Boris Johnson’s demise was due to the fact he stopped governing conservatively and “went liberal all of a sudden,” former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed in an interview on U.K. television.
Speaking to Laurence Fox, filling in for Nigel Farage on the fledgling news channel, GB News, Trump offered his thoughts on the difficulties facing new Prime Minister Liz Truss, the extent to which King Charles III should continue to be politically active, and the downfall of previous Conservative leader, Boris Johnson.
“I like some of the things she’s done. She seems very nice, very good, I like some of the things,” Trump said when asked for his opinion of Liz Truss. He then spoke highly of the low tax ideology she is attempting to instill with considerable opposition.
“It’s inverse, a lot of times finance is inverse,” Trump explained. “I cut taxes very substantially, and we did much more business. She’s done that, and I know she’s taken some hits for it, which surprises me actually. But it could be that in the end you have bigger revenues, it’s going to be very interesting.
“What she did is very inverse to what some people thought, but that doesn’t mean that they were right. I have a feeling that she may be right,” he predicted.
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In response to a line of questioning about King Charles III’s long-standing support for environmental campaigning, Trump believed the new British monarch would rein in his own personal views to emulate the long-held royal tradition to be apolitical and impartial.
“I think he’ll be different, I know him very well,” Trump told Fox. “I spent a lot of time when I was over there as president with him, and with his wife who is absolutely lovely by the way. And we had a good time together, so I’m a little prejudiced when I say it.
“He has a strong view on things, probably difficult when you’re the king, you want to have 100 percent of the people love you like the Queen did. The Queen had everybody love her, she didn’t have that kind of an agenda and yet she was a very strong woman. I got to know her too, she was a great woman.”
“I think Charles is going to do very well,” Trump told viewers, claiming he’s “got a great way about him, I thought he looked very good during the ceremony – not an easy thing to do. But I think Charles is going to do very well.
“I think he’ll probably keep it political a little bit because he feels very strongly about certain things and not everybody agrees with that. I think he’ll not discuss certain elements of what he believes 100 percent,” the former U.S. president added.
Perhaps the most explosive exchange during the interview with GB News was Trump’s personal view on the demise of former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Trump said Boris “was a friend of mine, and perhaps still is,” but admitted he hasn’t spoken to him “for a while.”
“I think the biggest problem Boris had is he went liberal all of a sudden,” Trump claimed. “He went to the other side, and I think that was just crazy because he’s a good man, but something happened to him, he changed.
Trump took aim at the Johnson administration’s commitment to net zero, claiming “[Boris] went for the windmills all over the place, and he went a little wokier than I believe he really is, and I think ultimately that was the thing that got him out.”
“I don’t believe it was the party,” Trump said, referencing the Downing Street party scandal when Boris Johnson broke coronavirus regulations during lockdown. “I think the party was just an excuse.”
“He’s a good guy, but he changed. He was a conservative guy, and he became much less conservative, and I think a lot of people didn’t like it,” Trump added.
