Sadiq Khan has proven he will not be goaded by Donald Trump Jr, telling CNN he has “been doing far more important things over the past 24 hours” than responding to the US President’s son’s tweet.
Trump Jr was heavily criticised on Wednesday after he misquoted the Mayor of London from an article last year, in which Khan discussed the risk of terrorism in the nation’s capital.
The son of the billionaire Republican leader selectively referenced just the headline of the article which quoted Khan saying terror attacks were “part and parcel of living in a big city”.
When asked by CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour about his reaction to the tweet on Thursday morning, Khan said: “I’m not going to respond to a tweet from Donald Trump Jr, I’ve been doing far more important things over the past 24 hours.
“What I do know is that the threat level in London and across the country is severe, that means that an attack is highly likely.
“I was in New York last year when there was an attack in New York and terrorists hate the fact that, whether it’s New York, whether it’s London, whether it’s Paris, whether it’s Brussels, whether it’s Istanbul, whether it’s Madrid, we have diverse communities living together peacefully, getting on with each other, respecting each other.
“We’ve got a thriving democracy in London and we’ve got a situation where parliament is returning to normal today, City Hall is returning to normal today, tourists are returning to London today, businesses are returning to normal today, just the thing that the terrorists hate.”
It’s unclear if Trump Jr was aware the article he quoted in his tweet was from last year or if he thought it was a response to yesterday’s tragic events.
The tweet was heavily criticised by a number of MPs and prominent commentators.