{"id":351997,"date":"2026-03-18T04:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/351997\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T04:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:42:14","slug":"irelands-leader-defends-starmer-from-trump-insults-in-white-house-meeting-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/351997\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s leader defends Starmer from Trump insults in White House meeting \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cEurope is still a very good place to live,\u201d Martin said, prompting laughter in the room as Trump retorted: \u201cI\u2019m glad to hear that!\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin then expanded on why Europe is so popular with migrants, noting the EU\u2019s \u201cfree mobility of people\u201d and how it allows Ireland to attract newcomers \u201cfrom Europe and beyond\u201d to swell its rapidly growing workforce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFundamentally, sometimes Europe gets characterized wrongly in terms of it being overrun,\u201d he said in apparent reference to claims the Trump administration has made<\/a>, including in the president\u2019s sit-down interview with POLITICO<\/a> last December.<\/p>\n

The visiting Irish press pack, perhaps disappointed to have no anti-Irish comments from Trump, twice tried to ask him about Irish President Catherine Connolly\u2019s recent condemnations<\/a> of the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran.<\/p>\n

Connolly \u2014 elected in October on an anti-government mandate<\/a> \u2014 is a largely ceremonial head of state who plays no role in Ireland\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

But Trump made it clear he had no clue who Connolly might be, far less her criticisms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho said that?\u201d Trump asked a reporter, only to be told, without reference to Connolly\u2019s gender, that it was Ireland\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook. He\u2019s lucky I exist, that\u2019s all I can say,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEurope is still a very good place to live,\u201d Martin said, prompting laughter in the room as Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[57092,969,8864,38201,61,11829,60,1194,1843,8874,6620,43,303,115,2286],"class_list":["post-351997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-brexit","tag-donald-trump","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-health-professionals-workforce","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-keir-starmer","tag-micheal-martin","tag-military","tag-mobility","tag-news","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}