President Donald Trump said he feels “badly” for withdrawing British Prime Minister Theresa May, who reported her resignation Friday.
“I feel badly for Theresa, I like her very much,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for a trip to Japan. “She’s a good woman. She worked very hard, she’s very strong. She decided to do something that some people were surprised at, some people weren’t. It’s for the good of her country. But I like her very much. In fact I’ll be seeing her in two weeks.”
Theresa May declared in an emotional speech Friday she would venture down after her failed endeavor to get Britain’s parliament to sanction her deal to leave the EU. May said she would remain in office until a new prime minister is set up, including when Donald Trump makes his first state visit to the U.K. in a few weeks.
“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor of my life to hold,” May said Friday morning, while tearing up. “The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last.”
Donald Trump and the British leader have had a rocky relationship all through her premiership, as Trump has been a vocal supporter of Brexit, the procedure May Friday admitted rout in exploring.
“I have done my best to do that,” she told reporters. “I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly, I have not been able to do so.” She later added: “It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.”
May and Trump have battled at times to present a united front. Amid a trip to the U.K. a year ago, the president tore Theresa May’s advancement on delivering a Brexit bargain, disclosing to British tabloid The Sun that May did not follow his recommendation when it went to the U.K’s. withdrawal from the European trade alliance and that turn had put a potential U.S.- U.K. trade accord in peril. The interview dropped while Trump was still at a gala thrown by May and he backtracked his comments the next day.
This spring, Trump said amid a meeting with Ireland’s prime minister that he was “surprised at how badly” Brexit was going.