Former President Trump blasted his successor for removing the bust of British Prime Minster Winston Churchill from the Oval Office in an interview broadcast on Wednesday, saying it sent the wrong signal to Britain.
Speaking to Brexiteer Nigel Farage for the British TV channel GB News, he also boasted about the size of the crowd at his Jan. 6 rally and railed against the Black Lives Matter movement.
It gave Trump a chance to recall how a bust of Churchill had been banished from the Oval Office by his predecessor Barack Obama.
‘Well, you saw Churchill’s beautiful bust being removed from the White House, when I got there. I said, send it back,’ said Trump.
Farage told him that Biden had removed it once again, linking it to the fact that the Biden administration had made little progress on a new trade deal with the U.K.
‘I mean, why would you do that with Winston Churchill, when you’re trying to get along with your country,’ said Trump.
‘And you said it. It’s such a token, but such an important token.
‘No, I had it back for my entire time it was there and look he was a very handsome man.’
Former President Trump blasted Joe Biden for removing the bust of British Prime Minster Winston Churchill from the Oval Office in an interview broadcast on Wednesday
He was interviewed by Brexiteer Nigel Farage at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday. The interview was broadcast on Wednesday on rightwing British TV channel GBNews
Trump famously posed in front of the Winston Churchill bust alongside Theresa May in 2017 during her visit to Washington. It is no longer on display, sparking fury among some in the UK
The interview was conducted at Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, on Monday and was broadcast on Wednesday evening.
It marked the latest instalment of a bromance that began in 2016 when the upset Brexit vote in Britain arrived month’s before Trump’s populist victory.
The former president used the wide-ranging discussion to accuse Meghan Markle of being ‘disrespectful’ to the Queen and the royal family.
And he said he would be active in the 2022 midterm elections but danced around whether he would stand again for president in 2024.
He accused the Black Lives Matter of mainstreaming anti-police hatred.
‘You know, the expression, “fry them like bacon.” And they were, that was about our police, our great police,’ he said.
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‘And all of a sudden this becomes mainstream; I don’t really think so.’
Farage asked: ‘So, they’re not just about, they’re not just about racial equality then?’
‘Well, I think they’re about politics, but I think they’re about a lot of other things. If you go back to their original founding of what they were saying, kill the police,’ said Trump. ‘What they’re saying is kill the police.’
He also boasted about the size of the crowd he drew on Jan. 6, when he urged supporters to march on Congress in an effort to prevent the formal certification of the 2020 election results.
Trump has a warm relationship with Farage, and the two were photographed together in the Trump Tower elevator when the Brexiteer met with him after the 2016 election
‘It was a massive rally with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people,’ he said.
‘I think it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to before.
‘And the real – I reverse it – the insurrection took place on November 3rd, that was Election Day. And before and after. That was, to me, the insurrection
‘And the January 6th was a protest. But if you would have looked at the crowd, the size, nobody wants to talk about that, I believe it was the biggest and most people, and I’ve spoken to very big crowds, I have never spoken in front of a crowd that size. Nobody ever tells you about that.
‘And then, unfortunately, some bad things happened.’
He also repeated unfounded claims that the violence was the fault of Democrats, but went on to admit that complaints about a rigged election in 2020 put off voters from turning out in January, when the Republicans lost two special elections in Georgia and control of the Senate.
In the past Trump has lashed out at party leaders for the defeats but this time conceded fraud claims kept voters home.
‘They felt the election was rigged, the preceding election, which was the presidential election, and then when they had a vote a couple of months later, they really did lose their enthusiasm, and frankly, rightfully so,’ he said.
‘The governor of Georgia did a terrible job, like just terrible having to do with election integrity. And yeah, they felt an election was rigged and stolen.
‘And I would say they didn’t have the, the enthusiasm to go out and vote.’
He again blamed the then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a frequent target, for backing $600 COVID-19 stimulus checks when Democrats campaigned on $2000 payments – even though Trump himself signed into law the smaller payments.
‘So, Mitch McConnell was a disaster, and I think that really, they did get a lot of votes, but a lot of people were discouraged, there’s no question about it,’ he continued.
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