Queen, Melania, Brexit, dieting... Nothing’s off limits
PIERS MORGAN’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TRUMP
I’M SORRY Mr Morgan, but you can’t sit in that chair. Only the President of the United States of America ever sits in that chair.’ I was in the Situation Room of Air Force One, the aircraft used to fly the most powerful human being on Earth across the world.
Hannah, the presidential aide tasked with escorting me around it, was very polite but also VERY firm. ‘You can sit in one of those,’ she suggested, pointing to one of the other chairs at the Situation Room desk. ‘They swivel.’ They certainly did swivel. I pressed a button on the sumptuous leather chair where the president would soon be sitting and imagined what it must be like in that room when all hell breaks loose. It was here where president George W Bush held crisis talks on 9/11 when Air Force One was ordered to scramble him to safety after fears it would come under attack like the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Opposite the president’s chair, at the other end of the room, was a giant TV screen that can beam him live into the White House Situation Room or be used to address the American people.
A black leather-bound menu contains that night’s culinary fare. The president can eat whatever he wants, at any time of day or night.
NO BIG MAC OR FRIES BUT PERSONALISED M&M CHOCOLATES
I WAS surprised to discover that the menu did not include a KFC bucket or Big Mac and large fries, two of Donald Trump’s favourite treats. But he told me when we last met in Davos earlier this year that he’s been trying to eat more healthily since winning the White House 20 months ago. So tonight’s dinner was: Cucumber Thai salad – a medley of cucumbers, radishes, spicy red chillies, chopped peanuts, basil, coriander and mint, tossed in a homemade vinaigrette.
Thai baked salmon fillet, baked in sweet chilli sauce over a bed of jasmine rice.
Tarte lemon bar, topped with shortbread crumbles.
There was also ‘a choice of beverage’. The president doesn’t drink alcohol so that probably means his preferred Diet Coke. It wasn’t all healthy though. Further down the room lay a basket of sweets including Hershey’s Kisses chocolates and specially designed boxes of presidential M&Ms, complete with Trump’s signature.
I’d arrived at Stansted Airport in Essex an hour earlier. The airfield was in lockdown and I went through four different security checks before reaching the tarmac.
300 SECRET SERVICE AGENTS AND A HAND-POLISHED AIR FORCE ONE
THERE were Secret Service agents and armed British police officers everywhere; all stern-faced and twitching. When JFK was assassinated in Dallas the security detail was just eight agents. Today, president Trump has more than 300.
I walked on to the tarmac and got my first glimpse of Air Force One glinting magnificently in the sunlight. It looked perfect, which is no surprise: it is hand-polished before every flight. We took some photos. I sent one of me standing outside the aircraft to my three sons, blowing their selfieobsessed minds. ‘Okay, Dad,’ said the eldest, Spencer. ‘You just won Instagram.’ There can be no finer praise for a middle-aged man. Then I was filmed walking up the famous steps. I couldn’t resist stopping at the top, turning and waving. I walked inside and found a small army of uniformed personnel bustling around. Everything looked and smelled ultra-clean, which must delight a germaphobe like Trump. ‘The president will be here in 25 minutes,’ said Hannah, escorting me to the Situation Room. ‘Please tell your crew to hurry.’
The ITV crew, who’d also been extensively security-screened by the Secret Service, hurried.
No other plane was being allowed to take off or land from Stansted until Air Force One departed. So every second I delayed things meant thousands of members of the public being delayed.
Several senior Air Force One staff came to introduce themselves, all chisel-jawed but extremely courteous – the kind of people who would kill you with their bare hands but then apologise.
Outside, I noticed a cavalcade of cars sweeping towards the plane. It carried numerous presidential staff and the White House press corps. Woody Johnson, the new US ambassador to Britain, came on board with his wife Suzanne. They had hosted the Trumps at their London residence and were now flying to Scotland with the president to spend the weekend at his Turnberry golf resort.
I looked again out of the window and saw a fleet of helicopters sweeping down to land next to Air Force One.
THE ‘BEAUTIFUL’ QUEEN AND THE ‘FANTASTIC’ FIRST LADY
THE man himself swept in. ‘Mr President, great to see you.’ ‘It’s good to see you, Piers.’ ‘How was the Queen?’ ‘The Queen is FANTASTIC! She’s a fantastic woman – so much energy and smart and sharp. She was AMAZING! Such a wonderful lady and so beautiful! It was such an honour to finally meet her. To have a Queen like that is great. Come on, let’s sit down.’
I’ve known Trump for 12 years now and genuinely like him while disagreeing with many of the things he says and does. He’s a uniquely impulsive and charismatic man, which, as we have seen, can manifest itself in both a very good way and very bad way.
