Boris Johnson lashes out at ‘sloppy’ Emily Maitlis in fiery Donald Trump debate | Politics | News

Former Prime Minister and ‘friend’ of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson slammed veteren journalist Emily Maitlis this evening as the pair locked horns over the formers relationship with the former president. He said that her line of questionning relating him to Donald Trump was “sloppy” and “dangerous”.

It all kicked off when Emily probed former adult star Stormy Daniels over her experience with the Apprentice star and potential threats she had faced after speaking out over her time with Trump.

She said: “Stormy you wore a stab vest in court when you had to testify didn’t you? Where you protected?”

Stormy replied: “Oh a bullet proof vest? I get all kinds of crazy threats all the time but sometimes one will stand out more than the others and it’s not always the most violent or graphic one.”

As she was talking, Emily noticed that Boris seemed to be shaking his head. Saying: “Mr Johnson you’re kind of shaking your head, but this is coming from a man you’ve described as a friend.”

“No not at all, I wasn’t shaking my head at all,” he retorted.

Correcting herself, Emily added: “No you’re shaking your head in what I’m assuming is sorrow, in sympathy, and it’s all very well directing him in foreign policy and telling him how he can sort out Ukraine, this is the man that people like Stormy Daniels are dealing with.”

Mr Johnson was keen to express his sympathy and belief for Stormy’s story, he said: “Let me first say that I think anyone watching this will have immense sympathy for Stormy.

“Everything that you feel and have been going through. Nobody should be threatened or feel threatened as part of the democratic process.

“And I’m afraid I don’t know the ins and outs of much of what’s happened. What I can say, the area in which I can speak with authority is about the foreign policy relationship.”

Not satiated by Boris’s answer the pair continued speaking over each other.

Emily said: “We’re gonna put foreign policy aside and talk about character. There’s no reason why you wouldn’t know Stormy Daniels story because it’s been absolutely public for years.

“She’s described the character of the man and how his fans react to somebody like her.”

But Boris refused to back down.

“And I understand that, but you see the job in the UK of the Prime Minister is to have a good close relationship, friendship with whoever is in the White House and it has to be operational and it did work,” he said.

Stormy jumped in, asking Boris, 60, if he would want the females close to him alone with Mr Trump.

She asked: “So if you’re the Prime Minister and you and Donald Trump got into a disagreement as people do with Donald Trump whether you’re right or wrong. Would you have any fear for the ladies in your life? How do you feel about doxxing?”

Boris replied: “Nothing like that came up.”

“You wouldn’t be worried that that would happen to your daughters or sisters?” Stormy pressed.

But Boris stood fast. He explained: “When you’re talking to the US President, the relationship you have as the Prime Minister, is one of great formality and importance and of course you develop a friendship but actually and I can say this with all sincerity, in my time with him I never was treated with anything other than complete courteous and friendliness. Now you had a very different experience but I can only talk about my experience.”

Emily jumped back in asking: “But the question for a lot of our viewers tonight will be whether, you essentially started importing some of that Trump like behaviour into Britain when you were Prime Minister. His disregard for institutions, his disregard for the rule of law, his denialism, which I think was mirrored in your response to the privaleges commity, your response to the Parliamentary standards commity, your peroging of Parliament, this is all Trump like behaviour.”

“Well there I obviously disagree profoundly as I detail in the book Unleashed,” Boris replied with a scoff.

But Emily did not respond well to his jokey attempt to push his new book. Saying: “I don’t know why it’s funny, because I’ve just asked you what he’s like as a character.”

It was here that Boris said that he found the line of questionning “sloppy” and “dangerous”.

He said sternly: “Well no because I don’t accept your analogy at all and I think it’s very sloppy and dangerous to make analogies between the US and the UK in that kind of way.”

Lead presenter at Channel 4, Krishnan Guru-Mury, 54, jumped in asking: “You didn’t model yourself on him at all?”

Boris skirted over his question, adding: “And I think people compare Brexit with the advent of Donald Trump. Brexit was actually supported by people across the political spectrum.”

“You’re not answering the question. Just go back to the question.” Responded Emily, 54.

Boris said: “I’m answering the question directly. I believe in my administration we had complete respect for institutions. We had respect for the decision of the British people to leave the European Union. And unlike many people in the UK establishment who wanted to thwart that,we were determined to go ahead and deliver it. As we promised.”

“But you didn’t respect the Parlimentary Commitee and misled the Privaleges Committee. That’s not respect.” Said Krishnan.

Boris replied: “17.4 million people voted for us to deliver it and we did.”

Emily shot back in the eternal tennis match of wills: “I don’t know why you’re talking about Brexit because you know exactly what we’re talking about.”

To which Boris hit back: “Because you’re talking about an analogy which I reject between the US and the UK.”

Emily continued: “No, we’re talking about the Owen Patterson affair where he was found to have broken standards law by I think it was Kathleen Stone and you rejected that and then you rejected that. You quoted people saying it’s a Kangaroo court.”

“If you read unleashed you will see I put my hands up to that I think we made a mistake we took the wrong [sic] and then we then corrected it.” He replied.

“But my strong belief when you talk about partygate, when you talk about what happened in the covid pandemic. I happen to think the UK government did an outstanding job.”

But Emily reaffirmed that the discussion was “nothing to do with that” and was about how Boris responded to institution” she said that it was “people calling out your [Boris’s] lies that’s what this is about.”

Boris bounced back saying that he “rejected that”. “Here you all are,” he said,”Here’s Channel 4 News run by Ian Katz sitting here doing the same old stunt that you tried in 2004 where you’re taking a massively asked approach to a US election.”

“I’m asking you to account for your actions.” Emily said.

Boris pointed out that he was “not standing for election here”.

Bringing the conversation back around to Donald’s character Stormy asked the Conservative: “Do you have children? Would you leave your daughter alone with Donald Trump?”

“Well I don’t see why not.” He replied.

Krishnan said: “So you would?”

“Yes I would. My experience with Donald Trump, I hear what you’re saying, maybe I’m wrong, but he has been courteous, he has been polite.” He replied.

Emily was not happy with this reponse, saying: “He denied an election that he lost. What does it matter if he’s courteous if he can’t accept the results of American democracy and the American voter?”

Boris reiterated that he had previously said that that was a “terrible thing to do”. He then took a stance against Krishnan for saying that the British former polictian “on some level” modelled himself on Donald Trump. He told the presenter that that was “nonsense”.

Krishnan replied: “He called you British Trump, you must be looking at him and thinking, if he can come back given everything he’s done, then so can you because nothing you’ve done is quite as bad as him.”

The debate came to an end as Boris said that he was no pushover to Trump and that what Krishnan has said was “complete and utter tripe”.

“There was a time where he said something rather rude about safety in London and I was mayor of London for eight years and I took exception to that and I said that the only reason I wouldn’t visit parts of New York is the risk of meeting Donald Trump and this was seven or eight years ago, what you’ve just said Krishnan is complete and utter tripe.” He said.

“I haven’t modelled myself on anybody, I speak as a I find and what I am saying to you tonight is this thing could go either way and what matters above all is that the United States is strong and if Kamala gets it then I hope to gods sake that she does not sell out the Ukrainians and I hope that Donald Trump doesn’t either.

“And I have reason based off what I saw to think that he won’t.”