Nicholas Morieson
When Donald Trump spoke at the Gaza ceasefire ceremony in Cairo in October 2025, he transformed what would ordinarily have been a solemn diplomatic event into something more akin to a comedy ‘roast’. Some of the most powerful people in the world watched as Trump performed a comedy act that involved their almost ritual humiliation. Not only did Trump make jokes at the expense of a variety of Prime Ministers and Presidents, but he accepted, if not demanded, their praise. And praise him they did, calling for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and describing him as a figure of world historical importance. There were other populist leaders present, including Viktor Orban and Giorgia Meloni, but none sought to match Trump’s vulgarity or challenge his jokes and insults.
Trump did what, perhaps, no other contemporary leader could do and retain their position. He asked the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, whether he would now “live very nicely” with India, and when Sharif gave a halting reply, joked that he was disappointed by the response. He mentioned the absence of Norway’s Prime Minister, asking, “What happened, Norway?” He called Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni “a beautiful young woman,” acknowledging that such a comment could end a political career in the United States, before declaring, “I’ll take my chances.” The audience laughed, as well they might have, because none of them had the courage to tell Trump to his face that his behaviour was inappropriate. Rather than stick to his prepared remarks, Trump drifted freely between stories and asides. He joked about the cost of Egyptian fighter jets, praised their beauty, and reminisced about Air Force One flying over the desert sands. His stories deflated the ceremony’s gravity and replaced it with his own comic authority, with Trump as a sort of Don Rickles style insult comedian licensed to dish out the insults at will.
What is particularly interesting about this for those of us interested in Populism, is that Trump both performed as the ultimate authority and power in the world, but also as an anti-elite populist, who with common and crude speech challenged the effete, diplomatic, and ultimately dull world of the global elite. How, then, does Trump retain his status as a populist man of the people while also acting as the most powerful ‘elite’ politician in the world, essentially bullying the great and the good while demanding they pay him tribute? Perhaps the best way to understand this is to turn to Benjamin Moffitt’s work on Populism as a political style. Moffitt describes Populism as a performance that thrives on crisis, authenticity, and emotion. Populist leaders distinguish themselves through a deliberate breach of decorum. They act as though their rejection of elite manners proves they are genuine, that their lack of polish makes them more real. In Cairo, Trump embodied this principle with perfect precision. matter, because only Trump’s own opinion carried any weight in the world. Trump acted as if he had drawn these people together only to insult them to their faces, at one point saying that among the leaders present there were “a few of them [he did not] like at all. But you’ll never find out who they are”. Then he added, “Maybe you will, come to think of it”.
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