Trump Takes Credit For New British PM’s Win On Twitter

0
819

President Donald Trump thinks wildly highly of himself. In line with that, while speaking this week to a crowd gathered for a convention put on by the conservative young people’s organization Turning Point USA, he seemed to take credit for the victory of Boris Johnson in the race to be the next British Prime Minister. He’s succeeding Theresa May, who stepped aside as leader of the conservative party following her failure to negotiate a deal for the country to leave the European Union. Trump has routinely lambasted May, arrogantly asserting that he “told her how [exiting the E.U.] should be done, but she decided to go another way” and made a “mess.” This week though, Trump called Johnson “Britain Trump.”

He told the Turning Point USA crowd:

‘We have a really good man who’s going to be the prime minister of the U.K. now, Boris Johnson. Good man, he’s tough, and he’s smart. They’re saying ‘Britain Trump.’ They call him Britain Trump, and people are saying that’s a good thing. They like me over there. That’s what they wanted. That’s what they need.’

Watch:

In reality, barely one in five British people have a positive opinion of Donald Trump according to a YouGov poll, so no matter any spread of conservatism, they still don’t like him. This tendency was put on glaring display during the president’s so far two visits to the United Kingdom. Both times, among other demonstrations, protesters brought out a massive balloon depicting Trump as an angry baby with a phone, using Twitter. That imagery has at this point long taken off elsewhere, and has popped up at numerous demonstrations in the U.S. — but it got its start there in the U.K., where Trump complained it made him feel unwelcome, which was the point.

Johnson, for his part, has helped lead the charge for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in the first place, which Trump has supported — although often wielding lies in that support. At one point, he claimed to have visited one of his golf courses in the U.K. and predicted that British people would approve “Brexit” the following day, but in reality, the visit he’s referring to came the day after the vote and he simply commented on it. In the time since, Trump has wheeled out wild plans for Brexit, suggesting for instance that the United Kingdom sue the European Union, although he had no seeming immediate plan for how that would actually work, which seems like a theme with him.

Ironically enough, Johnson has said he disagrees with one of Trump’s own most recent tactics — that of singling out progressive critics in Congress on the basis of their race. Trump has insisted that four particular Congresswomen who double as active critics of his administration should “go back where they came from” rather than continue that criticism.

Only a small selection of Republicans have even mustered half-hearted opposition to that remark in the wake of it making the rounds.

Featured Image via screenshot