LONDON (AP) — President Donald Trump has viewed a joint military exercise along with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
Trump’s visit to the military academy on Friday morning was closed to the media. The military demonstration involving American and British officers came after Trump criticized May’s Brexit plans in an interview published by The Sun newspaper late Thursday night.
Trump and May later traveled to Chequers, the prime minister’s country retreat. Trump told reporters briefly that he and May worked together on NATO spending and spoke Thursday night.
The two leaders will hold one-on-one talks, a working lunch and a joint news conference at May’s house, which is 40 miles (65 kms) from London.
The meetings are expected to be unusually tense after Trump trashed May’s Brexit plans in a diplomacy-wrecking interview with The Sun newspaper that published late Thursday night.
The president will also be paying a visit to Windsor Castle where he and first lady Melania Trump will have tea with Queen Elizabeth II.
Large anti-Trump protests are expected to follow Trump throughout the day.
Mrs. Trump is visiting the Royal Hospital Chelsea, a historic London retirement home for hundreds of former British soldiers.
Mrs. Trump split off from her husband Friday morning for the solo outing to the hospital, which dates from over 300 years ago to the reign of King Charles II.
The first lady was hosted by May’s husband, Philip May.
She will meet local schoolchildren and mingle with the hospital’s resident veterans, known as Chelsea Pensioners.
Her trip to Europe marked the former model’s return to the international stage after she was hospitalized for a kidney condition in May and dropped out of public sight for nearly a month.
Live reporting
Another side note: I don’t know how these dignitaries manage to stand around at these ceremonies and not look ridiculous–it must take a huge amount of poise and acting ability to look natural doing it–but whatever the trick, Trump doesn’t know it. More and more he looks absurd just standing in place, bored and sulky, uncomfortable in his own skin, animatronically unnatural. It’s poisonously off-putting just to look at him. I suspect he thinks he’s being very dignified, but it comes off as unconscious parody.
Doesn’t look like anybody is happy in that headline picture… it’s like “can we just get this over with”
I would think the Brits would just get fed up and cancel meetings and send Trump on his way.
I suspect Theresa May has that expression on her face because she is trying to keep a stiff upper lip and not throttle Dipstick.
Remember when POTUS was greeted like this: