Trump reawakens Khan dispute, year after terrorism claims

Arriving in the UK for a delayed state visit, US President Donald Trump has reiterated his stance on Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, tweeting that he ‘has done a terrible job’.

Only last year Trump told the Sun that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan ‘has done a very bad job on terrorism’, saying that ‘allowing millions and millions of people to come into Europe is very, very sad’, before highlighting Khan’s role in this by telling the newspaper that ‘you have a mayor who has done a terrible job in London’.

Before arriving on UK soil to be met by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Trump tweed that Khan ‘has been foolishly “nasty” to the visiting President of the United States’, labelling the Labour Mayor as a ‘stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London’.

Writing in the Observer on 2 June, Khan condemned the red-carpet treatment being afforded to Trump, comparing the language used by Donald Trump to rally his supporters to that of ‘the fascists of the 20th century’.

In May 2016, Trump challenged Khan to an IQ test, after the mayor said the president’s views on Islam were ‘ignorant’. The President controversially accused Khan of ‘pathetic’ behaviour following the London Bridge terrorist attacks in 2017.

Khan said: “President Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than 70 years.

“This is a man who also tried to exploit Londoners’ fears following a horrific terrorist attack on our city, amplified the tweets of a British far-right racist group, denounced as fake news the robust scientific evidence warning of the dangers of climate change, and is now trying to interfere shamelessly in the Conservative party leadership race by backing Boris Johnson because he believes it would enable him to gain an ally in Number 10 for his divisive agenda.”