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Trump spoke on his relationship with Europe in a wide-ranging speech as he celebrated his first year in power
It always promised to be a trip down what President Trump thinks are his greatest hits, but even as a veteran Trump watcher, not even I thought he would talk for more than an hour before even taking one question.
More fool me.
Trump seems to be giving Fidel Castro a run for his verbosity. As I crowded at the back of the briefing room, it was hard to maintain focus as the President went through dozens of photos of alleged migrant murderers deported from Minnesota.
A roll call of criminality which seemed to fall far beneath what should be occupying the most powerful man on earth, in these tumultuous times.
Amid the rambling, there were lines which jolted the room back awake.
Refusing again to rule out military action on Greenland sent the room of reporters into a spin, with the pithy line ‘You’ll find out’ when asked how far he would go to acquire the territory.
Then, on the vexed question about the fate of Diego Garcia, he dropped a simple truth bomb that the UK should keep it, despite America’s previous position that it supported a deal to lease it from the Mauritians for 99 years.
The President spent the first part of the press conference showing photos of alleged migrant criminals captured in Minnesota. Credit: AP
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On his relationship with Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, he said he got on well with them, but then added they get a “little bit rough when I’m not around”, alluding to the chasm of difference that has opened up across the Atlantic in recent days.
He then swiped at the French leader, saying he wouldn’t be around for long.
And again claimed Norway controlled who got the Nobel Peace Prize, not an independent committee, griping he should have been awarded the honour.
On Nato, he brushed aside the idea that he’d be willing to break up the alliance to secure Greenland, simply saying cryptically that “we will work something out where Nato will be very happy and where we will be very happy”.
Six minutes short of Biden’s record for a Presidential press conference, I left with more questions than answers.
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