I HATE TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO, ENDA... BUT DON’T IMAGINE THIS IS OVER YET
LAST June, I wrote an article in this newspaper criticising the Taoiseach’s intervention regarding the then US election candidate, Donald Trump. Kenny stated that Trump made remarks which he believed were racist and went on to indicate that it was his view that the US people should vote for the ‘alternative candidate’, namely, Hillary Clinton. At the time, I felt that Kenny, as a leader of a friendly country, went too far by intervening in another country’s election. I went on to say that I believed Kenny’s intervention would have repercussions for this country in the event of Trump becoming US President. I did so even though, at that time, I didn’t think that Mr Trump would get elected. Thankfully, the Taoiseach got the opportunity to present Mr Trump with the bowl of Shamrock in the White House on Thursday.
Trump’s best friend, Nigel Farage, said this week that Kenny was ‘wasting his time’ visiting the Oval Office, because of his previous remarks about the president.
He added that Trump ‘won’t have forgotten those vile remarks’.
So, while it may have been smiles all round in the White House when the media and cameras were present, I’ve no doubt that Trump, or at least some of his advisers, would have had Kenny’s remarks in the back of their minds when Kenny raised issues of concern such as US-EU relations and the undocumented Irish living in America.
Ominously, Trump may have been hinting at this when he said he always remembered those who ‘stuck by us, politically’.