President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, began an overseas tour of parts of Europe today with a state visit to Buckingham Palace and lunch with the Queen, among other events. And it wouldn’t be a Donald Trump story unless he was feuding with someone. In this case, his target is the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
In Sunday’s edition of The Guardian, Khan penned an op-ed claiming that it was somehow “un-British” to formally welcome President Trump as a head-of-state with all of the pomp and circumstance associated with such a visit.
Khan wrote: “Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than seventy years.”
Khan, a Muslim from Pakistan who became London’s mayor in 2016, also complained about Trump’s “deliberate use of xenophobia, racism and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic.”
The mayor then compounded his hyperbolic idiocy by comparing Trump and other leaders such as Viktor Orbán of Hungary, Marine Le Pen of France, and Great Britain’s own Nigel Farage to “European dictators of the 1930s and 40s.”
Prior to even landing on British soil, Trump responded to Khan’s criticism in Trumpian style, saying that Khan, “who by all accounts has done a terrible job as mayor of London, has been foolishly ‘nasty’ to a visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom.”
“[Khan] is a stone-cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me,” Trump wrote, likely a reference to the increase in fatal stabbings in the city. Khan’s main response to that uptick in violent crime has been to suggest banning not only guns but also knives and automobiles in certain parts of London.
The president went on to compare Khan with the inept current mayor of New York City, declaring, “Khan reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job — only half his height.”
A spokesman for Khan said that “childish insults” should be “beneath the President of the United States.”
Question: Isn’t comparing someone to Hitler, as Khan did to Trump, also a “childish insult?”
The president also went after a favorite American target after landing in the U.K. “Just arrived in the United Kingdom. The only problem is that CNN is the primary source of news available from the U.S. After watching it for a short while, I turned it off. All negative and so much Fake News, very bad for U.S. Big ratings drop. Why doesn’t owner ATT do something?”
Feuding aside, the opening day of the visit was full of ceremonial niceties in keeping with a visit from the president of the United States. After the president’s helicopter Marine One landed on the West Lawn of Buckingham Palace, the president and the first lady were greeted by Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall.
The First Couple also visited Westminster Abbey, where they laid a wreath for the Unknown Soldier before heading back to Clarence House for tea with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.
A state dinner is scheduled for tonight.
Although the Royal Family has been quite cordial with the president, opposition leaders are using the visit as an opportunity to stomp their feet and act like children. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced that he will not attend tonight’s state dinner and has also announced that he will speak at an anti-Trump protest in London.
Other opposition leaders including House of Commons Speaker John Bercow are also boycotting the state dinner.
The president had been scheduled to have a lengthy discussion with Prime Minister May, but that has been canceled, given that May is set to step down on Friday. It is rumored that he may fill that gap with meetings with Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to succeed May, and Nigel Farage, head of the new Brexit Party.
Feuds and protests aside, thus far the president seems to be enjoying himself. “London part of the trip is going really well,” Trump tweeted. “The Queen and the entire Royal family has been fantastic. The relationship with the United Kingdom is very strong.”
The president is scheduled to spend three days in the United Kingdom, after which he will attend a ceremony at Normandy in France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing, which was the beginning of the end for the Nazis in World War II.
Photo: AP Images
