European leader alarmed by Trump after Mar-a-Lago meeting

 

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico expressed serious concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump’s psychological state following a private meeting at Mar-a-Lago, POLITICO reported, citing five European diplomats briefed on confidential discussions between EU leaders.

The Slovak leader, known as one of Trump’s few supporters within the European Union, reportedly described the U.S. president as “dangerous” and appeared visibly shaken after their January 17 encounter at Trump’s Florida estate, according to the report.

Fico characterized Trump as being “out of his mind” during informal conversations with fellow European leaders, using language that suggested he was “traumatized” by the experience, POLITICO reported, citing diplomatic sources.

Behind closed doors in Brussels

These revelations emerged during an emergency EU summit held in Brussels on January 22, convened to address transatlantic relations amid Trump’s threats to seize Greenland. The Slovak prime minister shared his concerns during a private gathering with select leaders and senior EU officials, separate from the formal discussions.

Five diplomats from four different EU governments and one senior EU official confirmed the account to POLITICO under condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive nature of confidential leadership exchanges. None possessed direct knowledge of what Trump specifically said during the Mar-a-Lago meeting that prompted Fico’s alarmed reaction, according to the report.

The reported private concerns stand in sharp contrast to Fico’s public portrayal of the meeting. In a Facebook video posted after his Florida visit, the Slovak leader praised the invitation as evidence of “high respect and trust” from Trump, describing their discussions as “informal and open talks” covering Ukraine and their shared assessment that the EU faces a “deep crisis.”

Denials, defenses

Fico took to the social media platform X on Wednesday to forcefully reject the POLITICO report, calling it “lies” and insisting he “did not speak at the informal summit in Brussels.” He acknowledged disagreeing with some of Trump’s strategies while supporting others, adding that he expected his recent statement on Venezuela might have jeopardized the U.S. visit.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly dismissed the report as “absolutely total fake news from anonymous European diplomats who are trying to be relevant,” characterizing the Mar-a-Lago meeting as “positive and productive.” A senior administration official present at the encounter told POLITICO the meeting was pleasant and normal, including lighthearted moments captured by White House photographers.

Growing European anxiety

The incident reflects broader European unease about Trump’s approach to transatlantic relations since returning to office. Leaders across the continent have been struggling to navigate their positions on Ukraine, support for far-right politicians, trade barriers, and questions surrounding the US’ defense commitment to Europe.

Earlier this month, Trump threatened tariffs against eight European nations, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, accusing them of obstructing his efforts to acquire Greenland. He initially refused to rule out military force before later stating during a Davos speech that while the U.S. would be “frankly unstoppable” using “excessive strength and force,” he wouldn’t pursue that path.

Following the Davos address, Trump claimed to have reached a framework agreement with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte regarding Greenland, though no details have been publicly released. At the Brussels summit, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned colleagues that Europe must reduce its security dependence on Washington.

Significance of the source

Fico’s reported alarm carries particular weight given his pro-Trump positioning. A year ago, he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference, praising Trump for doing “Europe a great service.” His apparent private misgivings, if accurate, suggest concerns extending beyond Trump’s typical critics.

European officials indicated that anxiety about the U.S. president’s “unpredictability” has become an increasingly common topic of discussion at all levels of EU diplomacy. Trump, 79, has repeatedly denied suffering from any cognitive impairment, telling New York Magazine this week he does not have Alzheimer’s disease.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested after the Brussels gathering that leaders concluded a “firm” but “non-escalatory” approach to Trump represented the most effective strategy moving forward.

https://mronline.org/2026/01/29/european-leader-alarmed-by-trump-after-mar-a-lago-meeting/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

As deadly riots burn Iranian cities, Western media ignores the shocking wave of violence, turning instead to US government-funded NGOs for data. The one-sided portrayal has helped push Trump to the brink of authorizing renewed US attacks.

Western media has ignored a growing trove of video evidence showing terrorist tactics deployed across Iran by protesters described by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as “largely peaceful.” Recent videos published both by Iranian state media and anti-government forces reveal public lynchings of unarmed guards, the torching of mosques, arson attacks on municipal buildings, marketplaces and fire stations, and mobs of armed gunmen opening fire in the heart of Iranian cities. 

Instead, Western media has focused almost exclusively on violence attributed to the Iranian government. In doing so, they have relied heavily on death counts compiled by Iranian diaspora groups funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the regime change arm of the US government, and whose boards of directors are filled with committed neoconservatives.

The NED has taken credit for advancing the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests which filled Iranian cities throughout 2023 – and which also featured gruesome acts of violence ignored by Western media and human rights NGOs. Today, the NED is far from alone among the intelligence-aligned actors seeking to fuel the chaos inside Iran. 

The Israeli spying and assassination agency known as Mossad issued a message from its official Farsi language account on Twitter/X urging Iranians to escalate their regime change activities, pledging that it would be supporting them on the ground.

“Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” Mossad instructed Iranians. “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”

Toppling Tehran through terror

Protests began in Iran in early January 2026 when merchants took to the streets to demonstrate against rising inflation rates triggered by Western sanctions. Iran’s government responded sympathetically to the bazaar protests, providing them with police protection. However, these demonstrations quickly dissolved, as an amorphous mass of anti-government elements seized the moment to launch a violent insurrection encouraged by governments from Israel to the US – and by self-proclaimed “Crown Prince” Reza Pahlavi, who has branded government workers and state media outlets as “legitimate targets.”

