A meeting between President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Frederich Merz took a bizarre turn.
Trump told his counterpart that D-Day—when Allied forces invaded Normandy during World War II—wasn’t a great day for Germany during a meeting where Trump also unloaded on Elon Musk for his opposition to the GOP’s so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill.
“May I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow,” Merz said while speaking about Ukraine’s bloody war against Russia on Thursday. “This is D-Day anniversary, when the Americans once ended a war in Europe.”
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Trump interjected, telling his counterpart, “That was not a pleasant day for you.”
“No, that was not a pleasant,” Merz began before Trump interjected again, saying, “This was not a great day.”
Merz tried to pivot back to the war between Ukraine and Russia, which is now in its third year as Russia refuses to negotiate a full ceasefire.
“In the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship,” Merz said. “And we know what we owe you, but this is the reason why I’m saying that America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war. So let’s talk about what we can do jointly.”
The awkward exchange was not the first time an Oval Office meeting took an unusual turn.
Last month, in what was meant to be a meeting to reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa found himself being confronted by Trump with a video showing the burial grounds of dead white farmers supposedly killed by black South Africans trying to take their land.
And earlier this year, Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had the most awkward confrontation of all, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance castigated Zelensky as ungrateful and threatened to cut off U.S. aid to his embattled country.
During the Oval Office meeting with Merz, Trump also took a swipe at Musk, who had criticized the president’s “big, beautiful” spending bill currently being considered by Congress.
“Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said. “I’m very disappointed with Elon. I’ve helped him a lot. He knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out we’re going to cut the EV [Electric Vehicle] mandate.”
