide-ranging, and
sometimes politically incorrect, interview with the BBC this
week. 

Asked about Trump, the Dalai Lama said that “his emotions [are]
a little bit” and made a gesture waggling his finger near his
temple, reports The Guardian.

The monk continued: “One day he says something, another day he
says something. But I think [there is a] lack of moral principle.
When he became president, he expressed America first. That is
wrong. America, they should take the global responsibility.”

This it not the first time that Trump has been riciduled by the
Dalai Lama, who has been exiled from Tibet since 1959,
following a failed uprising against Chinese rule. During an
ITV interview in 2016, the holy leader did an unflattering physical impersonation of the-then
presidential candidate.

Nor is the Dalai Lama the first global figurehead to criticise
the US president. Here is what other world leaders have said
about Trump.

Kim Jong Un

The North Korean dictator may not be the best judge of sanity,
given his own outlandish behavour and claims. But that didn’t stop Kim giving his
views on Trump’s mental status back in 2017, before the two
leaders met.

As The Guardian reported, Kim scorned the
president for allowing “eccentric words to trip off his tongue”,
before dismissing him as “the mentally deranged US
dotard”. 

The North Korean’s equally eccentric phrasing may have been the
result of his refusal to employ a translator, but there was no
mistaking the contempt behind his remarks about the older man.

Australia’s prime minister

In June 2017, audio leaked of Australia’s then prime minister,
Malcolm Turnbull, “apparently mocking” Trump, as the BBC reported. Turnbull could he heard doing an
impression of the president as he entertained journalists at an
annual dinner that is usually kept off-record.

“The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls. We
are winning so much, we are winning, we are winning like we have
never won before,” he said. The joke was that Turnbull had just
dropped ten points in opinion polls.

Most damningly, Turnbull also referred to Trump’s alleged
collusion with Russia to get himself elected, saying: “We’re
winning in the real polls. You know, the online polls. They are so
easy to win… I have this Russian guy…”

Pope Francis

The man regarded by Catholics as the voice of God on Earth
appears to have decreed that Trump is fat. During a visit to the
Vatican by the president and first lady in 2017, the Pope asked
Melania Trump through a translator: “What do you give him to eat –
potica?”

Potica is a nut-filled cake from Melania’s native Slovenia, says
The Cut, which claims that the pontiff was
fat-shaming her husband.

Queen Elizabeth II

The Queen does not usually make jokes at the expense of world
leaders but slipped in off-the-cuff gag during filming of an
interview with David Attenborough last year, according
to Politico.

Complaining about the noise of a helicopter interrupting the
filming, the British monarch said: “Why do they always go round and
round when you want to talk? Sounds like President Trump…” After
a tiny pause, she added diplomatically: “…or President
Obama.”