The official that Trump did not want in any way with him during the UK visit: “I asked not to be present”
Thousands of people went out to London to protest Donald Trump's official visit to the UK. They brought a huge balloon, in the form of a baby with the face of the American president on June 4, 2019. Photo: Thomas Krych / Alamy / Profimedia
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday that he asked for the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan not to be present at the events of his two-day official visit.
“I didn't want to be present. I asked not to be present,” Trump said.
“I think the mayor of London, Khan, is one of the weakest mayors in the world, and we have a few weak mayors,” added the White House leader, quoted by CNN.
Trump made these comments during a discussion with journalists aboard the Air Force presidential aircraft, comparing Sadiq Khan with the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson.
“I think he did a terrible job,” Trump said, criticizing Khan for his actions in matters such as crime and immigration.
“As far as I understood, he wanted to be present. I didn't want him,” Trump told the reporters with whom he was traveling.
“I'm not a fan of your mayor. It's bad”
At the end of July this year, the US president again criticized the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, during a press conference he held in Scotland with the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who then intervened in defense of the mayor, saying he was his friend.
Asked by a reporter precisely about his intention to make a state visit in September to London, who at that time had not been confirmed, Trump answered affirmatively, but taking care to say immediately: “I am not a fan of your mayor. I think he does a very bad job.”
“It's bad,” Trump added, in the press conference held on July 29, according to AFP and Agerpres.
Starmer interrupted to remember in an embarrassed tone: “He's a friend of me.”
Donald Trump repeatedly repeated: “I think he does a very bad job.”
The relationship between Sadiq Khan – who is a mayor of 2016 and a Labor, like the Starmer – and the US Republican President has always been marked by tensions.
In 2019, Trump, who was at the first term of president, said that Sadiq Khan – son of Pakistani immigrants and Muslim practitioner – does “a very bad job in terms of terrorism”.
For his part, Khan accused Trump of representing a form of “harsh right populism” and authorized the presence, at a demonstration in London, in 2019, of the famous huge baby balloon with the face of the American president.
In November 2024, Khan accused Trump of attacking during his first term because of the “skin color” and his religion.
