Donald Trump referred to Germany as “very bad” or “very evil” while meeting with other NATO leaders
Hours after Donald Trump was seen physically shoving the Prime Minister of Montenegro out of the way at today’s NATO summit so he could get in front of him during a photo op, it turns out Trump has created yet another international incident with a United States ally. According to Spiegel, a major German news outlet, Trump referred to Germany as “very evil” while speaking with other NATO leaders in a meeting today.
Spiegel is a German language publication, so its quote of Trump reads “Die Deutschen sind böse, sehr böse.” When you run that through Google Translate, the leading online translation service, it reads in English as “The Germans are evil, very evil.” We’re told that “böse” can also mean something closer to “bad” than “evil” in German, depending on context. But Google Translate is signifying that the primary default translation of “böse” is in fact “evil.”
The first sentence of the Spiegel article, again auto-translated by Google, reads “US President Donald Trump has complained bitterly about the German trade surplus on his meeting with the EU top in Brussels. “The Germans are evil, very evil,” said Trump. This was learned by the SPIEGEL from participants in the meeting.”
It appears the other NATO leaders in the meeting with Trump, or perhaps their staffers, found Trump’s remarks so offensive that they made a point of telling a major German media outlet about it, in order to make sure that the public learned about it. You can view the full German-language Spiegel article here.
