The Blundering Orange Idiot (hereinafter “BOI”) has managed to help kill off Brexit in a single press conference. He has been puffing up the “really great” trade deal after the UK leaves the EU and telling all and sundry that a “No Deal” Brexit would be good.
In other news, rain grounded Marine 1 so he could not fly the 3 miles to the US Ambassador’s residence where he is to host a dinner for the Queen to reciprocate the State Dinner yesterday. (Prince Charles and winking Camilla are to represent her.) He had to use “the Beast” and motorcade back, after Larry the Downing Street cat had stopped his protest against the visit.
It does raise the quesion whether BOI will be able to make the D-Day commemmoration ceremonies on the South Coast if it rains on Wednesday. Henailed his colors to the mast when his first visitor after the Downing Street press conference was Nigel Farage, no doubt to compare notes on getting Russian money to your campaign without getting the blame.
He already had a telephone call with Boris Johnson (who obviously knows how toxic the suggested meeting was for his Conservative Leadership campaign).
In the press conference, BOI displayed yet again his blinding ignorance of diplomacy and disregard for international treaties. Praising May for being a “better negotiator”, he suggested again his preferred method of business.
The outgoing British Prime Minister joked that Trump, on his last visit, had proposed suing the EU. May said she had chosen to negotiate.
"I would have sued and settled, maybe, but you never know," Trump replied. And in a startling comment for a president who regards himself as a master dealmaker, he added: "She's probably a better negotiator than I am."
Who is the UK going to sue and where? Minor considerations I suppose.
BOI kept up his daily lie rate by repeating his false claim that he had predicted the outcome of the Brexit referendum. In his enthusiasm to promote the “benefits” of Brexit he was pushing the possibility of a trade deal with the USA. No matter that the customs union and other arrangements may well preclude negotiating with a third party. There is already opposition from consumer bodies and farmers about the lower safety standards of the USA, the serious concerns being over chlorine washed chicken. Now between him and the ambassador he has injected another big roadblock for his dreamed for no-deal Brexit.
President Trump suggested that American participation in Britain's National Health Service should be on the table when the two nations negotiate a post-Brexit trade deal.
"I think everything with a trade deal is on the table," Trump said. "When you're dealing in trade everything is on the table, so NHS or anything else, a lot more than that, but everything will be on the table, absolutely."
That will concern anti-Brexit campaigners, who have long warned that relying on a post-Brexit deal would open up the UK's public health system to private US healthcare companies. It's a hot-button issue in the UK, where any sense that the NHS could be "privatized" or otherwise opened up to profit is universally seen as a vote-loser.
“Hot-button” is a bit of an understatement. The British know very well what US involvement in the NHS would mean — money that should go for care will disappear into the coffers of US “healthcare” companies. Chlorine-washed chicken can’t hold a candle to power of threatening the NHS in terms of turning public opinion.