Trump calls Muslim mayor ‘terrible on terror,’ Khan reacts
After London Mayor Sadiq Khan allowed protesters fly a huge anti-Trump balloon to greet President Donald Trump in the United Kingdom’s largest city, the president blasted him for doing a “terrible” job on crime and terrorism, but London’s first Muslim mayor quickly fired back, calling Trump “preposterous.”
“I think allowing millions and millions of people to come into Europe is very, very sad,” Trump told the UK daily, The Sun, before arriving in the city. “I look at cities in Europe, and I can be specific if you’d like. You have a mayor who has done a terrible job in London. He has done a terrible job. I think he has done a bad job on crime, if you look, all of the horrible things going on there, with all of the crime that is being brought in.”
But the president was not done, saying that Khan has been soft on Islamic terrorism, which has plagued the city via numerous mass-casualty attacks for years.
“Take a look at the terrorism that is taking place,” Trump continued. “Look at what is going on in London. I think he has done a very bad job on terrorism.”
Khan strikes back
Not taking kindly to Trump’s criticism, Khan quickly shot back at the president’s words.
“Khan called the comments ‘preposterous’ on the BBC’s Today program on Friday, claiming that violent crime has risen across the country and [that] London has been forced to tackle the issue with a smaller police budget,” Fox News reported. “But crime in London persists on epidemic proportions, as [the] murder rate soared by 44 percent, with 157 homicides committed, compared to 109 the previous year, according to official statistics from the Metropolitan Police.”
After former UK Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Christopher Meyer, was violently attacked at an underground station in Central London last week, his wife, Baroness Meyer, vented her frustration with London’s lack of security.
“I’m absolutely shocked by the level of the brutality,” she told the Times of London. “They really beat him. It’s appalling – like something you would see in a war zone.”
London hitting new lows under Khan
Similar incidents have been commonplace in recent months throughout the streets of London, which have become among the most crime-infested metropolitan areas in the world.
“Earlier this year – for the first time in modern history – London overtook New York in the number of murders,” Fox News’ Lukas Mikelionis reported. “In February, London’s police investigated 15 murders, while New York saw 11 homicides, [and] in March, the Metropolitan Police murder numbers increased further to 22, while NYPD’s jumped to 21. The City of New York has since taken back the lead, however, [but] London is also facing the rise of shocking acid attacks, skyrocketing by more than 78 percent over the past two years, with 465 such offenses in 2017 – up from 260 in 2015, according to police figures obtained by the Evening Standard.”
London businessman, Mark Wright, who won the UK’s version of The Apprentice, blasted Khan for verbally battling it out with Trump when his city’s crime is reaching epidemic proportions.
“This guy spends his week getting a balloon of Donald Trump in a nappy put in the air in central London instead of helping us with severe issues,” Wright told Fox News. “I just think he’s so worried about himself, his reputation and PR rather than portraying the country – the city – in the best way [it] can be, and making it safe for the citizens.”
He said the Muslim mayor should be ashamed of himself for having the audacity to rip Trump – who has stepped up America’s war on crime and terror – when his own city is falling apart beneath his nose.
“I think he embarrassed himself – he’s embarrassed Britain – because no matter what you think of Donald Trump, it’s irrelevant,” Wright continued. “America is the most powerful country in the world – the office of president has got to be respected, no matter who that person is, and that wasn’t done, and I was very disappointed.”
Mayor to mayor
Former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who currently serves as Trump’s attorney, shared Wright’s sentiment about Khan.
“Sadiq Khan should be ashamed of himself,” Giuliani insisted to the UK’s Sunday Express. “He’s so busy attacking President Trump’s visit and, in the meantime, crime is spiraling in London. Maybe he should just do his job instead of attacking a world leader.”
Under Giuliani’s term as mayor, the crime rate dropped by more than half in New York City, with murders dropping by two-thirds – both of which were credited to his tough “zero-tolerance policing,” which is a measure that London’s mayor strongly opposed before escalating crime pushed him to reintroduce it.
“I would not like to go to a country where someone with the authority of a mayor was rallying people against them,” the former Republican mayor impressed. “It’s highly inappropriate. He’s probably suffering from some of the criticisms that President Trump has made of him, which are valid.”
Unlike crime under Giuliani’s watch, mayhem in the streets of London has skyrocketed with Khan as London’s mayor.
