President Donald Trump’s phone conversations with the two British prime ministers who served during his first term were apparently so madcap that they left staff at Number 10 Downing Street in tears.
According to a report in Politico, any conversation between the then-president and the two occupants of Number 10 from 2017 to 2021 — Theresa May and Boris Johnson — were appointment listening for civil servants and other aides in the PM’s orbit, with staff making a point to gather in a secure room or the prime minister’s private study to hear them speak with the American leader.
One former Downing Street source described the conversations as “extraordinary” and “brilliant” — the latter meant more sarcastically — and said those who were present were “there with tears [of] laughter” because the calls were “hilarious.”
Another former British government official who worked in Number 10 at the time said any planned agenda for the arranged call between the two leaders would “quite quickly fall by the wayside” because Trump would simply change the subject to whatever was on his mind.
Trump would reportedly go off on wide-ranging and long-winded tangents on a variety of subjects close to his heart but not exactly germane to the Anglo-American Special Relationship, including his hatred of wind turbines, his Scottish golf property, or matters that prime ministers simply could not discuss because they were the subject of court proceedings.
“They were never what you wanted them to be about, broadly. If you were calling about trade or Israel or something, it would always go off beam,” said another former government official, who added that the American president would go so far as to ask about the health of Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning monarch at the time.
Trump famously got on well with the second of two prime ministers during his term, Boris Johnson, with whom he is understood to have felt a kindred spirit because both men were seen as disrupters and outsiders.
He did not have feelings quite as warm for Johnson’s predecessor May, who was the second woman in history to lead the British government.
According to former Trump administration sources, the rift was due to May’s cautious attitude towards the U.K.’s exit from the European Union, plus Trump’s decidedly retrograde attitude towards women in general.
The newly-minted 47th president has yet to conduct his first leader-to-leader call with the current prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, though he met with Starmer for dinner alongside Foreign Secretary David Lammy last September while he was running his presidential campaign.
They spoke by phone on December 18 after Trump won the election, but the fact that details from that call leaked to the press shortly thereafter has put a chill on the vibes between Number 10 and the White House. A White House official did not respond to a query from The Independent on when the two leaders might speak next.
The Independent has also reported that Sir Keir’s tentative choice of Lord Peter Mandelson as the next British ambassador to Washington is also a bone of contention, with Trump considering taking the unprecedented step of rejecting Lord Mandelson’s credentials due to the Labour bigwig’s support for closer ties with Beijing.
“There’s also a possibility that they approve it conditionally. There would be a very short leash,” one Trump team source said last week.
