U.S. President Donald Trump has backed an election pact between Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage which he believes would do “great numbers” and said a Jeremy Corbyn premiership would be a disaster.
“Corbyn would be so bad for your country,” he warned the Brexit Party leader in an interview on his LBC radio show, adding that the hard-left Labour leader would “take you into such bad places”.
“I don’t want to tell Boris, or you [what to do], because you’ve had a great impact on this, Nigel,” the U.S. leader said of Brexit and Britain’s upcoming December election.
“You and I have become friends over the last couple years, and you saw what was happening with my [election], just like you saw what was happening over there… and I’d like to see you and Boris get together, because you would really have some numbers, because [the Brexit Party] did fantastically in the last [European Parliament] election,” he said.
“[Johnson] respects you a lot, I can tell you that… he has a lot of respect and like for you,” he revealed to Farage.
“I just wish you two guys could get together, I think it would be a great thing,” he added — with Farage telling the American he would be “right behind” the Tory leader if only he would drop his proposed deal with the EU and push for a clean, no-deal break with the European Union.
President Trump rubbished claims that a Tory-led Brexit would be a “Trump Brexit” and hand Britain’s state-run National Health Service as “so ridiculous” and he thought “Corbyn put that out there” in the first place.
“No, not at all. We wouldn’t even be involved in that, no,” he said, insisting the United States was occupied trying to fix its own healthcare system.
“It’s not for us to have anything to do with your healthcare system, no, we’re just talking about trade,” he said.
“Your trade with us could be four to five times higher than it is right now. That would make your country much bigger economically than it is right now, and you’re being held back by the European Union — so are other countries within the European Union; I mean, you have other countries, Italy and others, who would do much better, frankly, without the European Union,” he added.
“It’s hurt your country… they’re very, very difficult to deal with,” he said — adding that he had a “magic wand” to deal with the bloc, and that he always thought Britain also had “a little magic wand” it had chosen not to use — “you know what I’m talking about,” he said to Farage knowingly.
He appeared to offer some guarded criticism of the deal Boris Johnson — who he described as a “terrific guy” and the right man for the moment — negotiated with the EU, particularly with respect to the restraints the EU wants to put on the EU with respect to customs, taxation, and the maintenance of a so-called “level playing field” — which could preclude a genuine British-American free trade agreement, “and that would be ridiculous, frankly.”
President Trump also heaped praise on Queen Elizabeth II as an “incredible woman” and also her eldest son Prince Charles, telling Farage he had the strong impression that the heir apparent “loves your country”.
He also described the embattled Prince Harry, Charles’s second son, as a “fine young man” and expressed some sadness that his American wife Meghan appeared to be taking criticism from the press “very, very personally”.