A BBC Question Time guest struggled to put his feelings towards Donald Trump – and one of his most eyebrow-raising claims – into words last night.
During his inauguration ceremony on Monday, the new US president said he was “saved by God” to make America great again, referring to his narrow escape from an assassination attempt in July last year.
But that remark did not go down well with Times columnist and former Tory MP Matthew Parris.
He told the BBC audience on Thursday: “Claiming that God has saved your life on Martin Luther King day, when God did not save Martin Luther King’s life, is just....”
Rather than finishing that sentence, Parris just shook his head in a bewildered manner while the audience clapped enthusiastically.
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was murdered in 1968. He is remembered every year on January 20, which is usually the same day new presidents are sworn in after a US election.
After a long pause, Parris continued: “I’ve called [Trump] a slob, a bigot, a lawbreaker, and that he appeals to the dark side and the chaotic side of human nature...
“I understand that somebody in the audience wanted to ask me if I didn’t think that world leaders should be given at least three months before we start attacking them.
“Well we would have had Liz Truss for three months instead off less than two months if that had happened.”
Parris continued to criticise the president, noting that his approach to diplomacy “just makes things more difficult.”
He added: “As a man who tends to divide people, who tends to set people at each other’s throats, who tends to insult people and tends to overstate, I don’t think he will achieve even his own goals – some of which are quite good goals.
“There’s quite a bit of Trumpism that’s right, but Trump is not the man to achieve most of Trumpism’s goals.”
Fellow panellist Conservative MP David Davis also slammed the new president last night, saying: “I don’t think God’s taking advice from Donald Trump. No, God did not save him, a bad marksman saved him, in terms of the rifleman.”
“If I were an American, I would have to spoil my ballot – I would be a Republican, but I wouldn’t be a Trump Republican,” he added.
However, Davis did describe Trump as the “most influential person in the world”, and suggested diplomatic efforts to end the wars in Gaza and in Ukraine would not have progressed as much as they have without him.