Trump blasts ‘nasty’ London mayor Khan — as British PM looks on

TURNBERRY, Scotland — Donald Trump reignited an old feud in Scotland Monday, taking potshots at Mayor of London Sadiq Khan while standing beside Keir Starmer.

“I’m not a fan of your mayor,” said the U.S. when asked if he would make a visit to London on his upcoming state visit. “I think he’s done a terrible job … a nasty person. I think he’s done a terrible job. But I would certainly visit London, yeah.”

The dig offered up an awkward moment for Starmer, the British prime minister, who was standing alongside Trump following a bilateral meeting between the two leaders in Scotland.

Starmer said of Khan, a Labour Party colleague who has frequently clashed with Trump over the years: “He’s a friend of mine, actually.”

Trump and Khan — a record-breaking three-term mayor and one of Britain’s most prominent Muslim politicians — have history. Khan said Trump’s second election as U.S. president showed that “progress is not inevitable” and hit out at “racism and hatred” unleashed by the campaign.

 Trump once called Khan a “stone cold loser” and “very dumb” — after Khan compared Trump to “the fascists of the 20th century.” In 2018, Khan allowed anti-Trump activists to fly a blimp over parliament showing Trump as a crying baby in a diaper during his first state visit.

Sadiq Khan, a record-breaking three-term mayor of London and one of Britain’s most prominent Muslim politicians. | Andy Rain/EPA

The U.S. president also used his trip to heap praise on Nigel Farage, the insurgent leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, which is chasing Starmer’s government in polls.

“Nigel, as you know, is a friend of mine,” Trump said.

“I like this man [Keir] a lot, and I like Nigel,” the U.S. president added.

“And you know, I don’t know the politics over here. I don’t know where they stand. I would say one is slightly liberal, not that liberal, slightly, and the other one is slightly conservative. But they’re both good men.”

Starmer, a center-left politician, insisted that he and the Republican U.S. president share similar values, stressing that “we’ve both got a great love of our countries, of our families, and therefore there’s a huge amount that we have already achieved.”

“It just shows that even if you come from different political perspectives, different backgrounds, actually there’s a huge amount of common ground when it comes to what is in the best interests of our two great countries,” he added.

This developing story is being updated. Noah Keate and Martin Alfonsin Larsen contributed from London.