Donald Trump apologises to Theresa May for intemperate comments

Donald Trump today apologised to Theresa May for appearing to slam her in a newspaper interview.

The US President insisted he did not criticise the UK Prime Minister in a sharp-tongued interview with today’s Sun – insisting the quotes were shown out of context.

The Sun has issued a recording of Mr Trump criticising the PM.

But in a rare show of contrition Mr Trump said he apologised anyway despite insisting the Sun report was ‘fake news’.

At the joint press conference today, Mr Trump said: ‘She’s a total professional because when I saw her this morning I said, ”I want to apologise because I said such good things about you”.

‘She said, ”Don’t worry, it’s only the press”. I thought that was very professional.’

As Mrs May said something to him, over laughter from reporters, he added: ‘Don’t worry, they have been doing it to me and I do it to them.’

Mr Trump’s visit to the UK has so far been dominated by the bombshell newspaper interview, which also saw the US president claim recently resigned foreign secretary Boris Johnson – who has consistently agitated against Mrs May – would make a “great prime minister”.

In addition, Mr Trump claimed he would be negotiating Brexit “much differently” and declared Mrs May “didn’t listen to me”.

But following talks with the prime minister at her Chequers country retreat, the US president backtracked on his claim Mrs May’s Brexit blueprint will “kill” hopes of any future US-UK trade deal and hailed US-UK ties as the “highest level of special”.

Addressing the row at a joint news conference with Mrs May on Friday, Mr Trump claimed he “didn’t criticise” Mrs May and has a “lot of respect” for her.

Mr Trump repeated his call for the UK to retain the ability to sign new trade agreements once it leaves the EU, but signalled he had received assurances from Mrs May this would be the case.

The president also heaped praise on the prime minister and, although he described a write-up of his interview with The Sun as “generally fine”, he hit out at “fake news” for neglecting to include positive comments he made about Mrs May