Trump Thread

[Montmorency]

I don't know about the US but in the UK "nonce" is the same as paedophile.

Why Idaho wanted to bring that up I don't know.

In other news, looks like Trump will be good for the UK.

Returning the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office is a significant step, as much as Obama removing it and replacing it with one of Martin Luthor King was. The fact that he wants to play "Ronnie" to May's "Maggie" is also likely to benefit us.

Not that I expect him to ever put himself out for us, the "Special Relationship" has always been one-sided in that respect.

Not exactly?

There was a lot of commentary on Friday that President Trump had returned a bust of Sir Winston Churchill to the Oval Office. President Obama had famously removed it. But some news reports have got the issue mixed up.

Few people seem to understand that there are actually two busts, by the same artist. The bust that Obama had returned to the British government is not the same bust that Trump now has in the Oval Office, as Trump hinted at in his remarks to the CIA.

There are two busts of Churchill, virtually identical, which for the sake of simplicity we will call Bust A and Bust B.

Bust A was made by the English sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein. It was given to President Lyndon B. Johnson on Oct. 6, 1965. (Here’s Lady Bird Johnson’s diary entry about the gift, which was facilitated by Churchill’s wartime friends, including W. Averell Harriman.) So that bust has been in the White House for more than five decades.

Bust B also was made by Epstein. It was provided in July 2001 by then Prime Minister Tony Blair, via the British ambassador, as a loan to President George W. Bush because Bust A was being repaired. Bush said he would keep it in the Oval Office, and various news reports at the time said the bust would be returned once Bush left office.

According to a 2010 interview with White House curator William Allman, the decision to return the bust had been made even before Obama arrived, as the loan was scheduled to last only as long as Bush’s presidency. That narrative was confirmed by British ambassador Sir Peter Westmacott just before stepped down in 2015: “To be honest, we always expected that to leave the Oval Office just like everything else that a president has tends to be changed,” he told The Guardian newspaper. “Even the carpet is usually changed when the president changes.”

Bust B was shipped back to the library of the British ambassador’s residence.

But for your pleasure:

“The prime minister has agreed to loan the Churchill bust [Bust B] at the request of the Trump team,” a British Embassy spokesman said. “We are working out the details on the return.” It should not be a long trip: Bust B is still in the ambassador’s residence, which is next to the vice president’s residence on Massachusetts Avenue.

Note: Trump has indicated that the British made the request first. “The prime minister is coming over to our country very shortly, and they wanted to know whether I’d like it back,” he said. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’ ”

At least he is doing what he said he would do.

You knew I was a snake!