The Don­fa­ther

The Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau knew what he had to do. So did META founder Mark Zucker­berg. Even Argentina’s fire­brand pres­i­dent, Javier Milei, and the wife of Israel’s Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu showed up. Onto their pri­vate planes and into their dripped-out Escalades, each per­son made their way to the pala­tial king­dom of Mar-a-Lago. And they kissed the ring. 

The times, they are tru­ly a‑changing. 

For Trudeau, who has ham­mered away at Trump the man and Trump the politi­cian, this was a humil­i­a­tion rit­u­al. Often America’s fiercest crit­ic, the Canuck leader bowed before our return­ing pres­i­dent with a meek­ness that admit­ted the occa­sion. As much as Cana­da likes to beat its chest in defi­ance of its south­ern bed­mate, they’d be lost in their win­ter won­der­land with­out our good graces. 

Trudeau made the long trip south amid the president-elect’s threats to levy a 25 per­cent tar­iff on Cana­da should the nation’s lead­er­ship fail to crack down on the move­ment of ille­gal immi­grants and fen­tanyl into the U.S. When Trudeau informed Trump that the rumored 25 per­cent tar­iff would dev­as­tate the Cana­di­an econ­o­my, the 47th pres­i­dent jok­ing­ly replied, “If Cana­da can’t sur­vive with­out rip­ping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 bil­lion a year, then maybe Cana­da should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its gov­er­nor.”

Watch­ing Trudeau grov­el for crumbs at the foot of the replen­ished Amer­i­can table, I couldn’t help but draw par­al­lels to the infa­mous scene in Fran­cis Ford Coppola’s The God­fa­ther when Ameri­go Bonasera pleads with Don Cor­leone to make right what the courts will not. 

“You found par­adise in Amer­i­ca,” says Mar­lon Bran­do, his jaws puffed full of cot­ton balls and rage. “You had a good trade, you made a good liv­ing. The police pro­tect­ed you and there were courts of law. So you didn’t need a friend like me. Now you come and say ‘Don Cor­leone, give me jus­tice.’ But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friend­ship. You don’t even think to call me ‘God­fa­ther.’”

Such is the uneven rela­tion­ship between Trudeau and Trump, two men who have open­ly mocked each oth­er over the last decade. Trudeau struck a pos­i­tive chord fol­low­ing the recent talks, promis­ing the two coun­tries could move “for­ward in con­struc­tive ways.” Trump refrained from such niceties, pre­fer­ring to stay on mes­sage: “I made it very clear that the Unit­ed States will no longer sit idly by as our Cit­i­zens become vic­tims to the scourge of this Drug Epi­dem­ic, caused main­ly by the Drug Car­tels, and Fen­tanyl pour­ing in from Chi­na.”

Whether the icy rela­tion­ship between Trump and Trudeau melts away remains to be seen, but the pair smil­ing and break­ing bread around a can­dle-lit table in south­ern Flori­da served as a stun­ning reminder who wields true pow­er in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. 

Zucker­berg, too, clear­ly sees the writ­ing on the wall. As Trump tours the coun­try with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, watch­ing as rock­ets launch and land in the great Texas sun, the 40-year-old Face­book cre­ator from White Plains, New York has strug­gled to rein­vent him­self as the Amer­i­ca-lov­ing patri­ot he clear­ly wish­es to be. His lat­est July 4th stunt, a video of him wake­board­ing with an Amer­i­can flag in one hand and a beer in the oth­er as “Born in the USA” thumps in the back­ground, is about as open an admis­sion as you’ll see from some­one sore­ly on the out­side look­ing in.

Trump has repeat­ed­ly attacked Zucker­berg, accus­ing the tech titan of using his great wealth to tilt the 2020 elec­tion toward Pres­i­dent Joe Biden. In a Trump-authored cof­fee table book released this year, Trump said Zucker­berg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he con­spired against him again in the 2024 elec­tion. Zucker­berg appears to have received that mes­sage, loud and clear. 

