Reigniting his long-running spat with climate activist Greta Thunberg, US President Donald Trump called her a troublemaker who struggles with anger issues after she was deported from Israel along with hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists.
When asked by reporters in the Oval Office about the deportation of Greta Thunberg and other activists who tried to break the maritime blockade on Gaza, he said:
“She’s just a troublemaker,” Trump says, referring to the Swedish campaigner. “You mean she’s no longer into the environment, now she’s into this?”
“She has an anger management problem. I think she should see a doctor. If you ever watch her — for a young person, she’s so angry. She’s so crazy. You can have her.”
Making similar statements in June 2025, Trump called Thunberg a strange and young, angry person with “anger issues.” He also criticised her for trying to reach Israel on the British ship Madleen, which was stopped by Israeli forces.
At the time, Trump said, “I saw what happened. She’s certainly different,” after a video showed Thunberg saying she was “kidnapped” by Israeli troops. But Israel’s foreign ministry dismissed claims of mistreatment after the flotilla was stopped, calling them “complete lies”.
Despite being detained, Thunberg strongly criticised Israel’s attacks in Gaza. “Let me be very clear — there is a genocide going on,” she told the crowd gathered at the airport. “Our international systems are betraying Palestinians. They are not even able to prevent the worst war crimes from happening.”
She added that the mission of the flotilla was to do what governments had not. “What we aimed to do with the Global Sumud Flotilla was to step up when our governments failed to do their legal obligation,” she added.
