Donald Trump is putting a positive spin on the huge protests across Britain against his presidency, insisting there were ”many, many in my favour”.
SPOILER: There were not.
The US President was interviewed aboard Air Force One by Piers Morgan on Friday as 100,000 people took to the streets of London.
The centre of the capital was brought to a standstill by the anti-Trump marchers, a giant inflatable “Baby Trump” had attracted thousands in Parliament Square that morning and a nationwide “Carnival of Resistance” was being enjoyed by many more.
But it appears Trump was either not watching the wall-to-wall TV coverage closely or had been fed information by those around him designed to insulate his delicate ego.
In the interview published in the Mail on Sunday, Morgan reports the President as saying:
“‘Some of them are protesting in my favour, you know that?’ he insisted. ‘There are many, many protests in my favour.’”
HuffPost UK was at the protests on Friday and struggled to find any in support of Trump.
Around 10 people were engaged in debate around the Trump Baby...
And a small group had been corralled into a pub just off Trafalgar Square.
Meanwhile, the anti-Trump crowds were everywhere.
Pro-Trump rallies on Saturday don’t appear to have been anymore successful.
Morgan boarded Air Force One at Stansted Airport in Essex to speak with the US president and quizzed him on the Queen, Brexit and Kim Jong Un.
During the interview, Trump suggested he would run for a second term in 2020.
“Well I fully intend to [run in 2020]. It seems like everybody wants me to,” he was quoted in the Mail on Sunday as saying.
On the Queen, Morgan quoted Trump as saying: “The Queen is fantastic! She’s a fantastic woman; so much energy and smart and sharp. She was amazing! Such a wonderful lady and so beautiful! It was such an honour to finally meet her. To have a Queen like that is great.”
During the Queen’s 66-year reign there have been 13 American presidents – from Harry S Truman to Trump – and she has now met all of them barring Lyndon B Johnson.
Trump said his mother, Mary Anne Trump, who died in 2000 at the age of 88, was a “tremendous fan” of the Queen.
He said: “I was walking up and I was saying (to Melania) ‘Can you imagine my mother seeing this scene? Windsor. Windsor Castle.’ And it was beautiful, it was really beautiful but the Queen is terrific.
“She is so sharp, so wise, so beautiful. Up close, you see she’s so beautiful. She’s a very special person. And the way she’s conducted herself for so many years.”
He added: “And she’s got a lotta years left.”
Speaking of his historic summit with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un, he said: “I get along with him great, yeah. He’s very smart, great personality, he’s funny and tough, good negotiator.”
Morgan’s interview with Trump airs on ITV’s Good Morning Britain at 6am BST on Monday.