“Since the beginning of the year, over 50 people were fatally stabbed in the streets of the capital of Britain,” Mikelionis informed. “Just this Thursday, a 17-year-old girl was fatally stabbed in London. Nearly 1,300 stabbings occurred in London up to the end of April. Stabbings in London are at their highest level in six years, with around 21 percent rise from the previous year.”
Worst London mayor ever
Wright laments the day Khan took office, arguing that no mayor has ever done such as deplorable job in London.
“I’m a bit ashamed to be living in Britain today with how Sadiq Khan has led the city [to] carry on with Trump here,” Wright admitted, according to Fox News. “He’s the worst mayor we had in history in London. It’s easier now to get a knife or a deadly weapon than it’s to get Starbucks. You can get a knife anywhere here at the moment. He’s in no position to be throwing rocks in glass houses.”
Khan’s predecessor reportedly did a much better job fighting crime.
“In comparison, under the leadership of Boris Johnson between 2008 and 2016, the murder rate halved in the city up until 2014 – before it increased minimally during the last years of his tenure,” Mikelionis pointed out. “Stabbings also significantly decreased – albeit only since 2012 – reaching its lowest level just before Johnson left the office, according to the Metropolitan Police figures.”
Londoners complain
Khan has also received stiff criticism from those whose loved ones have fallen victim to the lawlessness on London’s streets, including the aunt of Kelva Smith, who condemned the city’s leadership after her family member was fatally stabbed in the abdomen in March.
“[Knife crime in London] is out of control,” she told BBC.
Another Londoner ripped Khan for London’s proliferating crime, while mentioning how one stabbing victim was attacked near the front of a closed police station in the city.
“[It] happened outside that police station that is closed down – my local police station,” the concerned London mother told Khan during an open forum last month, according to Fox News. “There are no [police officers] on our street. Londoners, we don’t feel safe. Our communities do not feel safe.”
She demanded that Khan takes action steps to solve the crime problem – instead of providing excuses and embellished numbers to justify and discount London’s crime.
“You give me statistics, Mr. Khan, and that’s fair enough, but for me as a parent, I’m telling you, we do not feel safe,” she continued. “We don’t feel safe in London. Please don’t give me statistics. Give me known facts so I can let my son out in the streets of London and feel safe.”
But Khan refused to take responsibility for London’s crime problems.
“Khan dismissed the criticism of the woman, saying the police force in London is ‘under-resourced’ to ensure safety,” Mikelionis. “The mayor has also bemoaned Trump’s visit just a day before on financial grounds, saying the city lacks the financial resources to provide safety during the visit – even though Trump is spending the majority of his time away from the capital. This is all while Khan encouraged millions of Londoners to march against the president, adding additional strain to his ‘under-resourced’ police force.”
Metropolitan Police Federation Chairman Ken Marsh said that London’s security costs for Trump’s visit is likely to be in the tens of millions of dollars, according to the Evening Standard.
This is just a fraction of what it cost when Barack Obama was in London during his presidency.
“The state visit of President Barack Obama – thanks to nearly non-existent protests – cost just over $3 million, with only half of that sum actually spent on ensuring safety during the visit,” Mikelionis stressed.
Wright then asserted that Khan is as clueless about the city’s finances as he is about handling its crime.
“That just sums him up,” Wright comment to Fox News about London’s police expenditure that could have been much less if Khan discouraged – instead of encouraged – Trump protests. “I don’t think he’s got any business knowledge. He doesn’t think for the people. I don’t see him as a caring, forward-thinking individual. He’s very self-obsessed, and that’s the qualities he called out in Trump, but I think he’s only generalizing himself.”
But London’s rising crime does not appear to hurt Khan’s likelihood of being reelected in a couple years.
“Despite the overwhelming problems in the city, Khan is favorite to win the second term in 2020 – mostly because no senior Conservative party leaders appears willing to step up and challenge him,” Mikelionis pointed out. “Yet Khan must be aware of his slipping popularity. Only half of Londoners believe he’s a good mayor, according to a YouGov poll in May – a decrease by almost 10 percent compared to last year – while almost a third of residents think he’s doing a bad job.”
But Wright hopes that Londoners will take the city’s decadence seriously so that London does not have a dismal future laden with crime for years to come.
“I think he should be sacked,” Wright concluded. “I think he’s a disgrace for mayor. If I don’t do my job properly, I lose my job. He’s not doing his job properly. He’s disrespecting the most powerful office in the world, and he’s only doing it only to gain himself politically.”
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