U.S. and U.K. officials are maintaining that President Trump’s first state visit to the U.K. is still on, despite a report claiming the president expressed concerns to Prime Minister Theresa May about large scale protests against him.
“The queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the U.K. and there is no change to those plans,” a spokesman for May told Reuters on Sunday.
The trip was reportedly in danger of being postponed after Trump told May he did not want to come if there were large protests planned, The Guardian reported, citing an unnamed Downing Street adviser.
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“We aren’t going to comment on speculation about the contents of private phone conversations,” May’s spokesman said.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told The Washington Post‘s Jenna Johnson the report was “false.”
“The president has tremendous respect for Prime Minister May,” a White House spokesman told The Hill. “That subject never came up on the call.”
During May’s visit to Washington in January, Trump and May discussed a future trip, but a date has not been set.
The White House and Downing Street are presenting a united front a week after the president publicly criticized London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s response to terror attacks in central London.
Khan called on the British government to cancel the president’s visit.
“I don’t think we should roll out the red carpet to the president of the USA in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for,” Khan said in an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News.
It is a critical juncture for the U.S. relationship with Britain. May, Trump’s British counterpart, is clinging to power after the Conservative Party suffered greater electoral losses in Parliament than expected last Thursday.
Trump said during a meeting with the Romanian president Friday that he was “surprised” at the U.K. election results.
– This post was updated at 1:23 p.m.