Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom was questioned in Jordan about President Trump’s decision to post links to incendiary anti-Muslim YouTube videos on his Twitter feed:
Asked whether she would fire someone from her senior leadership team if they retweeted the same account Trump did, she said: “I have absolute confidence that my cabinet ministers would not be retweeting material from Britain First.”
In other words, she’d never hire someone like Donald Trump so it would never be necessary for her to fire such a person. She must have been thrilled to field such a question while visiting an important Muslim country that is allied with both Britain and the United States.
Overall, the reaction in the United Kingdom is one of complete outrage.
The British revolt against President Trump swelled Thursday with parliament members openly deriding him…
…In a sign of the disruptive wake unleashed by Trump, Britain’s Home Secretary Amber Rudd had to remind Parliament and the public that Britain’s relationship with the United States was bigger than one president — and that important trade, security and intelligence sharing are ongoing.
Trump is definitely now persona non grata there:
“It’s increasingly clear that any official visit from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed,” tweeted London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to hold the office. Khan has repeatedly called for Britain to withdraw an invitation for Trump to visit — and his stance appeared to gain more backing amid the outrage against the president…
…Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was one of many to call on May to cancel the state visit offered to Trump.
“She must end humiliating dependence of #Brexit Britain on goodwill of evil racist. Cancel visit,” Cable tweeted.
It didn’t help that once Prime Minister May criticized the president, he told her to shut up and focus on her own problems.
.@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2017
British officials were shocked at the personal nature of the tweet against May and the suggestion that Trump was boasting — even gloating — that the United States has had no recent terrorist attacks while Britain has suffered a string of deadly assaults.
Nonetheless, the Brits dutifully lined up to emphasize that their relationship with the United States is bigger and more important than their relationship with one president. But that’s only what you’d expect, and it comes in this context:
Trump’s latest missives prompted an urgent debate in Parliament on Thursday, where politicians across the political divide lined up to condemn the president’s tweets. In remarks rarely uttered about a U.S. president in the House of Commons, some parliamentarians mocked Trump as “stupid.”
We’re hearing that a lot lately. Trump is stupid, a moron, an idiot, an evil racist.
And we’re hearing it not from Democrats but from his cabinet members and elected officials in allied countries.
But Congress is focused today on tax cuts. They don’t seem to be able to focus on anything else.
