THAT interview? It was fake news

A CONTRITE Mr Trump apologised to Mrs May for an interview in which he savaged her approach to Brexit and hailed Boris Johnson as a potential prime minister.

His outburst in yesterday’s Sun with the headline ‘May has wrecked Brexit... US deal is off!’ threatened to overshadow the entire visit.

Mr Trump said he would have conducted the Brexit negotiations ‘much differently’, that Mrs May had ignored his advice about handling Brussels and ‘went the opposite way’ and her plans for leaving the EU would ‘kill’ any future US trade deal. He even praised Mr Johnson just days after the former Foreign Secretary quit.

The remarks made for a tense atmosphere at the leaders’ joint Press conference at Chequers where he praised Mr Johnson again as a future leader.

Mr Trump first reached for one of his most famous accusations – that the report was ‘fake news’. He argued his positive comments about Mrs May had not been included but later accepted the report was accurate. Eventually he revealed he had privately said sorry to the PM. ‘She’s a total professional because when I saw her this morning I said, “I want to apologise because I said such good things about you”. She said, “Don’t worry, it’s only the Press”. I thought that was very professional.’

The interview sparked a backlash from politicians on all sides. Labour’s foreign spokesman Emily Thornberry said it was ‘extraordinarily rude of Donald Trump to behave like this... rudeness upon rudeness upon rudeness’.