The Slatest

You Won’t Believe What This Current President of America Did When He Heard the King of Jordan Was Talking Smack

Barack Obama and King Abdullah II in the Oval Office on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C.

Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images

The Atlantic has published a lengthy article, written by Jeffrey Goldberg after extensive interviews with Obama and those who know him, about the president’s views on war, peace, human nature, and the United States’ role in the world. It’s a comprehensive, critical-but-fair, well-informed presentation of the reasoning of a leader who says he believes that the actions he controversially did not take as chief executive—specifically, ordering large-scale attacks on ISIS and on Bashar al-Assad’s regime—may have been even more crucial to American safety and prosperity than the actions he did take.

But I’d like to ignore those things in order to discuss, in shallow and hyperbolic fashion, how Obama laid the smack down in a major way on King Abdullah II of Jordan. 

Goldberg tells the story in the context of Obama being disappointed with Middle East figures like Benjamin Netanyahu and Tayyip Erdogan who he believes have botched opportunities to make the region safer and more stable. Obama, in Goldberg’s telling, believes some world leaders have contrived complaints about the United States’ leadership over the past eight years to cover for their own passivity. One leader that was apparently talking smack was King Abdullah; that didn’t sit well with B-Obams:

On the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales in 2014, Obama pulled aside King Abdullah II of Jordan. Obama said he had heard that Abdullah had complained to friends in the U.S. Congress about his leadership, and told the king that if he had complaints, he should raise them directly. The king denied that he had spoken ill of him.

Goldberg relates this anecdote soberly, but let me translate.

OBAMA: If you’ve got something to say to me, King Abdullah II of Jordan, you can say it to my face. I heard on the streets that you’ve been talking [expletive]. Do you have something to say? [flexes bicep]

KING ABDULLAH II OF JORDAN: Umm … no.

OBAMA: “No”? No WHAT?

ABDULLAH: No, sir.

OBAMA: That’s what I thought. [flexes other bicep, then kisses it]

The article includes several other asides about people or institutions that Obama has had it up to here with but does note that “one of the few foreign leaders Obama respects” is Germany’s Angela Merkel. (He also compliments “the Scandinavians” and seems to like everyone in Southeast Asia.) You probably already knew not to mess with Angela Merkel, but if you were thinking about doing so, do not mess with Angela Merkel.

It’s a good story. You can (nay, should) read the rest of it here.