Ed Miliband Dodges White House Rebuke for Trump Insult
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband's past comments calling Trump a "racist idiot" were not raised during his 90-minute meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Ed Miliband travelled to the US capital on Wednesday for his first bilateral talks with Marco Rubio since taking office, where years-old insults he had levelled at Donald Trump were conspicuously absent from their discussions, according to James Saunders writing in GB News.
The Foreign Secretary had previously avoided answering whether he still believed Trump was an “idiot, a racist and a misogynist” as he arrived for the meeting with Rubio. When pressed by reporters following the talks, Miliband confirmed the controversial statements had not surfaced during their conversation.
No, and in fact they didn’t come up today, Miliband told journalists, describing the discussions as productive.
The British minister’s historical attacks on Trump extend beyond racial allegations. He has also accused the President of having a “peculiar” relationship with Russia, displaying “authoritarian tendencies”, and being a “self-confessed groper”—remarks that reportedly sparked genuine anger within the administration prior to the meeting.
Miliband attempted to emphasise the bilateral relationship by describing America as “our closest ally” during the press encounter. The sentiment was notably not reciprocated by Rubio, who delivered a straightforward readout of topics covered without any reference to the special relationship between the two nations.
The talks covered Iran, support for Ukraine against Russian aggression, the situation in Gaza, and prospects for a two-state solution addressing Israeli and Palestinian security concerns.
The encounter marks a diplomatic success for Miliband, who appears to have avoided accountability for his intemperate language about the sitting American President—statements that would ordinarily complicate high-level diplomatic engagement.
With information from GB News
