'I was wrong to call Trump a danger to the world,' says Lord Mandelson

29 January 2025, 15:40 | Updated: 29 January 2025, 18:10

Lord Mandelson says calling Donald Trump a "danger to the world" in 2019 was "ill-judged and wrong".

The former Labour minister has been named as the next UK ambassador to the US, although there have been questions about whether President Trump will accept him.

Speaking to Fox News, Lord Mandelson walked back his criticisms from the president's first term in office.

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The 71-year-old told the conservative-backing US TV channel: "I consider my remarks about President Trump as ill-judged and wrong.

"I think times and attitudes towards the president have changed since then.

"I think people have been impressed, not just by the extraordinary second mandate that he has received from the American people, but the dynamism and energy with which he approached not just the campaign but government as well."

Many Labour figures, including the now Foreign Secretary David Lammy, criticised Mr Trump before, during and after his first term in the White House.

Now they are in government and Mr Trump is back in power in Washington DC, language has become more diplomatic.

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Lord Mandelson told the Alain Elkann Interviews podcast previously: "What Donald Trump represents and believes is an anathema to mainstream British opinion."

He added: "Even those who have a sneaking admiration for Donald Trump because of his personality, nonetheless regard him as reckless, and a danger to the world."

The likely new ambassador criticised Mr Trump's attitude to a previous holder of that office, and said the president was "little short of a white nationalist and a racist".