In the interview, Lammy was challenged over comments he had made about Trump before he was foreign secretary.
In 2019, ahead of Trump’s state visit to the UK, Lammy also posted that the then-president was “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and “no friend of Britain”.
Pressed over whether he had changed his mind, Lammy said the remarks were “old news” and you would “struggle to find any politician” who had not said some “pretty ripe things” about Trump in the past.
He added: “I think that what you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things.
“And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn’t know back then.”
Asked if Trump brought up his previous comments when the pair met for dinner in New York in September, Lammy said: “Not even vaguely.”
“I know this is a talking point today, but in a world where there’s war in Europe, where there’s a tremendous loss of life in the Middle East, where the US and the UK genuinely have a special relationship, where we got someone who’s about to become again, the US president, who has experience of doing the job last time round, we will forge common interests,” he said.
“We will agree and align on much and where we disagree, we’ll have those conversations as well, most often in private.”
Source:
www.bbc.com
Source link
