Two senior administration officials told New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush on Sunday that President Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom is currently off the president’s schedule.
That report follows a story in The Guardian that said Trump’s U.K. trip had been put “on hold” after he told British Prime Minister Theresa May he was worried about being met with mass street protests.
The conversation between the two leaders took place in recent weeks and was heard by “a Downing Street adviser who was in the room,” according to The Guardian.
The White House denied The Guardian report on Sunday.
“The President has tremendous respect for Prime Minister May. That subject never came up on the call,” a White House spokesperson said.
A spokesman for May said Sunday, “The Queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the UK and there is no change to those plans.”
The reported scheduling change comes just days after London Mayor Sadiq Khan reiterated last week that his country should not host a state visit in Trump’s honor.
“I don’t think we should be rolling out the red carpet to the president of the USA in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for,” said Khan, who is London’s first Muslim mayor.
The president slammed Khan over his handling of the June 3 terror attack in London. Khan shot back, saying Trump had “deliberately” taken his assurances to Londoners “out of context.”
May sparked criticism earlier this year when she announced that Trump had been invited to visit the U.K. with full state honors. This week’s snap election in Britain, however, “threw the process into further doubt and Trump will be even more uncertain about a trip given the instability of May’s prospective minority government,” according to HuffPost UK.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn welcomed reports of the visit’s “cancellation” on Sunday.
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