Washington ambassador who called Trump inept doubles down

A former British ambassador to the United States who resigned after his blunt assessment of Donald Trump’s administration was leaked has said recent events proved him right.

Lord Darroch

Lord Darroch, who stepped down in 2019, faced intense pressure after confidential cables describing Trump’s government as “dysfunctional,” “inept” and “divided” were published by the media. At the time, Trump hit back, branding him “a very stupid guy,” sparking a diplomatic rift that ended Darroch’s tenure in Washington.

Trump criticism

Appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe, the veteran diplomat reflected on the controversy, telling Iain Dale’s All Talk show that history had validated his judgment. “If you’re going to crash and burn on the basis of one piece of reporting that you’ve done, leaking, please God, make it a piece of reporting where all the predictions are right,” he said. “I would say, if you read back that letter that was leaked, that was written after six months of Donald Trump and had a number of predictions about how the rest of his term would run, then you’d struggle to find anything that didn’t turn out the way I had predicted it. So if that’s the way to go out, it’s better than the opposite.”

Darroch’s exit

Darroch said the uproar accelerated his exit but noted that he had already been planning retirement. “I was six months off finishing anyway, and I had had an extraordinary, lucky career,” he explained. The former national security adviser had previously defended his approach in a 2020 interview with BBC Newsnight, saying he had no regrets about his language. “I never regret the terms in which I’d reported,” he said. “I spent 40 years in the Foreign Office writing in these terms, and people hitherto had thought it a strength and an asset. There is nothing unusual in reporting in clear and direct terms.”

Trump’s political skill

At the Fringe event, Darroch also acknowledged Trump’s political skill, describing him as “one of most lethal politicians in modern era.” He explained that his frank reporting style had been encouraged by former prime minister David Cameron, who appointed him to the role in 2016. He recalled the former prime minister saying, “I’m fed up of reading all these letters to ambassadors which say, on the one hand, on the other hand, which are written in code. What you have to do is tell it like it is. Be clear and call out what you’re seeing.” Added Darroch, “That letter, which was trying to give an accurate summary of how Trump’s first six months had gone, was in part a response to Cameron saying, ‘Tell it like it is. Don’t write in code.’”

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