The London Mayor claimed he was “impressed” with the diplomatic behaviour of the US President when he defended NATO against Emmanuel Macron‘s claim that the organisation is “braindead”. Asked by Piers Morgan to comment on the spat between the two leaders, Sadiq Khan admitted: “I was impressed by the behaviour of Donald Trump yesterday…”
The comment shocked the ITV host who interrupted Mr Khan to say: “Sorry, what? I think I just heard you right.”
As the London Mayor claimed credit had to be given when due, Mr Morgan said: “And I applaud you for giving credit when it’s due.”
But the praising of Donald Trump‘s behaviour did not last very long as Mr Khan was quick to criticise him again for changing his position on NATO.
He said: “The reason why this is important is because the US is the one superpower around now.
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“They were one of the founders with us of NATO, the most successful multilateral organisation that existed for the last 70 years.
“Last year, by the way, he was threatening to pull the US out.
“A couple of years ago he said that NATO was obsolete.
“Let’s see what he says today.”
Though the summit only began on Tuesday, it was immediately mired in strained relations between Turkey and other member states.
Mr Erdoğan has previously said he opposes NATO’s plan for the defence of the Baltic region should member states fail to back Turkey over its fight against Kurdish groups it considers terrorists.
Relations between the French and US leaders were already strained amid a trade dispute, and after President Macron last month labelled NATO as “brain dead” because, he claimed, the US’ commitment to the outfit was fading.
At a joint press conference held between the two leaders, the US president was less combative, stressing that the two countries had “done a lot of good things together”.
