Joe Biden’s claim that Theresa May confided to him her concerns about President Trump risks undermining relations between the United Kingdom and the United States just weeks ahead of the president’s first state visit to Britain.
His comments, made to supporters in bungled fashion on Saturday, raised fresh questions about his fitness for office and provoked criticism that May had broken diplomatic protocols.
A former British diplomat said the prime minister had made the mistake of inserting herself into America’s election battleground. “This seems an extraordinary breach of protocol,” he said. “Frankly, it’s an embarrassingly undiplomatic piece of diplomacy. Relations with the Trump administration were already on shaky ground.”
Trump is due to make his first state visit to the U.K. next month. Hundreds of thousands of protesters are due to take to the streets in anger.
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May was the first world leader to visit Trump at the White House in 2017 as she sought to strengthen relations ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union. But she was mocked back homefor holding hands with Trump and the relationship cooed after he criticized her handling of Brexit.
Now Biden’s claim she discussed her concerns about Trump with his possible rival in the 2020 election and invited him to the UK to discuss relations between the two countries will add to questions about her in the Trump White House.
Relations between Britain and the US soured in 1992 when it emerged that operatives from Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative party had sought to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton’s anti-war activities when he was studying at Oxford during the Vietnam conflict. When Clinton was elected, he kept Major at arm’s length.
Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, told a private audience in South Carolina on Saturday that she was among 14 anxious world leaders who had spoken to him. “We still have a special relationship between United States and England?” he claimed May asked him.
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British diplomats scrambled to limit the damage. They initially said accounts of a call between the two leaders were mistaken. “There is no record of a call,” said a spokeswoman. But it later emerged that the two met during an event held by the McCain Institute in London in October. It is understood they discussed U.S.-U.K. relations on the sidelines of the event.
British officials declined to comment on the content of those discussions.
Biden’s first run for president ended in disaster when he was forced out of the 1988 primary race when it emerged he plagiarized the British politician Neil Kinnock. He dropped out in 2008 after a string of campaign blunders saw him finish fifth in the Iowa caucuses.
This time around he is using his credentials as vice president to Barack Obama to position himself as the only Democratic candidate with experience of making foreign policy decisions. “I think, whether I’m right or not, I know as much about American foreign policy than anyone around including even maybe Kissinger,” he said.
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Yet during Saturday’s event he managed to mangle his claims about international leaders reaching out to him about Trump.
“I have had, just since he’s been president, at least 14 heads of state contact me, including including very, very conservative heads of state,” Biden said before muddling his British prime ministers. “One I can say is Margaret Thatcher um, excuse me … Margaret Thatcher — Freudian slip,” he said.
He quickly corrected himself as members of the audience in Columbia began laughing. “The prime minister of Great Britain, Theresa May,” he added. Britain’s head of state, moreover, is Queen Elizabeth II and not May.
The entire episode was another example of Biden’s ability to shoot himself in the foot, according to Sebastian Gorka, who served in the White House during Trump’s first year in office. “Demonstrates how totally unfit Biden is for any public office,” he said.
The White House said it would not comment on an alleged private conversation other than to say that Trump has strong personal and professional relationships with many leaders around the world.
