Donald Trump’s first meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was not without hiccups. When the two leaders spoke with reporters in the Oval Office, for example, Starmer appeared proud to tout the partnership between his country and the United States as “the greatest alliance for prosperity and security” in the history of the world.
It was soon after when the Republican president appeared to dodge a question about coming to the United Kingdom’s assistance in the event that British troops faced a Russian attack in Ukraine. Trump ended up asking Starmer if the British military could “take on Russia by yourselves.”
The prime minister, understandably taken aback, started to answer, before Trump moved on.
If it was an attempt at humor, it was not at all funny.
Nevertheless, as part of the same Q&A, Starmer also took the opportunity to correct Trump’s claim that European countries that provided aid to Ukraine “get their money back.” NBC News reported:
“We don’t get the money back,” Trump added, before blaming former President Joe Biden for not giving military aid in the form of a loan. “We’re not getting all of [our aid back],” Starmer told Trump, adding: “Quite a bit of ours was given, was gifted.”
Observers would be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu. After all, it was earlier this week when Trump, in the same room, sat alongside another foreign leader and peddled eerily similar incorrect claims. The Republican falsely insisted that the United States had spent $350 billion in aid to Ukraine, while Europe had spent only $100 billion, adding that European countries would get their money back.
It fell to French President Emmanuel Macron to interrupt his American counterpart to explain — in English — that Trump’s claims were plainly untrue. The Republican didn’t appear to believe the facts as presented, but reality remained unchanged: Trump’s claims were false, while Macron’s explanation was correct.
Having apparently learned nothing from the embarrassing public exchange, the American president made effectively the same mistake just three days later, prompting another world leader to correct him to his face. On Monday night, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell told viewers, “Trump became the first American president in history fully humiliated on the world stage by instantly getting caught and corrected in his lie.” O’Donnell added that the American president was “humiliated and exposed in a way that no previous president ever could be because no previous president would be pathological enough to try to tell a lie like that right in front of the person he’s lying about. And no previous president could possibly be stupid enough to try to tell a lie like that.” After Trump suffered a similar embarrassment with Starmer, O’Donnell said, “There is a kind of person whose humiliation reflex simply doesn’t work.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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