Trump arrives in London amid war of words with mayor

LONDON - President Donald Trump met Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace on Monday, beginning three days of royal feting and carefully calibrated diplomacy. The royals had lunch and a tea with Trump. They showed him old paintings of George Washington and an honor guard in scarlet tunics.

But first, Trump called the relatively popular London mayor a "stone cold loser" - and short in stature. Then Trump complained at length on Twitter about CNN news coverage of his trip, which had only just begun.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump were greeted at the satellite Stansted Airport by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt - but not by Prime Minister Theresa May, who is being ousted over Brexit. Trump's official state visit coincides with a furious contest to replace May. It is all a bit awkward. Not that the British will mention it, much.

At Buckingham Palace, Trump's helicopter landed on the queen's lawn. The president appeared to enjoy himself immensely as he strode the ranks of the queen's guards decked out in black bearskin busbys and scarlet jackets.

There were two 41-gun salutes.

Trump's entourage watched him arrive from inside Buckingham Palace. Representing America to her British cousins are daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Trump advisers Kellyanne Conway, Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller.

After lunch, the queen escorted the president and first lady into the palace picture gallery to see items of "historical interest" to the United States. A portrait of George Washington was visible on the far table, according to reporters at the edge of the scene.

Also on display was a copy of the Declaration of Independence under the heading "A Tale of Two Georges: King George III and George Washington."

Photographers caught a fleeting glimpse of Prince Harry at the back of the gallery.

As his plane was touching down, the president launched a Twitter attack against London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has publicly objected to "rolling out the red carpet" for Trump's visit. Trump responded by criticizing Khan's record as mayor and mocking his height. (Khan is 5-foot-6.) Trump also misspelled his name.

"@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly 'nasty' to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me," Trump wrote on Twitter.

"Kahn [sic] reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, [Bill] de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job - only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now!"

It was the latest broadside by Trump, who prefaced his visit with digs at May, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn and American-born royal Meghan, duchess of Sussex.

Trump arrived at a sensitive political moment in Britain. May will officially leave her post as leader of the Conservative Party on Friday. The contest to replace her is in full swing, with at least 13 candidates known to have thrown their hat in the ring. The winner is expected to be announced in July.

As Trump was landing, Boris Johnson, Britain's former foreign secretary, officially launched his leadership bid with a campaign video that showed him out meeting voters. Trump told the Sun newspaper on Friday that Johnson "would be excellent" as prime minister. He also spoke well of Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary who is also gunning for the top job. "Yep, like him," Trump said.

Before meeting the queen, Trump was at Winfield House, the London residence of the U.S. Ambassador Woody Johnson.

Trump tweeted: "Just arrived in the United Kingdom. The only problem is that @CNN is the primary source of news available from the U.S. After watching it for a short while, I turned it off. All negative & so much Fake News, very bad for U.S. Big ratings drop."

If he had worked the remote, he could have presumably tuned into some of the nation's more watched television stations, which include the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky.

A banquet with the queen was scheduled for Monday evening.

These type of encounters with the British royal family, whether state visits or working visits, are minutely choreographed affairs. But there are usually unpredictable moments, and many wonder if there could be more so with this president than most.

During Barack and Michelle Obama's visit in 2009, the queen and the first lady struck up a conversation about standing around in uncomfortable shoes. Michelle then laid a hand on the queen's shoulder, which is not done. The queen responded by putting her arm on Michelle's back. It became one of the defining images from that trip.

Then there was Trump's working visit to Britain in July 2018 when he appeared to walk in front of the queen during an inspection of the royal guard, causing a social media uproar.

On Tuesday, Trump plans to meet with May and attend a joint news conference, while tens of thousands of protesters are expected to pack London's Trafalgar Square. A blimp showing Trump as a diaper-clad baby, which first appeared during 2018 protests in London and Edinburgh, was expected to take flight and hover above the scene.

Anti-Trump sentiment was visible on Monday, too. Amnesty International unfurled banners from London bridges with the captions "Resist Trump," "Resist Racism" and "Resist Sexism."

Mayor Khan, a Muslim and the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver, has become the rhetorical leader of London's resistance to the president. Writing in the Guardian newspaper Sunday, Khan said Trump used the language of the "fascists of the 20th century."

Khan posted a video message on Monday afternoon that began: "President Donald Trump, if you are watching this, your values, and what you stand for, are the opposite of London's values and the values of this country.

"When you are president of the U.S., you have a massive leadership role," Khan said. "You have a massive platform as well. People follow what you do. What we have seen over the last few years in the U.S.A. is a rolling black of much of the progress made in previous decades."

Khan's spokesman responded Monday to Trump's Twitter attack, saying that "childish insults" should be "beneath the president of the United States."

Khan also criticized Trump for inserting himself into the internal politics of Britain.

In recent days, Trump has criticized May's approach to the Brexit negotiations and, in addition to flattering Boris Johnson, asserted that Brexit leader Nigel Farage should be the country's top negotiator with the European Union. Trump also responded to criticism by the duchess of Sussex - from 2016, when she was still actress Meghan Markle - by saying, "I didn't know that she was nasty."

Typically, a state visit includes a few nights at Buckingham Palace in central London. But Trump will not be staying there - the palace cited renovations. He'll be at Winfield House, the ambassador's residence.

Nor will he receive the royal welcome at Horse Guards Parade or a gold carriage procession down the Mall; security concerns were cited.

Woody Johnson, who in addition to being U.S. ambassador owns the New York Jets football team, called the state visit "very significant."

"He knows the security and prosperity of the U.S. is directly linked to the security and prosperity of the U.K. The special relationship will be a huge focus as we remember D-Day," Johnson told the BBC.

"When I last spoke to him he was extremely enthusiastic. The president's mother was born here, and this is part of his DNA. Everything he is about revolves around this relationship. It could not be more important," Johnson said.

Johnson said the Trump administration was looking forward to signing a U.S.-British trade deal - though in the past the ambassador warned that the exit deal with the E.U. that May tried to pass through Parliament could threaten an agreement with Washington.

More controversially, Johnson said Sunday that a future trade deal with the United States would include British health care, specifically the social medicine program called the National Health Service. Although Britons often complain about it, the program has broad support.

Many Britons have expressed fear that the United States has designs on profiting from the NHS.

Asked if British consumers would buy U.S. meat and vegetables, which have less strict regulations over chemicals, Johnson said British consumers would make their own choices.

It's unclear how much Trump will be able to focus on the British pageantry rather than the political drama back in the United States, where the president faces a burgeoning trade war with Mexico, intensifying congressional investigations and growing calls for impeachment.

Trump's unprompted attack on New York Mayor de Blasio - who is one of two dozen Democratic candidates seeking to unseat Trump - offers a signal that the president will continue to engage in domestic politics even while on foreign soil.

While in Japan last month, Trump used the words of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to attack another rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, calling him a "low IQ individual."

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The Washington Post's Karla Adam contributed to this report.