Donald Trump and Theresa May exchange the weirdest gifts, words and are then trumped by the BBC’s cutting question
The new American President Donald Trump and the post-Brexit British Prime Minister Theresa May met overnight in the White House fundamentally agreeing that they are both supporters of NATO, on Brexit being good for the UK and a few other rather limp and agreeable issues. In meeting for the first time since the inauguration, each exchanged symbolic gifts which got many talking and smirking. Some extraordinary statements were made, with Trump praising the Brit’s imminent BREXIT that, like his presidency has disrupted expectations among many.
“Brexit will be a tremendous asset not a burden,” said Donald Trump during his joint press conference with Theresa May. “I think Brexit is gong to be a wonderful thing for your country. You’re going to have your own identity, and you’re going to be able to make your own trader deals without someone watching you.”
And then, the Press Conference hit a bump, when Theresa May invited BBC’s Laura Keussenberg to ask a question that stunned both leaders.
“Mr President, you’ve said before that torture works, you’ve praised Russia, you’ve said you want to ban some Muslims from coming to America, you’ve suggested there should be punishment for abortion. For many people in Britain those sound like alarming beliefs. What do you say to our viewers at home who are worried about some of your views and worried about you becoming the leader of the free world?”
Trump laughed, attempting to brush to away turning to Theresa May with the remark…
“This was your choice of a question? … There goes that relationship.”
Donald Trump presented Theresa May with a framed 1865 edition of Harper’s Weekly magazine’s cover which shows Abraham Lincoln swearing in his oath of office on the same bible used by Trump. He told the prime minister that the gift symbolised the connection between his inauguration and Lincoln’s.
He wrote a note accompanying the gift, quoting a line from Lincoln’s inauguration address which said: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
May presented her host with a traditional Scottish cup of friendship, known as a quaich, reflecting the US president’s Scottish ancestry, as the son of Mary MacLeod from the Isle of Lewis. According to the Press Association statement, the cup’s name is pronounced “quake”, the cup’s two handles are intended to signify trust on the part of the giver and the receiver.
Share your thoughts on the gifts and the question… Do you want to hear the answer to it?
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