Donald Trump has had a pretty busy schedule recently, however he found time to meet with Japanese and Chinese investors, prospective cabinet members, personal friends like Nigel Farage, and even hip-hop artist Kanye West. Nevertheless, Britain’s top diplomat had to be satisfied with a meeting with the President-elect’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In an obvious snub, Trump refused to sit down with Johnson, which might not be surprising, given what the UK Foreign Affairs Secretary had to say about the man, whose audience he now seeks.
"I would invite him to come and see the whole of London, except I wouldn’t want to expose any Londoners to any necessary risk of meeting Donald Trump," Johnson said in December 2015. Johnson jabbed Trump again in the same interview, comparing him to an infectious disease by saying that some of Trump’s stances betray "a stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of the President of the United States."
Nevertheless, Johnson emerged from his talks with Trump confidant Kushner Tuesday, brimming with enthusiasm about hearing that the UK is "first in line to do a great free trade deal with the United States." Johnson also reiterated Tuesday that "it’s pretty clear" that the DNC hacks "came from the Russians," adding that Moscow "is up to all sorts of very dirty tricks, such as cyberwarfare." In recent days, British intelligence service GCHQ claimed that UK spies were the first to alert Washington of the breaches, an achievement Johnson again took credit for on Tuesday.
Johnson is on a completely different wavelength from the incoming US President. Trump has drawn his line in the sand on numerous occasions, indicating that the hacks are attributable to "gross negligence" by the DNC, pointing out the FBI never conducted an independent investigation of the compromised servers, and concluding "there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election” after a top-secret briefing with US intelligence operatives.
The remarkably casual reception of London’s top diplomat from America’s "special ally" could be a sign of things to come over the next four years, perhaps sketching a foreign policy framework where leaders who speak and act unfavorably toward Trump are quietly demoted on the incoming President’s list of high-priority friends and contacts.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2016
Johnson may be excused, however, by the fact that he insulted practically every politician on the planet. The former journalist and Conservative MP, tasked with handling the UK’s international ties, said in 2007 that Hillary Clinton’s "dyed blonde hair" and "pouty lips" made her appear "like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital." He also participated in the false conspiracy of accusing "part-Kenyan" President Barack Obama of "ancestral dislike of the British empire," presumably motivated by Obama’s non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity.
