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Trump voices old grievances in freewheeling interview with Farage

Richard Luscombe in Miami and Jamie Grierson in London
·4-min read

Donald Trump attacked Boris Johnson’s plans for clean power, slammed the Duchess of Sussex as “disrespectful”, and voiced a litany of old grievances during a freewheeling interview with UK politician-turned-broadcaster Nigel Farage aired on British TV on Wednesday night.

The conversation, billed as a “world exclusive” from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, south Florida, and broadcast on GB News, broke little new ground, beginning with the twice-impeached, one-term Republican president repeating the lie that the 2020 presidential election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, was stolen from him.

Related: Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new book

Trump, 75, hinted that he might run again for the presidency in 2024 and attempt a return to the White House that he left in January 2021.

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Beyond the gripes and complaints about his successor, Biden, however, Trump took aim at targets in the UK, including the prime minister, who was a close ally during his time in the White House, and Meghan, whom he believes exploited her position in the royal family.

“I’m not a fan of hers. I wasn’t from day one. I think [Prince] Harry has been used horribly and I think some day he will regret it, he probably does already,” Trump told Farage.

“I think it’s ruined his relationship with his family, and it hurts the Queen.”

In response to comments from Farage about Meghan using paper headed with the title Duchess of Sussex to lobby members of Congress on mandated paid family leave, Trump said: “She is trying to do things that I think are very inappropriate. She’s very disrespectful to the royal family and, most importantly, to the Queen.”

The Queen, Trump said, is “a great woman, such a great person, a historic person,” noting that “we had a great time together, we get along great”.

Meanwhile Johnson, who announced in October a “Build Back Greener” drive to power every home in the UK by offshore wind energy within a decade, was “just wrong”, in Trump’s view.

The UK has become a world leader in wind energy, particularly offshore, and Johnson wants Britain to become to wind what Saudi Arabia is to oil in the drive to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“Boris is wrong – if he’s going heavy into it, he’s making a big mistake. But I like him, I always got on with him [although] he’s gone a little on the liberal side,” said Trump, who once claimed he “never understood wind”.

“Wind is ridiculous. It’s a horrible thing for Scotland and I get to see it because I own great properties in Scotland. I see windmills [wind turbines] all over them. What a shame. They kill all the birds,” he said.

Other topics covered included the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January by extremist Trump supporters, the Black Lives Matter movement, the migration crisis in the UK and problems at the US-Mexico border, the antifa leftwing movement, and the question of whether Trump would run for office again.

Farage, asserting to his interviewee that “they made your life hell” through two impeachments and an inquiry into his administration’s ties with Russia, wondered why Trump would give up retirement at his luxury Palm Beach resort to seek a return to the White House.

“So, I love our country. I brought the country to a level never seen before,” Trump said, taking credit for “saving tens of millions of people throughout the world” through the coronavirus vaccine, despite his serial mishandling of the pandemic in the US.