“Mark was grate­ful for the invi­ta­tion to join Pres­i­dent Trump for din­ner and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with mem­bers of his team about the incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion,” read a state­ment from Meta released fol­low­ing the Mar-a-Lago meet­ing. “It’s an impor­tant time for the future of Amer­i­can Inno­va­tion.”

For all the crit­i­cisms of Zucker­berg, and there are many, the Social Net­work vil­lain has played ball with Repub­li­cans in recent years. In an August let­ter sent to the Repub­li­can-con­trolled House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, Zucker­berg admit­ted he caved to the Biden admin­is­tra­tion who pres­sured his plat­forms to cen­sor “mis­in­for­ma­tion” about the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. Zucker­berg also expressed regret for Meta’s role in sup­press­ing the Hunter Biden lap­top sto­ry in the lead up to the 2020 elec­tion. 

“It’s since been made clear that the report­ing was not Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion, and in ret­ro­spect, we shouldn’t have demot­ed the sto­ry,” Zucker­berg told the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee in August. 

Trump has, at times, suf­fered a rocky rela­tion­ship with Israel’s Netanyahu. In the months fol­low­ing the 2020 elec­tion, the 47th pres­i­dent lashed out at Netanyahu for being, in his words, “the first per­son that con­grat­u­lat­ed” Biden. The pres­ence of the prime minister’s wife at Mar-a-Lago on Fri­day sig­naled a desire by the Israelis to re-court his much-need­ed approval. 

On that front, there should be lit­tle con­vinc­ing nec­es­sary. Trump said Mon­day “there will be hell to pay” if Hamas oper­a­tives fail to release cap­tives held in Gaza before he takes office. And though Trump has promised to “bring peace to the Mid­dle East” on the cam­paign trail, his words may not affect events which con­tin­ue to spi­ral out of con­trol. On Mon­day, a cease­fire signed between Israel and Hezbol­lah was already on the brink of col­lapse as the two sides accused each oth­er of vio­lat­ing terms. 

Which makes Sara Netanyahu’s pres­ence at Mar-a-Lago all the more telling. If the wars con­tin­ue, the Israeli gov­ern­ment will active­ly seek Trump’s affec­tion. 

Speak­ing of those who sud­den­ly seek the 47th president’s affec­tion, the talk­ers at Morn­ing Joe also made a sur­prise appear­ance at Mar-a-Lago fol­low­ing Trump’s his­toric vic­to­ry. To the great dis­ap­point­ment of their audi­ence, hosts Joe Scar­bor­ough and Mika Brzezin­s­ki vis­it­ed White House South only a few morn­ings after the Elec­tion for what was report­ed to be a friend­ly chat. They have suf­fered the con­se­quences from their rabid­ly par­ti­san audi­ence ever since.

For Argentina’s Pres­i­dent Javier Milei, the first for­eign leader to vis­it Trump fol­low­ing his Novem­ber vic­to­ry, the meet­ing must have felt des­tined. The two wild men of West­ern pop­ulism shared laugh­ter and dance in the cozy con­fines of Mar-a-Lago. The pair had top­pled the insti­tu­tions of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy and were now enjoy­ing the spoils. 

Trump lav­ished praise on Argentina’s diminu­tive leader whose chain­saw-wield­ing pol­i­tics has dri­ven shock and awe through the bloat­ed and waste­ful Argen­tine gov­ern­ment. 

“The job you’ve done is incred­i­ble. Make Argenti­na Great Again, you know, MAGA. He’s a MAGA per­son.”

In every glimpse of Mar-a-Lago, Trump is clear­ly bask­ing in the warm glow of his people’s man­date as his favorite YMCA song bounces effort­less­ly around White House South. Sur­round­ed by world lead­ers and celebri­ties who hang on his every word, Amer­i­ca feels odd­ly and unique­ly back.

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