Liz Truss backs Trump with call for Republican presidential victory
Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, who was memorably shown to have a shorter shelf life than a lettuce, has in effect backed Donald Trump in next year’s US presidential election.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Truss – who spent just 49 days in No 10 Downing Street before being turfed out by her own Conservative party in large part for pitching the UK economy into crisis – said she wished for a Republican president next.
Trump currently enjoys huge leads in polling to become the Republican candidate in next year’s election, notwithstanding the fact that he faces 91 criminal charges, including some for attempting to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.
In the article, title “The World Again Needs American Leadership”, Truss cited Ronald Reagan and the end of the cold war.
“The world would benefit from more of that kind of American leadership today,” Truss wrote. “I hope that a Republican will be returned to the White House in 2024. There must be conservative leadership in the US that is once again bold enough to call out hostile regimes as evil and a threat.”
Truss did not name Trump in her column but she has previously praised him, calling him “very good” and “very nice”. Trump, in turn, has said he thinks “very highly” of Truss.
Truss’s piece was published as she visited Washington with Conservative Friends of Ukraine. Saying the west was “complacent about the defeat of our communist enemies”, Truss – also a former UK foreign minister – described threats from China, Iran and Russia.
Although she did not mention Biden and appeared to implicitly criticise him, she argued for the need to “ensure a total Ukrainian victory and defeat of the Russian invaders”, a goal pursued by Biden – and indeed opposed by many hard-right Republicans.
Truss also bemoaned the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was conducted under Biden but negotiated under Trump.
Earlier this year, Truss visited Washington to be fêted by the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right group helping plan a second Trump term. If elected, Trump has talked about attempting to consolidate conservatives’ hold on key institutions and to target his political enemies.
Truss was unceremoniously ejected from office after the announcement of a mini-budget that matched huge spending promises with tax cuts, and was blamed for economic chaos, sending mortgage costs soaring while causing the pound to slump dramatically.
The Daily Star newspaper ran a livestream showing a lettuce and asking whether it would decompose before she lost her tenure.
After Truss’s comments supporting a Republican win in 2024, Tom Walker, a comedian who performs as the reporter Jonathan Pie, wrote online: “Liz Truss has apparently endorsed Trump. Well, that’s practically him back in for certain now.
“Now if he can just get the lettuce onside as well … ”
ical Center Utrecht. While Van Strien has rejected any questions over his integrity and denied any allegation of fraud, he withdrew from the political process on Monday morning.
“This weekend, articles appeared in the media about work in my past, questioning my integrity,” he said in a statement published by the Dutch parliament. “In my view, the disturbance around this and my preparation of a response to it do not relate to my current work as a scout. This is why I have informed Geert Wilders and the chairman of parliament that I will resign my duties as scout with immediate effect.”
Dutch coalition processes typically take months and it is not unusual for them to be interrupted by party politics. Wilders has said he will look for a new scout “with more distance from politics” to attend the first meetings, which will be with him, the GreenLeft/ Labour leader, Frans Timmermans, the VVD leader, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, and the head of the liberal democratic D66, Rob Jetten.
Wilders, who has said on X that he is determined to be “prime minister of this beautiful country”, admitted to Dutch media that the Van Strien debacle was “not my dream start” and criticised him for not having informed him of the legal situation. “Otherwise, you know that it will just go on and you have to spend the whole week denying or debunking it,” Wilders said.
Although a prospective government could be made from the PVV, the rightwing VVD (current prime minister Mark Rutte’s party), the New Social
Contract party led by Pieter Omtzigt, and the Dutch Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB), led by Caroline van der Plas, only the BBB has given a strong nod.
Having previously excluded Wilders,
Omtzigt has said the result must be respected and his party would “take responsibility”. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius has already told media that she would not serve in a government under Wilders but would be willing to work in a confidence and supply arrangement.
Raoul du Pré, the chief political editor of the Volkskrant, said such early statements were part of the typical chess game of formation in this proportionally representative and splintered political landscape. “The party that loses always says: ‘We are going to sit out a turn,’” he said.
Only if Wilders fails to make a coalition could another party such as Timmermans’ GreenLeft/Labour be invited to try. Although the largest party typically provides the prime minister, this is only a convention.
Meanwhile, economists from the ING pointed out that, based on the manifestos of the four rightwing parties – despite that fact that they all want strict limits on immigration – they would create a “considerably expansionary” economy that would “result in more demand for foreign workers”.