Trump’s wife Melania came in too. I’ve seen a lot of her too over the years but this was the first time since her husband became presi-
dent. She was wearing the same sleek, cream Christian Dior suit she’d worn to meet the Queen.
‘First Lady! How lovely to see you again,’ I said.
‘Nice to see you too,’ she replied. ‘It’s been a long time.’
Melania’s not just a strikingly beautiful woman, she’s also genuinely nice and warm but a tough cookie.
Her performance under fire has resonated well with the American public, who have given her very good and improving approval ratings. They currently stand a lot higher than her husband’s.
‘The Queen Mother always said the secret to public life was to never explain, complain or speak too often in public,’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ Melania laughed. ‘I agree with that completely. I know that quote.’
‘Hey Piers, she’s fantastic!’ said the president.
(Later in our interview I say to Trump: ‘She’s more popular than you, Mr President.’ He replies: ‘I hope she never runs against me… she’s done a fantastic job, she really has.’)
After Melania leaves us, Trump gets into game mode.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ he barks. ‘The plane’s waiting to take off!’
I’d been told we had a maximum of 15 minutes for the interview.
My Trump strategy, honed over at least 35 interviews with him over the years, has been to ask as many questions about as many issues as possible to get a wide range of responses.
Trump-haters will always scream blue murder that an interviewer doesn’t spend every second of his allotted time clubbing him over the head with a large hammer. But I prefer to engage with Trump and listen to him in our interviews rather than berate and abuse him.
Our long-time friendship is why I am the only British TV journalist he speaks to. This was my fourth interview with him since he ran for office: two as a candidate and two as president.
In the end, I got 30 minutes and covered a wide range of issues and people, from British PM Theresa May, the Queen, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, to abortion and immigration. Trump was, as he always is, punchy, provocative, revealing and uncompromising.
‘My Piers,’ he began, ‘How are you man? My champion!’
I laughed. ‘If you had any idea how much you saying that irritates so many people, then you’d say it more often…’
‘I tell it like it is,’ he replied. ‘You and I both. That’s our problem!’ I STARTED by asking him more about his historic meeting with the Queen at Windsor Castle.
‘That moment when you walked towards the Queen, what was going through your mind?’
‘Well, first of all I was thinking about my mother. My mother passed away a while ago and she was a tremendous fan of the Queen. She thought she was a woman of elegance and my mother felt she was a great woman.’
Trump sighed. ‘I was walking up and I was saying [to Melania], “Can you imagine my mother seeing this scene? Windsor. Windsor Castle.”
‘And it was beautiful, it was really beautiful but the Queen is terrific. She is so sharp, so wise, so beautiful. Up close, you see she’s so beautiful. She’s a very special person. And the way she’s conducted herself for so many years. And she’s got a lotta years left.’
The Trumps spent nearly twice as long – 45 minutes – with Her Majesty as they’d expected and said they got on famously.
‘We had a great, a great feeling,’ Trump said.
‘Did you get the feeling she liked you?’
‘Well, I don’t want to speak for her but I can tell you I liked her, I liked her a lot.’ ‘Did you mention your mother?’ ‘I did. I said, “You know, my mother was your big fan. She was born in Stornaway in the Hebrides. And that’s very serious Scotland, there’s no doubt about that.”’
Trump said the Queen told him the names of all the presidents she had met. ‘Harry Truman was the first president she got to meet and know, and she went through a whole list. It was a very nice moment, Piers, very nice.’ I ASKED if they had discussed Brexit.
‘I did. She said it’s a very – and she’s right – it’s a very complex problem.’
‘Did she give you any clue as to which way she thinks about it?’
Trump suddenly clammed up. ‘Well, I can’t talk. You know I’ve heard very strongly from a lot of people, you just don’t talk about conversations with the Queen, right?
‘To have that meeting I think was really great. We met, but also watching the guard, hearing the sounds, being in that place, that very special place. It was very special there’s no question about that.’ It was clear just how much the meeting meant to him.
We turned to the rather more controversial matter of Brexit.
Trump spectacularly announced his arrival with an incendiary interview in The Sun that attacked Mrs May for watering down her Brexit plan to such an extent that it might kill off hopes of a trade deal with America. It was the political equivalent of going to someone’s house for dinner and telling them that their food is inedible.
He tried to rein back on his criticism when they appeared for a joint press conference on Friday, but the damage was done, with May’s critics leaping on the claim that her new Chequers plan doesn’t allow Britain to do a bilateral deal with America. I WAS curious to find out if Mrs May had managed to change his mind during their series of private meetings.
‘No, no, I think my position is the same – I just think it’s really their choice. And if you speak to the prime minister, she’s really saying,