President Trump Backs Boris Johnson in U.K. Leadership Race Before State Visit
Donald Trump weighed into Britain’s domestic political turmoil by backing the pro-Brexit Boris Johnson to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, in a breach of convention on the eve of the president’s state visit to the U.K.
Trump insisted he wasn’t giving a full endorsement of any one of the 12 candidates to become leader of Britain’s ruling Conservative party but said Johnson “would be excellent” and would do a “very good job” running the country.
“I like him,” Trump said in an interview with the Sun, the U.K.’s best-selling newspaper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. “I have always liked him. I don’t know that he is going to be chosen, but I think he is a very good guy, a very talented person,” Trump said.
The president’s intervention — before banqueting with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace — upends the usual diplomatic rules against commenting on allies’ internal political contests. It is potentially embarrassing for May for the president to be speculating i..