British Prime Minister Theresa May in pre-taped remarks aired Monday said that she trusts President Trump and that she has had productive conversations and dealings with him.
“Well, yes,” May responded when asked in an interview with CBS if she trusted Trump. “I mean, we work together.”
“We have a special relationship,” May added. “This is two people reflecting as leaders of their two countries – the relationship that those two countries have and have built up over a number of years.”
May cited the example of her conversation with Trump following the Salisbury attack in March, in which former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent in his British home.
In that conversation, Trump promised to expel Russian intelligence officers from the U.S., and then followed through.
May, the second female prime minister in the United Kingdom’s history, said Trump, who she will see at the United Nations General Assembly this week, is a good listener.
“We have very good discussions. And these are, I mean, the point of the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States in a sense is that we can have those frank and open discussions,” she said. “And when we disagree, we will – we can say to each other we disagree and why we disagree. But at the same time, we cooperate on so much else, which is of crucial importance to us.”
May specifically noted Trump’s decision to remain a part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after their meeting following his inauguration in Jan. 2017.
Dickerson asked if Trump should have raised the Salisbury issue when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki earlier this summer, but May defended his handling of it.
“I think expelling 60 Russian intelligence officers sent the message home pretty clearly,” said May.
