Blond bombshells, best of buddies
One’s an old Etonian, the other a reality TV star ... so how did Boris Johnson charm Donald Trump?
THE call was from Donald Trump. It came just hours after the US president met Boris Johnson at the United Nations headquarters in September 2017.
Footage of the New York brush-by gave little insight into their chat, though the signals were positive – a warm shake of hands and a pat on the back for Mr Johnson.
But speaking to his friend Chris Ruddy on the phone later, Mr Trump was glowing. “I really like him,” he said of Mr Johnson, according to Mr Ruddy. “I’ve heard good things about him.”
The conversation had been only brief, not even a formal sit-down. But for a president who has boasted of being able to judge character in an instant, it had resulted in a tick.
“Boris is unconventional. Donald gravitates to people that are unconventional,” said Mr Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax media, who has known the president some 20 years. “Donald’s taken a liking to him”.
Tomorrow, nearly two years on from that meeting, the Trump-Johnson relationship will be back in the spotlight as the president begins his UK state visit.
Mr Trump has not held back his warm words for Mr Johnson despite the Tory leadership battle raging, praising his “friend” and pointedly not ruling out a meeting.
Should the bookies be proved right and Mr Johnson clinch the crown, by the end of the summer the two will be the linchpin of the special relationship.
How has Mr Johnson won over Mr Trump? Why has he connected in a way Theresa May failed to do? And would any such bond actually help Mr Johnson if he gets the top job?
To get an insight into their relationship, The Sunday Telegraph talked to more than half a dozen figures who have seen the men up close.
The story that emerges is one of Mr Johnson’s political charisma, a savvy strategy of befriending the president’s inner circle and a hard-Brexit vision that has created common ground.
Mr Trump and Mr Johnson have spent little time together and come from starkly different backgrounds – one Eton and Oxford University, the other Manhattan and reality television.
Beyond the UN chat, they had a brief discussion at a Nato gathering in Brussels in May 2017, but that is pretty much it. Mrs May, not Mr Johnson, handled the Trump relationship in office. Yet as foreign secretary Mr Johnson made a deliberate, sustained effort to ingratiate himself with Mr Trump’s most influential allies, say well-placed sources.
He started from a disadvantage. In late 2015 Mr Johnson called then-candidate Mr Trump unfit for office after he had falsely said London had no-go areas. Mr Johnson joked: “The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”
But after Mr Trump’s unexpected 2016 victory, he changed tack. Within days he had criticised the “whinge-orama” emanating from Europe over the result and praised the president-elect’s “dealmaker” reputation. A speedy visit to New York followed. Before Mr Trump was even sworn into office Mr Johnson met chief strategist Steve Bannon, the president-elect’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and senior Republicans.
Mr Johnson’s political celebrity undoubtedly helped him develop friendly relations, as one UK source who saw his visit to the White House’s West Wing in May 2018 attests: “Boris basically was just roaming the White House. He was opening doors and saying hello to people. They would say, ‘Oh my God, it’s Boris’,” said the source. “He met Ivanka [Mr Trump’s daughter]. He met Jared. Someone would grab him. They would say, ‘Come in to a meeting.’ A White House staffer told us that no one else could do this.”
British officials tried to capitalise on Mr Johnson’s US fame. He would be put on Fox News in the hope that UK policy messages – such as keeping the Iran nuclear deal – would be spotted by the president and his team. There was discussion of getting Mr Johnson to give the president a tour of the Churchill War Rooms on his first UK visit. It never happened, but he has shown other leading Republicans around.
Mr Johnson’s allies say he used the influence to secure policy wins. He played a key role in getting the US to expel 60 Russian diplomats after the Salisbury poisoning and ensuring British Muslims were not hit by Mr Trump’s early border tightening policies.
Those who saw Mr Johnson buttering up US counterparts say he largely dismissed conversation topics briefed as icebreakers by UK embassy.
When he first met Paul Ryan, then the House of Representatives’ most senior Republican, Mr Johnson’s opening words according to one UK official were: “Paul, I hear you’re great. Why aren’t you running for the presidency?”
The campaign worked. A strong relationship was struck with Rex Tillerson, his then-counterpart as US secretary of state. The pair talked on a secure line every month. One former Tillerson adviser said they “got along well”.
Larry Kudlow, Mr Trump’s top economic adviser, is understood to have read Mr Johnson’s Churchill book and to be an admirer. So too is John Bolton, the hawkish national security adviser. Mr Kushner talked to Mr Johnson about his Middle East peace plan.
Mr Trump, critically, picked up on Mr Johnson’s warm words, telling The Sun last year: “I have a lot of respect for Boris. He obviously likes me and says very good things about me.”
Aides noticed Mr Trump’s positivity too. Sebastian Gorka, a former deputy assistant in the White House, recalled: “Boris’s name came up more than once in passing with President Trump. It was clear that his style and outspoken nature is sympathetic to the president.”
Boris Epshteyn, a former special assistant to Mr Trump, said: “Johnson is someone who is strong, he’s not afraid to speak his mind, and he’s pro-Brexit. Those traits combine to make him popular with those who believe in the ‘Make America Great Again’ agenda.”
Their similar positions on Brexit helped. Both men led successful outsider movements in 2016 – Mr Johnson fronting Leave, Mr Trump running for the White House – and both ended up disdainful of Mrs May’s Brexit deal.
But do good personal relations with Mr Trump really bring policy wins?
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, had a budding bromance with Mr Trump but failed to convince him on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, or staying in Syria. Mr Ruddy accepts their clear policy differences. “They don’t agree on everything,” he said, but added: “This is one of the key things for Trump – he picks up on very quickly if people like him or not.”
Mr Johnson, Mr Trump appears to have concluded, likes him. Until that perception changes, expect the presidential compliments to keep coming – whatever conventions they break.
‘Boris was just roaming the White House. He was opening doors and saying hello to people. They would say, “Oh my God, it’s Boris”’