Trump makes rare apology
PRESIDENT FAWNS OVER BRITAIN
US President Donald Trump made a rare apology yesterday over his decision to retweet anti-Muslim videos posted by a British far-right group, a move which strained tensions with London.
“If you’re telling me they’re horrible, racist people, I would certainly apologise if you’d like me to do that,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain, referring to the group, Britain First.
Trump sparked outrage in Britain in November with the retweet and drew a public rebuke from Prime Minister Theresa May, to which he replied angrily, souring transatlantic ties.
However, the two leaders met in Davos on Thursday where they agreed to press ahead with Trump’s long-planned visit to Britain later this year. And the president was keen to downplay talk of a rift.
“The real me is someone who loves Britain, loves the UK, I love Scotland; very special people and a very special place,” he said.
“I don’t want to cause any difficulty for your country. Wasn’t endorsing anybody”.
Trump retweeted, in quick succession, three videos characterised as showing Islamist violence, at least one of which was found to be misleading.
They were posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First who was, in 2016 convicted, of religiously aggravated harassment of a Muslim woman.
In the interview, presenter Piers Morgan said the president caused “huge anxiety and anger in my country, because Britain First is basically a bunch of racists, fascists”.
“Of course I didn’t know that,” Trump responded in excerpts of the interview filmed on Thursday and aired yesterday.
He said: “I know nothing about them, I know nothing about them today, other than I read a little bit ... Certainly I wasn’t endorsing anybody.
“I don’t want to be involved with people [like that],” he said, adding: “I am the least racist person that anybody is going to meet.”
The president, known for his voracious use of Twitter, admitted: “When you do those retweets they can cause problems because you never know who’s doing it to start off with.”
But he was less apologetic about tweeting the content of the videos, saying he believed they depicted “radical Islamic terror”.
“Radical Islamic terror, whether you like talking about it or not, you look at what’s going on in the UK, you look at what’s going on all over the world,” he said.
“It was done because I am a big believer in fighting radical Islamic terror.” – AFP