Donald Trump’s long-running feud with London Mayor Sadiq Khan

Donald Trump’s feud with Sadiq Khan dates back to 2015 when they were both fighting election campaigns. It intensified after the terrorist attacks on London in 2017 and now threatens to overshadow the US president’s state visit to the UK.

December 10, 2015

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign pledge to ban Muslims from the US was criticised as “outrageous” by Sadiq Khan when he was standing to be mayor of London. He told the BBC that he hoped Trump “loses badly”.

May 10, 2016

After Khan was elected as mayor of London, Trump suggested Khan would be exempt from his proposed travel ban on Muslims. “There will always be exceptions,” he said and added that the election of Khan was a “good thing”.

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May 16, 2016

Khan said Trump’s views on Muslims were “ignorant”. Trump then challenged Khan to an IQ test. “I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements,” he told ITV.

June 4, 2017

After the terrorist attacks on Borough Market and London Bridge, Trump falsely suggested in a tweet that Khan had said there was “no reason to be alarmed”.

Khan had actually said the public should not be alarmed by the increased police presence on London’s streets.

A spokesman for Khan responded by saying he had “more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks”.

Trump followed up with another tweet, saying this was a “pathetic excuse” that the mainstream media was “working hard to sell”.

June 6, 2017

Khan called on the government to cancel Trump’s state visit to the UK. “I don’t think we should roll out the red carpet to the president of the USA in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for,” he said.

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July 2, 2017

Khan told The Guardian he was a “reluctant participant” in his ongoing row with Trump. He said: “We’re not schoolchildren. He’s the president of the United States, so I’m unclear what his beef is with me.”

July 5, 2018

Khan’s office gave permission for anti-Trump activists to fly a protest blimp of Trump as a crying baby in a nappy.

July 13, 2018

On his working visit to London, Trump claimed Khan had “done a very bad job on terrorism”. He added: “I think he has done a bad job on crime, if you look, all of the horrible things going on there, with all of the crime that is being brought in.”

June 1, 2019

Khan compared the language used by Trump to rally his supporters to that of “the fascists of the 20th century”.

Writing in The Observer he said:

“President Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than 70 years.”

June 2, 2019

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Trump compared Khan to the New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and said he had no plans to meet him during his state visit to London.

Trump said: “I don’t think much of him. I think that he’s the twin of De Blasio, except shorter.”

June 3, 2019

Just before landing in the UK, Trump described Khan as “a stone cold loser” and “very dumb”.

Khan’s office accused Trump of “childish insults”.