On January 9, the city of Mashhad became the scene of some of the most intense riots, as anti-government forces torched fire stations, burning fire fighters alive, while setting buses alight, attacking city workers, vandalizing Metro stations and causing over $18 million in damage, according to local municipal authorities. 

In Kermanshah, where anti-government rioters shot and killed 3 year-old Melina Asadi, groups of militants were filmed firing automatic weapons at police. In cities from Hamedan to Lorestan, rioters have filmed themselves beating unarmed security guards to death for attempting to impede their rampages. 

Footage has emerged from the central Iranian city of rioters attacking a public bus and setting it aflame on January 10. 

In Tehran, meanwhile, mobs of rioters have attacked the historic Abazar Mosque, burning its interior, while others conducted arson attacks and burned copies of the Quran inside the Grand Mosque of Sarableh and the Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kadhim shrine in Kuzestan. 

Rioters have set fire to a large municipal building in the heart of the city of Karaj, while burning the marketplace to the ground in central Rasht. In Borujen, anti-government hooligans reportedly torched a historic library filled with ancient texts during a night of looting and destruction. 

 

None of these incidents have elicited any reaction from Western media outlets or governments, even after the Iranian foreign ministry obliged ambassadors from Britain, France, Germany, and Italy to view footage of the violence carried out by rioters firsthand.

According to the Iranian government, over 100 police and security officers have been killed during the unrest. However, a pair of Iranian NGOs based in Washington and funded by the US government has set the death toll on the government’s side at a much lower figure. These groups have become the go-to source for Western media on the protests.

Regime change lobbyists set the agenda

In assessing the death toll in Iran, outlets throughout the US and Europe have depended on two NGOs based in Washington and funded by the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy: the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran and Human Rights Activists in Iran.

A 2024 press release by the NED explicitly described the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran as “a partner of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).”

Elsewhere, a 2021 statement from Human Rights Activists in Iran states that the group “expanded its network and decided to start receiving financial aid from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-governmental and non-profit organization based in the United States” after it was accused by the Iran government of ties to the CIA in 2010.

The NED was created under the watch of the Reagan administration’s CIA director, William Casey, to enable the government to continue meddling abroad despite widespread distrust in US intelligence services. One of its founders, Allen Weinstein, famously admitted, “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” 

While failing to acknowledge the NGO’s funding from NED, The Washington Post and ABC News have cited the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center prominently in their coverage of Iranian protests. Seated on the Center’s board of directors is Francis Fukuyama, the ideologue who signed the Project for a New American Century’s founding letter – perhaps the most important manifesto of modern neoconservatism.

Figures from the suggestively-named “Human Rights Activists in Iran” have circulated even more widely, with the NGO’s recent estimated death toll of 544 people cited by dozens of US and Israeli mainstream outlets across the political spectrum, as well as by Dropsite. The “shadow CIA” intelligence firm Stratfor has also cited the NGO in an article entitled, “Protests in Iran Provide a Window for U.S. and/or Israeli Intervention.”

With the precise number of casualties from the protests still difficult to ascertain, a motley crew of online influencers has filled the information void with overblown, dubiously sourced claims. These propagandists include the noted Jewish supremacist Trump confidant Laura Loomer, who crowed that “the death count of Iranian protesters killed by the Islamic regimes’ forces is now over 6,000!,” citing a supposed “source in the Intel community.”

 

The digital casino Polymarket also inflated the death toll, claiming without sourcing that “over 10,000” people had been killed by “Iranian Forces [using] Automatic Rifles on Protesters,” and falsely stating that Iran had “lost nearly all control” of three of its five largest cities.

In recent months, Polymarket has become notorious for allowing insiders to abuse advanced knowledge of political developments – such as the recent US military assault on Caracas and their abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars. The self-described “world’s largest prediction market” was established with a major investment from AI warlord Peter Thiel, and now features Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor.

By spreading clearly inflated death tolls, regime change activists and Trump cronies are apparently goading the notoriously gullible president into launching another military assault on Tehran. 

In a January 7 assessment of the protests, Stratfor described the chaos in Iran’s streets as an enticing opportunity for war, writing, “While unlikely to collapse the regime, the ongoing unrest could open the door for Israel or the United States to conduct covert or overt activities aimed at further destabilizing the Iranian government, either indirectly by encouraging the protests or directly via military action against Iranian leaders.”

However, the CIA contractor acknowledged that “renewed military strikes on Iran would also likely put an end to the current protest movement by leading instead to a wider display of Iranian nationalism and unity, a pattern observed after U.S. and Israeli strikes in 2025.”

‘Locked and loaded’

Iran’s latest round of anti-government protests has predictably received hearty endorsements from a host of Western leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. 

“If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump announced. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Days later, Trump threatened Iran again: “You better not start shooting [protesters] – because we’ll start shooting too.” Then, on Jan. 12, Trump decreed that any country caught trading with Iran would face a 25% tariff on goods exchanged with the US.

Now, Trump is reportedly mulling an attack, considering options ranging from cyber-warfare to airstrikes. However, the pace of the anti-government protests appears to have slowed, with relative calm returning to major cities. 

As the dust clears, millions of Iranian citizens are pouring into the streets of cities from Tehran to Mashhad to express their indignation at the riots, to denounce the foreign elements that helped spur the regime change rampage, and to proclaim their support for the government. But in newsrooms across the West, giving voice to these masses of Iranian demonstrators seems forbidden.

https://thegrayzone.com/2026/01/12/western-media-riots-iran-govt-regime-change/

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

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