ANDY Burnham has revealed how he plans to deal with Donald Trump after the US president branded him “extremely liberal”.
The special relationship has been shaky in the final months of ‘s tenure, with the two leaders locking horns over the Iran war.
Andy Burnham has revealed he plans to be ‘upfront’ with Donald Trump Credit: AFP
The US president has branded the PM-to-be ‘extremely liberal’ Credit: AP
But the former Greater Manchester mayor appeared optimistic about being able to handle Trump.
Speaking on ‘s podcast, Burnham said: “I’ll just meet him where he’s at.
“I like to think I’ve got some personality myself and I’ll deal with him very upfront in the same way. I think he likes people to deal with him.”
Burnham said that as “a mayor of a town” may have ruffled some feathers.
“He described Manchester as some town when he was referring to my position,” he said.
“You know what Mancs are like, Gary, that won’t have gone down fantastically well in the city I used to represent.”
He added: “But it’s about being yourself, isn’t it? It’s about respecting the office, the UK-US relationship.
“But where you disagree, do it in a way that is kind of meeting him where he’s at.”
It comes several weeks after .
After referring to him as “extremely liberal”, the president urged Burnham to follow a different policy to Starmer.
Trump suggested the former Manchester mayor should start taking from the North Sea if he becomes the next Labour leader.
He then slammed once again over Britain’s response to the Iran war.
Trump’s comments followed a series of swipes at Sir Keir over his refusal to open up the North Sea and his decision to instead greenlight more wind turbines.
He has blasted the outgoing PM on several occasions over the last two years, at one point calling him “no Churchill” for his inaction in the Middle East.
Asked about what he thought of Mr Burnham, the US leader said he thought the frontrunner for No10 was very left-wing and progressive.
Mr Trump said: “I don’t know, I think I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town.
“I hear he’s extremely liberal, extremely, so that means he probably won’t open up the North Sea.”
He added: “I gave Keir Starmer some pretty good advice. I said, open up the North Sea, go to Aberdeen, which was the hottest city of the whole continent.
“It was the oil city of Europe, and they closed everything. It was terrible. I couldn’t believe it.”
“The North Sea is loaded, I have had every oil company come to see me ‘Sir, could you give us access to the UK? We would do anything to drill in the North Sea’.
“The amazing thing is, they buy their oil from Norway, which gets the oil from the North Sea. Think of it, and they pay a big premium.
“Norway’s got now two trillion dollars in the bank, and the UK is dying, so they should open up the North Sea, and it’s an easy one, and a lot of good things are going to happen.
“It’s among the greatest deals in the world.”
Tory leader warned that Britain was heading for a “summer of chaos” with Labour “obsessing about who they can tax to pay for more benefits” following Burnham’s interview.
“Andy Burnham isn’t even prime minister yet but he’s already talking about raising your taxes AGAIN,” she wrote on social media.
“We are heading for another summer of chaos with Labour obsessing about who they can tax to pay for more .
“It doesn’t matter who is in charge, the problem is the .”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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