The Slatest

Commentator in Chief: Trump Bashes London Mayor, Political Correctness After Terrorist Attack

A woman asks a police officer to lay flowers outside The Shard in the London Bridge quarter in London on Sunday.

AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump has access to the world’s most extensive global intelligence network, but his response to the terrifying terror attacks that gripped London Saturday night made him sound more like a Fox News pundit than commander in chief. In a series of tweets Sunday morning, Trump bashed political correctness, gun control, and, most shocking of all, derided and misrepresented London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s comments after the attacks.

“We must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people. If we don’t get smart it will only get worse,” Trump wrote at the beginning of his tweetstorm.

He then took direct aim at Khan, who was elected last year as the first Muslim to lead a major Western capital.

“At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack,” wrote Trump, “and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’ ”

Trump’s tweet amounted to a direct misrepresentation of what Khan said after terror gripped the heart of Britain’s capital. In an interview with the BBC, Khan said people shouldn’t be alarmed by the increased police presence on the streets. “Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days—no reason to be alarmed,” Khan had said.

Then, as if mocking a foreign leader weren’t enough, Trump went on to try to score some domestic political points by mocking gun-control advocates by pointing out the obvious point that firearms weren’t used during Saturday night’s attacks that killed seven and injured at least 48 people. “Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!”

British politicians immediately criticized Trump’s tweets. Labour politician David Lammy, for example, called Trump’s messages “cheap, nasty, and unbecoming of a national leader.”

Khan himself though seemed to know that the best response was to simply ignore the U.S. president’s rant, because he has better things to do. A spokesman for Khan said:

The mayor is busy working with the police, emergency services and the Government to co-ordinate the response to this horrific and cowardly terrorist attack and provide leadership and reassurance to Londoners and visitors to our city.

He has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more police—including armed officers—on the streets.

Even some Republicans in the U.S. were quick to criticize Trump’s tweet. Doug Heye, a CNN commentator and former top aide to the House Republican leadership, pointed out that it was difficult to imagine another foreign leader having a similar reaction after a terrorist attack. “I can’t imagine Theresa May tweeting like this to the mayor of Orlando or San Bernadino,” Heye wrote.

Trump’s Sunday morning tweets came after he had already been criticized Saturday night for retweeting an unconfirmed report from a right-wing news site while London was still mired in chaos and confusion. Whether it was a coincidence or not, the Metropolitan Police warned against spreading unconfirmed reports shortly after the president’s tweet.

A little while later, while the situation on the ground remained unclear, Trump also took the opportunity to use the attack to promote his Muslim ban.