Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša tried to ease tensions between Donald Trump and members of NATO by making a joke about Melania Trump, according to a report.
Janša was among several leaders in the military alliance who were desperately trying to flatter the president last year in an effort to convince the 80-year-old not to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, The Wall Street Journal reported.
NATO members even held meetings to discuss whether the alliance could survive without the U.S. The crunch talks were sparked by Trump’s threats to leave amid his sweeping retaliatory tariffs and his threats to invade Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO member Denmark.
As part of Janša’s efforts to keep Trump happy and maintain the U.S.’s place in NATO, the Slovenian prime minister made a light-hearted joke about the first lady at a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, in June 2025.
At the summit, all NATO members except Spain agreed to commit to spending 5 percent of GDP on defense and security by 2035—a figure long demanded by Trump.
During his attempt to “lighten the mood” at the summit, Janša congratulated Trump on convincing the European country to raise its defense spending, saying that “if anybody knew how stubborn Slovenians could be, it was the husband of Melania Trump,” the Journal reported.
Trump is said to have smiled at the joke, with Bulgaria’s then-prime minister, Rosen Zhelyazkov, condemning the entire façade surrounding Trump.
“There was laughter in the room, but it masked deep anxiety,” Zhelyazkov told the Journal.
“European leaders still clung to the belief that they could manage Donald Trump through diplomatic flattery and personal charm.”
Other world leaders also took turns praising Trump during behind-closed-doors sessions at the NATO summit in an effort to keep the president happy.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also tried to flatter Trump by “bombarding” him with public support and praise, the Journal reported. Rutte even copied Trump’s writing style in messages to him, complete with short, sharp sentences.
Sources told the Journal that Rutte became so immersed in his attempts to flatter Trump that some world leaders described him as behaving like an “actor who never broke character.”
Elsewhere, Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, and Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, reportedly workshopped text messages to Trump, debating which words they should randomly capitalize to mimic his social media posting style.
For years, Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO, complaining that other countries do not meet minimum defense spending targets and demanding they increase military spending from 2 percent to 5 percent of GDP.
Trump also intensified those threats after complaining that almost all NATO countries did not want to help the U.S. in its deeply unpopular war with Iran.
The tensions surrounding Trump are expected to loom large when NATO leaders gather in Ankara, Turkey, for a summit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“President Trump has effectively restored America’s standing on the world stage, and he has done more for NATO than anyone else–the United States’ contributions to NATO dwarf those of any of our allies,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the Daily Beast.
“The president has a very good relationship with Secretary General Rutte, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and many of our NATO partners, but he also believes that some NATO members should do much more to fulfill their obligations,” Kelly added. “He looks forward to traveling to Ankara for the NATO Summit, where he will have constructive and frank conversations with many world leaders.”
