Post-Brexit trade deal with US at risk if Donald Trump isn’t invited to Royal wedding, says Fire and Fury author

Theresa May and Donald Trump hold hands during her visit to the White House last year
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Patrick Grafton-Green7 January 2018

Donald Trump could reject a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK if he is not invited to the Royal wedding, the author of Fire and Fury has warned.

Michael Wolff, whose explosive book on the Trump administration was an instant bestseller, said the president would only honour the special relationship if Britain "gives him what he wants".

In his interview with the Mail on Sunday, the US journalist, 64, said that Mr Trump "doesn’t like being snubbed and wants to be the centre of attention all the time".

He said his foreign policy was "simple": "You Brits suck up to him and enlist in whatever geopolitical fantasy he has going, he'll give you what you want - though only if it doesn't hurt him. It is not so much vengeance, rather 'you flatter me and I'll flatter you'."

He added: "If the Brits give him what he wants he will value the Brits."

Mr Wolff's book is the number one best seller online in the US 
Getty Images

It is already thought that Mr Trump is unlikely to get an invite to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May next year.

The author also suggested the president may "try to Trumpalise the Queen and Buckingham Palace" on any future State Visit to Britain, and that he saw the Queen "in reality TV show terms".

In the interview Mr Wolff addressed the provocative accusations made in the controversial new book, including claims about the US president's mental state.

Describing Mr Trump as a "rich wastrel" who was "bad at school", Mr Wolff said some White House officials wondered whether the president had learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), or even the early stages of dementia.

He told the paper: "They discuss it at the White House: his apparent inability to read one page or one paragraph. He can't even follow a PowerPoint.

"Everyone around him says the symptoms have got worse in the year he has been in office - his attention span has lessened, his verbal patterns are more peculiar."

His comments come after the president unleashed a tirade against his critics on Twitter, dismissing allegations he is unfit to be president and proclaiming himself to be a "very stable genius".

In his latest online onslaught, Mr Trump accused his critics of trying to make an issue of his "mental stability and intelligence".

"Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence," he wrote.

"Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames.

"I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!"

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has continued to dismiss many of the claims which have gripped the American public.

Speaking on US television on Friday, she said that Mr Wolff had never interviewed Mr Trump despite having "repeatedly begged to see the president", describing him as "a guy who made up a lot of stories to try and sell books".

Mr Wolff, however, insisted that he "absolutely" spoke to the president, adding whether he "realised it was an interview or not, I don't know, but it was certainly not off the record".

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