The New York City-born former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson has said that he would not rule out a potential bid for the White House.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who served as British Prime Minister from 2019 to 2022 before being forced to resign over a series scandals including being fined for hosting a series of parties in Downing Street which violated the very same draconian lockdown measures his own government imposed upon the public during the Chinese coronavirus crisis, is apparently looking for a second act in his political career.
While Westminster watchers have long speculated that such a second act would come in the form of an attempt to recapture his previous position as prime minister, Mr Johsnon threw a spanner in the works this week by telling the Spectator magazine: “I don’t rule it out,” in reference to a potential presidential run.
The former British prime minister was born in New York City in 1964 while his father, Stanley Johnson, was studying at Columbia University. In 2016, Mr Johnson renounced his U.S. citizenship in order to “ensure he is out of reach of America’s Internal Revenue Service,” with the United States being the only country, with the exception of the war-torn African nation Eritrea, that taxes the overseas income of its citizens.
The issue of the natural-born-citizen clause in the U.S. Constitution requires that a president or vice president be born in the United States, however, despite being born in the country, with Johnson renouncing his citizenship it is questionable as to whether he would meet the requirement.
Commenting on the constitutionality of such a run, senior legal contributor at Breitbart News, Ken Klukowski said: “Johnson is not eligible to run for U.S. president, although the question is amusing to political pundits. The Constitution says a person must have been a U.S. citizen at least seven years before being elected to the U.S. House or at least nine years to be elected to the Senate.
“It’s inconceivable that presidential citizenship requirements are less strict than congressional requirements, so to read the presidential age requirement consistently with the congressional requirements, the reference to “natural born citizen” refers to someone who has been an American citizen since birth, so anyone who has renounced his citizenship should be ineligible.”
Johnson, who is currently on tour in America to lobby the American government to increase spending on the Ukrainian war effort, refused to disclose to the magazine whether he would run as a Democrat or a Republican should he decide to throw his hat in the ring for the U.S. presidency.
Although the former Conservative Party leader often drew comparisons to former President Donald Trump, in reality, Johnson’s governance style was far more aligned with the left-wing Democrat party in the United States, particularly on issues such as migration and climate change. Indeed, the ex-PM even shared the same Great Reset slogan “Build Back Better” with President Joe Biden to describe his radical green agenda push.
During his American tour, Mr Johnson has also seen fit to pick public spats with two of the most prominent conservative American figures, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former President Donald Trump. Following Mr Trump’s pledge to negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine, Johnson said: ‘The former president, Donald, is a great dealmaker, but I don’t think there is a deal here.”
Johnson was more critical of Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on the issue, saying: “I’ve been amazed and horrified by how many people are frightened of a guy called Tucker Carlson. Has anybody heard of somebody called — has anybody heard of Tucker Carlson? What is it with this guy? All these wonderful Republicans seem somehow intimidated by his — by his perspective.”
“I haven’t watched anything that he’s said,” Johnson added. “But I’m struck by how often this comes up. Some bad ideas are getting into — starting to infect some of the thinking around the world about what Putin stands for, what he believes in. It’s a disaster. He stands for war, aggression, systematic murder, rape and destruction. That’s what he stands for.”
For his part, Carlson, the top-rated prime-time news host in America, claimed that Johnson had cancelled a planned appearance on his programme because he was “afraid” of having to defend his position on Ukraine.
“Boris Johnson, reputed to be the smartest leader of any English-speaking country in the world, did not want to publicly defend his position on Ukraine. He was afraid to take questions about it.”
“We knew that Johnson himself was a coward; we watched during COVID as he transitioned into a terrified old woman — but we had no idea he was also a liar,” Tucker scoffed. `
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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