WHICH Theresa May would turn up in the East Room of the White House, podium to podium if not shoulder to shoulder, with Donald Trump? Several appellations were suggested – Theresa the lion tamer, Theresa the stiff headmistress, even Donald’s “long lost sister” – but no-one could be quite sure until she started speaking.
As the first foreign leader to visit the 45th President, the Prime Minister would have been aware that many at home and elsewhere were wondering why she was rushing in where other heads of government have been Googling “bargepoles” and “long spoons”. But here she was, the lady in Republican red, cutting her cloth according to the occasion. She had her objectives, the first of which was to get through this event as smoothly as possible, and she succeeded by the standards she set herself.
First up, the old one, two – praise for the “special relationship” between the US and UK, followed by an invitation from the Queen to visit the old country (should we assume there is an email winging its way from the Foreign Office to Bute House to inquire about the chances of a Scottish leg to that visit?) With Mr Trump relaxed, the PM hit him with a sneaky one. Not only, she said, had the President expressed his support of Nato – a body he had previously dismissed as “obsolete” – he had done so “100 per cent”. Since he did not contradict her, this is now a “fact”. Not an alternative fact, a fact. Perhaps Mrs May was to be commended on taking the initiative after all.
The first British question was from the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg. “Mr President, you’ve said before that torture works, you’ve praised Russia, you’ve said you want to ban some Muslims from coming to America, you’ve suggested there should be punishment for abortion.
“For many people in Britain those sound like alarming beliefs. What do you say to our viewers at home who are worried about some of your views and worried about you becoming the leader of the free world?” Mr Trump laughed and looked at Mrs May. “There goes that relationship!”
Mr Trump said he would leave the final decision on torture to his Defence Secretary, James Mattis, who opposes it. Was this another U-turn we saw before us?
That depends on whether the commitments of this quicksilver president can be taken to the bank. Or as the second British questioner put it: “How can the British Prime Minister believe you?” Between this chilly question, and Ms Kuenssberg’s, Mr Trump perhaps left the brief press conference feeling a few degrees warmer towards the US media. Perhaps.
Mr Trump gave that question a body-swerve and turned to how famously he and his new pal were getting on. “I’m a people person. I think you are also Theresa.”
Mr Trump rowing back on Nato and torture, and now Theresa May being described as a people person? This was a dear diary day indeed.
It was also a day on which the President, like the Prime Minister, tried on another persona. After a week of giving stump speeches in the most inappropriate of places – at his inauguration, at the CIA Memorial Wall – he had finally found a tone appropriate to the occasion. If Mrs May was the lady in Republican red, Mr Trump was the navy-suited newbie, turning up for his first day on the international stage keen to show he could get on with folks.
Mrs May achieved more than expected, but at the same time not very much. She got what she came for – warm words about a future trade deal. As for the President, at the end of a messy first week in office, he had pretty pictures for the nightly news of him walking hand-in-hand with the Prime Minister of the country that gave the world one of his heroes, Churchill. Deal done.
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