Trump hits back as UK’s envoy calls his White House ‘inept’

US P R E S I DE N T D o n a l d Tr ump hit back on Sunday a nd t he UK lau nched a n inquir y a f ter lea ked memos revea led Brita in’s a mbassador in the US had described t he president and his White House as “inept” and “uniquely dysf unctiona l”.

Trump said Ambassador Kim Darroch had “not served the UK well” and that he and his administration were “not big fans” of the envoy.

Darroch had said Trump’s presidency could “crash and burn” and “end in disgrace”, according to a cache of secret cables and briefing notes sent back to Britain seen by the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

“We don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” Darroch allegedly wrote in one dispatch.

The paper said the most damning comments by Darroch described Trump, who was received by Queen Elizabeth II during a state visit to Britain just last month, as “insecure” and “incompetent”.

A memo sent following the controversial visit said the president and his team had been “dazzled” by the visit but warned Britain might not remain “flavour of the month” because “this is still the land of America First”.

He reportedly wrote that the “vicious infighting and chaos” inside the White House – widely reported in the US but dismissed by Trump as “fake news” – was “mostly true”.

Asked about the leak, Trump told reporters in the US: “The ambassador has not served the UK well, I can tell you that.

“We are not big fans of that man and he has not served the UK well. So I can understand it, and I can say things about him but I won’t bother.”

Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt distanced himself from Darroch’s remarks, saying: “It’s really important to say that the ambassador was doing his job as an ambassador which is to give frank reports and personal opinions about what’s happening in the country where he works, and that’s his job to send back those reports but they are personal opinions, not the opinions of the British Government, not my opinion.

“And we continue to think that under President Trump the United States administration is both highly effective and the best possible friend of Britain on the international stage.”

The Mail on Sunday said the memos, likely leaked by someone within Britain’s sprawling civil service, cover a period beginning in 2017.