Trump ‘bullied and humiliated’ Theresa May
US president intimidated former PM, leaving her ‘flustered and nervous’, claims Watergate reporter
DONALD TRUMP regularly “bullied and humiliated” Theresa May on phone calls, calling her a “fool” and “spineless” on Brexit, according to officials privy to the conversations.
The US president reportedly attacked the then prime minister for her stance on the EU, Nato, immigration and other issues the pair disagreed on.
The details of the conversations have been published by Carl Bernstein, one of two reporters who broke the Watergate scandal, quoting White House and intelligence officials.
“He’d get agitated about something with Theresa May, then he’d get nasty with her on the phone call,” Mr Bernstein wrote for CNN, quoting an official who described the verbal assaults as “near-sadistic”.
“It’s the same interaction in every setting with just no filter applied,” one of the sources said.
Mr Trump’s relationship with Mrs May was notoriously fraught, with both taking vastly different approaches to issues which once bonded the two countries. Observers described the “special relationship” during Mrs May’s tenure at No10 from 2016 to 2019, as arguably at its lowest point since the Suez Crisis of 1956.
Bernstein’s sources said Mr Trump reserved his most vicious attacks for female leaders. He reportedly denigrated Mrs May and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, but was cordial – even reverential – to strongman leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her ‘stupid’, and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians,” an unnamed official said.
“He’s toughest [on the phone] with those he looks at as weaklings, and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with.” While the insults were “water off a duck’s back” for Mrs Merkel, Mrs May became “flustered and nervous” on the calls. “He clearly intimidated her and meant to,” they said.
Mr Trump was also said to have resisted asking Mrs Merkel – at the UK’S urging – to publicly hold Mr Putin accountable for the Salisbury poisonings. The claims made to Mr Bernstein, a former Washington Post reporter, were similar to some made in former national security adviser John Bolton’s new book. Mr Bolton also noticed his former boss was much harsher with female leaders. Sky News asked him recently if he thought the president was sexist. “I don’t know what the issue is but time and again we ran into that difficulty,” he answered.
Asked to comment on Mr Trump’s behaviour in calls with Mrs May, Downing Street referred reporters to its website, which lists brief descriptions of the content of some of the calls. Mr Bolton claimed Boris Johnson, whom Mr Trump sees as a natural ally, played the president “like a fiddle”.
Mr Bernstein reported that on calls with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Kim Jongun, the North Korean dictator, the US president “boasted” about his own personal wealth, while conversations with the Russian president sounded like “two guys in a steam bath”.
Last night, the White House attacked The New York Times for revealing allegations that the Russian military offered bounties to Taliban members to kill British and American troops in Afghanistan. The reports prompted criticism of Mr Trump, with Democrats accusing the US president for seemingly failing to retaliate against Russia.
Mr Trump’s aides have insisted he was not briefed on the intelligence reports, but the fallout from the reporting has forced the White House to brief members of Congress on the intelligence. Kayleigh Mcenany, the White House press secretary, called a briefing yesterday to publicly rebuke The New York Times. “You undermine our country’s safety and our security,” she said.
Also yesterday, a judge in New York issued a temporary restraining order against a book written by Mr Trump’s niece, Mary. Her book, due to be published next month, presents an unflattering account of life in the Trump family, and features the president and his father, Fred.