US President Donald Trump has reopened his long-running feud with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, telling British media that he had personally asked for Khan to be left out of the state banquet during his second official visit to the United Kingdom.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on his way back to Washington, Trump described Khan as “among the worst mayors in the world,” alleging he had overseen soaring crime rates and mishandled immigration. “I asked that he not be there,” Trump said.
The president tied his demand to what he called an increase in stabbings and a rise in the city’s “dirt and filth”, arguing that London had deteriorated under Khan’s leadership.
“I have a certain pride in London and the UK. My mother was born in Scotland. And when I see Mayor Khan do a bad job, the stabbings and the dirt and the filth, it’s not the same. I didn’t want him there,” he added.
The exclusion followed sharp criticism from Khan ahead of Trump’s visit. Writing in the Guardian, the mayor accused the president of “fanning the flames of divisive, far-right politics” and warned of “a toxic form of politics spilling out onto our streets.”
On Wednesday, the London mayor renewed his attack, saying Trump had emboldened extremists and “those who seek to divide us will not win.”
The pair’s feud stretches back to 2015, when Khan condemned Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban during his first presidential campaign.
Since then, Trump has repeatedly criticised Khan, at one point calling him a “stone cold loser,” while Khan’s office famously authorised the inflatable “Trump baby” balloon during the president’s 2018 UK visit.
The president’s rhetoric was not limited to Britain. Trump turned his fire on Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, according to the Indian daily The Tribune, renewing long-running attacks over her Somali heritage.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump derided Somalia as “plagued by poverty, hunger, terrorism, piracy, decades of civil war, corruption, and pervasive violence,” before adding: “All of this, and Ilhan Omar tells us how to run America! P.S. Wasn’t she the one that married her brother in order to gain Citizenship???”
Trump doubled down when speaking to reporters on Air Force One, calling Omar “terrible” and suggesting she should be impeached. “They come from a place with nothing … and then they tell us how to run our country,” he said.
The remarks came after the House of Representatives narrowly voted down a Republican-led resolution to censure Omar over a retweeted video referencing the killing of Charlie Kirk.
The resolution failed 214–213, with four Republicans joining Democrats. Responding on social media, Omar thanked colleagues “for having my back and not furthering lies on the House floor,” praising the outcome as “finally some sanity in the House.”
