UK prime minister brings down the house with stinging rebuke of Trump

Trump has caused an international incident and brought significant shame and embarrassment to the United States for embracing the hatred contained in a series of videos from the group Britain First. Speaking at a press availability in Jordan, May was asked about the British reaction to the video.

“Britain First is a hateful organization,” May said. “It seeks to spread division and mistrust among our communities. It stands in fundamental opposition to the values that we share as a nation.”

She ended the statement with a direct slam on Trump: “The fact that we work together does not mean that we’re afraid to say when we think the United States have got it wrong, and be very clear with them. And I’m very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do.”

“The fact that we work together does not mean we’re afraid to say when the US have got it wrong” – @theresa_may receives applause for this response to Donald Trump’s tweets pic.twitter.com/6SRdhRowBp

— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 30, 2017

REPORTER: You’ve been talking about the problem of online extremism. What do you think about President Trump’s spreading so-called hate speech through his tweets? And are you going to ask him to stop it?

MAY: Well, can I deal with the substance of this? British – Britain First is a hateful organization. It seeks to spread division and mistrust among our communities. It stands in fundamental opposition to the values that we share as a nation. Values of respect, tolerance, and dare I say just common British decency.

On the issue of radical Islam, British Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding people who have themselves been the subject of and the victims of acts of terror by the far right. There are those who conduct acts of terror in the name of Islam, but it is not in the name of Islam. And as prime minister, I am very clear about the priority that I give to dealing with the challenge of the threat of terrorism. And that’s dealing with the threat of terrorism and extremism from whatever source they come.

And indeed, that question of dealing – how we deal with terrorism is one of the issues that I have been discussing over the last couple of days here in the Middle East and I was very pleased yesterday, particularly in Iraq, to see the work that we are doing with allies, and with the United States in particular, to counter the threat of terrorism, and the success that we have been having in doing that.

But the fact that we work together does not mean that we’re afraid to say when we think the United States have got it wrong, and be very clear with them. And I’m very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do.

Trump endangered innocent people by promoting the hate message, using his position to amplify naked bigotry that can easily incite violence against innocent Muslims. James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence, called Trump’s behavior “bizarre and disturbing” and warned that it could incite violence.

To compound the problem of an American endorsement of a hate group, at least one of the videos is a complete hoax. Trump’s promotion of that video prompted a public correction and condemnation of Trump from the Dutch government.

Confronted with this, the Trump administration defended promoting the fake video, in the latest sign that their sound and fury about “fake news” was always meaningless.

Trump ran on a platform of Muslim hatred, and the deserved humiliation for the United States at the hands of its oldest and closest ally is the end result. Republicans supported Trump embracing bigotry, and continue to do so.