London Mayor Sadiq Khan: US President Trump is like 11-year old child

Sadiq Khan

London: Mayor Sadiq Khan on Tuesday compared US President Donald Trump with a small child after the President called him a "stone-cold loser" in a series of tweets a day before.

CNN quoted Khan as saying that he was "not offended in the slightest" by the remarks, delivered as Trump began his three-day state visit to the United Kingdom on Monday, but added that the US was expected to behave more like a role model.

"This is the sort of behavior I would expect from an 11-year-old," Khan said.

"But it's for him to decide how he behaves. It's not for me to respond in a like manner. I think it's beneath me to do childish tweets and name-calling," the Mayor added.

Minutes before landing at London's Stansted Airport for a three-day state visit to the United Kingdom, Trump on Monday lashed out at the Mayor in a series of tweets, branding him "a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London," and not him.

The US President's visit to the UK has been so far marked by pageantry as well as protests. The President received a royal welcome from Queen Elizabeth II on Monday, completed with a guard of honor march, gun salutes and an opulent white-tie state banquet at Buckingham Palace.

But the visit also attracted anti-Trump protests today, as a giant inflatable blimp depicting the US President as an orange baby in a diaper flew high outside the British Parliament.

Khan, while speaking to CNN at City Hall in London, said people here had the right to protest, as long as it's done peacefully. "They'll be articulating the concerns we have about the values we both hold dear," Khan said.

Asked whether the UK should be pragmatic in its approach to Trump, given its desire for a post-Brexit trade deal, Khan warned against false hopes.

"His mood changes from hour to hour," Khan said. "He can be upset by an article in a Sunday newspaper to the effect that he resorts to name-calling."

In the interview, Khan said Trump had amplified hard-right views and defended white supremacists. "I think it's wrong to amplify the tweets form racists in this country as Donald Trump has done so. I think it wrong, by the way, to separate children from their parents on the border."

"I think it's wrong to ban people from coming to your country because of the faith they belong to. I think it's wrong to roll back the progress that's been made on the reproductive rights of women or LGBT+ rights," he said.

Khan has long been a critic of Trump. In a Sunday newspaper article, he called the US President a "growing global threat" and said it was "un-British" to be rolling out the red carpet for him.

"I've been asked why I've been critical of rolling out the red carpet for President Trump's State Visit given the USA is a close ally. My answer is simple: The USA and UK have been best mates for decades. When your best mate does something wrong, you have to call them out on it," Khan wrote on Twitter.

Trump repeated his criticism of Khan at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Theresa May later on Tuesday, CNN reported.

Asked for his opinion about the British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, Trump appeared to misunderstand the question and started talking about Khan, describing him as "negative."

Trump said, "He's a negative force, not a positive force," adding, "I think he should focus on his job."

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