Trump called off his visit to Britain in fear of large-scale protests, but the White House is denying it: Report

The president didn't want to be greeted by protesters in Britain, so he called Theresa May and postponed

Published June 11, 2017 5:06PM (EDT)

 (Getty/Sean Gallup)
(Getty/Sean Gallup)

Afraid of the potential public backlash President Donald Trump decided to make a phone call to British Prime Minister Theresa May in which he postponed his state visit, according to The Guardian.

"The US president said he did not want to come if there were large-scale protests and his remarks in effect put the visit on hold for some time," The Guardian reported. The timeline of when the call took place is not completely clear, but it happened in recent weeks and it also took May by surprise.

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White House press secretary Sean Spicer called the report "false" on Sunday, according to a Washington Post reporter who had asked him about the story.

A spokeswoman for May's office also denied the report. "We aren’t going to comment on speculation about the contents of private phone conversations," the spokeswoman told Reuters. "The queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the UK and there is no change to those plans." The White House had also told Reuters that "the subject never came up on the call.

Reuters reported:

May's hold on power has been significantly weakened since the results of a snap election last week cost her Conservative Party a parliamentary majority. In a bid to save her position, May has been trying to form a government with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, a small faction of social conservatives.

British politics is going through an upheaval just a week before talks begin on Britain's exit from the European Union, set for 2019.

 

Trump certainly didn't help his case last weekend after the London terror attacks when he blatantly took the city's Mayor, Sadiq Khan, out of context and mocked him on Twitter.


By Charlie May

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Britain Donald Trump Donald Trump Administration London Terror Attack Theresa May Uk White House