When politicians say the quiet part out loud

As Kaja Kallas’ unguarded comments showed, wisecracks and slips of the tongue often reveal far more than a carefully crafted speech.

By GABRIEL GAVIN

^{Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO}

When Hungary’s Viktor Orbán arrived at an EU summit in 2015, Jean-Claude Juncker said “the dictator is coming” and greeted him with a playful slap to the face.

The then-European Commission president’s jab was a revealing glimpse into a political dynamic usually kept behind closed doors, or even just in leaders’ heads. Whether gaffe or veiled signal, the stunt sparked discussions about Hungary’s democratic backsliding.

When everything they say is scrutinized and every statement twisted by political opponents, politicians have learned the need to keep quiet, to polish their communications and stay diplomatic. But under extraordinary pressure, in private or as a joke, the mask slips — betraying more than carefully worded speeches ever will.

On Wednesday, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas summed up what many were thinking when she quipped privately that the state of the world makes it a “good moment” to start drinking. She might not have intended it as a serious assessment, but it offered a telling insight: Europe’s representative on the global stage thinks things are looking pretty dire.

Some asides distill political truths that stand the test of time. Juncker’s declaration that European leaders “all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we’ve done it” came to be known as the “Juncker curse,” shorthand for the electoral challenges faced by reformist governments.

“Advisers and communications people often try to stage-manage everything a politician says. But leaders are human and sometimes they just say what they’re thinking — either in jest or as the pressure of the job gets to them,” said Louis Rynsard, a former political adviser in the U.K. House of Commons and co-founder of Milton Advisers. “The instinctive reaction is ‘oh, dear God, what just happened,’ but nine times out of 10 political leaders being human works better than all the beautiful crafted PR lines ever could. For the one out of 10, you just have to hope no one was listening.”

For those living in a world of secrets, what they laugh about can reveal their attitudes to things they can’t openly discuss.

“There’s only so much politicians can carry around with them and you get this sort of leakage of ideas, things that have been half thought-through,” said Ashley Weinberg, senior lecturer at the University of Salford and author of The Psychology of Politicians.

Britain’s royal family is famously measured in its communications. Yet King Charles was uncharacteristically frank when he welcomed his first prime minister, Liz Truss, to a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace in 2022, just as her proposed budget threw the markets into turmoil. “Back again? Dear, oh dear,” he smiled. Truss resigned 12 days later.

According to political psychologist Ramzi Abou Ismail, those kinds of wisecracks can be “a way to pass on messages in a soft way, sort of saying ‘oh I don’t really mean it — unless you agree.’”

Diplomats who have been in high-stakes international negotiations told POLITICO they’re often more jovial than people realize, an antidote to the anxiety that comes with high politics.

“People would be surprised how often jokes get cracked in tense diplomatic situations and the whole room relaxes a bit and realizes they’re dealing with a human being,” said Chris Fitzgerald, a former British diplomat posted to Brussels during the Brexit negotiations. “The best lines are often those that are unscripted, and even better if they show you understand the culture of your interlocutor.”

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, often hailed as the continent’s funniest leader, said after a European Council that he likes a well-timed quip using “dark humor” to get his point across. Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who earned a reputation for landing political zingers, said absurd political situations just call for laughter. “When you see what is happening in the world, just being serious about it doesn’t feel like it’s enough any more, you feel like the best way to engage with it is to show the absurdity,” he said.

But “it’s not always a polished strategy,” said one EU diplomat, who has attended hundreds of sit-downs with counterparts in Brussels. “These meetings are often long and boring and you see an opportunity to make people laugh. Sometimes it lands and makes you look human, other times it backfires and causes problems.”

That’s a balancing act U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland flubbed last week, sparking a diplomatic crisis by joking his new host country would become a U.S. state at a time when the White House has been piling on pressure to seize Greenland.

Ismail, the political psychologist, credits Trump with having stretched the boundaries of political norms so far that otherwise austere figures in Europe and elsewhere feel freer to speak frankly. “Trump didn’t just change the norms when it comes to political communication, the guy collapsed the boundaries between what is considered private cognition and public speech,” he said.

European politicians are also realizing the value of being less polished. One EU official said the bloc’s institutions “have a notorious humor deficit,” which is an increasing disadvantage when it comes to getting Europe’s message out “in the era of the social media-effective Trumpian soundbite” and of a public that values plain speech.

The jocular approach has been championed by Olof Gill, the European Commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, who uses daily televised podium appearances to crack jokes and take swipes at rivals and reporters alike.

“The value of the Commission’s midday press briefing as a live piece of political theater is substantial, and within that theater, humor can be a very useful device to take the sting out of a difficult question or highlight the absurdity of a political viewpoint,” he said.

For his part, Orbán seemed to recognize the nature of the game when branded a dictator by Juncker. “Hungarians talk straight about tough things,” he said. “We don’t like to beat about the bush. We are a frank people.”

These moments will only happen more frequently at a time when the established global order is collapsing — and leaders can often do little but laugh, Ismail said.

“There’s also a sort of psychological adaptation to permanent crises in politics of the kind we’ve had for the past five years,” he said. “Leaders will be feeling crisis fatigue and this gives room for some humor, some irony, because it sort of breaks the pattern.”

“Think of it as a valve, and then the humor just sort of releases the pressure.”

Mari Eccles contributed reporting.