Irish PM pushes Trump on Iran — politely

WASHINGTON: It wasn’t quite a Zelensky moment. But mild-mannered Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin still had a couple of tense exchanges with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

In the annual Saint Patrick’s Day visit to the Oval Office, Martin begged to differ with Trump on issues from the Iran war to migration to relations with the prime minister of Britain.

“That’s what we want, is a peaceful resolution of conflict. That’s where we come from as a small nation,” Martin told reporters about the Middle East war.

The 65-year-old Taoiseach was under political pressure at home to talk tough to Trump amid the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Last year Irish hearts were in mouths as Martin talked trade tensions with Trump just days after the US leader’s infamous White House slanging-match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Then as now, Martin chose a polite but firm approach to Trump, who spent much of the question-and-answer session berating US allies for rebuffing his calls to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Noting the transatlantic tensions after Trump accused NATO of making a “foolish mistake” by not backing the United States, Martin added: “I’m sure European leaders and the US administration will engage, and hopefully we can get a landing zone.”

But 79-year-old Trump was not satisfied.

There was a tense moment as the US leader took a breath, waved for silence from the press, and responded.

“I mean the only thing — I agree with everything you said — but we helped with Ukraine, and they don’t help with Iran, and they all acknowledge that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Trump then unloaded a lengthy list of grievances against both the leaders of Iran — “the worst people going back to Hitler” — and Europe.