U.S. Diplomat in Trouble Overseas for Using ‘Inappropriate’ Word

An American diplomat who is a close friend of Donald Trump has apologized after labelling reporters “animalistic” during a “firestorm” news conference in Lebanon that left local media outraged.

Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and envoy to Syria and a former senior adviser to Trump, was on a temporary assignment in Beirut on Tuesday for talks with the Lebanese president on the disarmament of the Hezbollah militant group.

The ambassador arrived at the conference with the U.S officials after a meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. However, during the press conference, journalists were told Barrack, who was in the room, would only be talking to the media at a “separate event, not right now.”

That caused a disturbance among the reporters, prompting Barrack to come to the podium to state, “The moment this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone.”

He told the journalists, “So you want to know what’s happening? Act civilized, act kind, act tolerant, because this is the problem with what’s happening in the region. I beg you, do you think this is fun for us? Do you think is, this is economically beneficial for us, putting up with this insanity?”

Barrack tried to explain himself, telling Mario Nawful in an interview on X Thursday, “We walked into this firestorm, which I’m used to, but I’m freaking out.”

Barrack said he felt he had “a little bit of a disaster on my hand” as he felt the U.S officials would “misunderstand the frenzy that was created.” He stated, “So, you know, I shouldn’t have been so quick, you know, ‘animalistic’ was a word that I didn’t use in a derogatory manner.”

He continued, “It was inappropriate to do when the media’s just doing their job... These things are complicated and difficult, and it’s very rare that they have an opportunity to talk to people who actually are making the decisions. So they have the illusion that that’s me. I should have been more generous with my time and more tolerant myself.”

Rami Khouri, senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, told Al Jazeera that Barrack is not trained in the job he has been assigned by Trump.

“He is not educated in the subtleties of diplomacy. He doesn’t necessarily know the ins and outs of the diplomatic issues he’s dealing with. And this is typical of many of [Trump’s] envoys who are chosen because of their loyalty more than anything else,” Khouri said.

Zahera Harb, senior lecturer in Journalism at City University, London, said Barrack’s treatment of the media “shocked” her.

“I can’t believe he said those words,” she told Al Jazeera. “There’s an outrage among many of the Lebanese journalists right now.”

Trump and Barrack’s relationship stretches back to the mid-1980s. They met when Barrack was working for the wealthy Bass family of Texas, who owned the New York department store Alexander’s.

Barrack negotiated for Trump to purchase a one-fifth stake in Alexander’s. Then Trump purchased the Plaza Hotel from the Bass family in 1988 for over $400 million, paid in cash. He later lost both properties to creditors.

The billionaire also bailed out Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to the tune of $70 million after a failed $1.8 billion purchase of a New York skyscraper, according to The Washington Post. Trump had made calls to people who could keep Kushner out of bankruptcy.

Barrack was also the top fundraiser for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

In 2022, Barrack was acquitted of unlawfully acting as an agent of the United Arab Emirates after being arrested the previous year on nine criminal counts, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to the FBI.