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Today in Focus

Can the special relationship survive Trump’s attacks on Starmer? – The Latest

Today in Focus

The Guardian

News, Daily News

4.65.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kemi Badenoch has described Donald Trump’s criticism of Keir Starmer as ‘childish’ and said it ‘sends the wrong signal to our opponents in Iran or in Russia’. Trump repeated his previous attack on the prime minister on Tuesday, saying: ‘Unfortunately Keir is no Winston Churchill.’ Are cracks starting to appear in the US-UK special relationship? Lucy Hough speaks to our senior political correspondent Peter Walker – watch on YouTube. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:02.0

The Word's

0:12.0

The words coming from the White House are completely wrong.

0:15.0

I think it's actually quite childish.

0:17.0

To be honest, I think the both of the country would probably agree with her.

0:19.0

And there's an argument that's maybe why she felt she had to do it, because all the polling shows that amongst UK voters,

0:25.3

President Trump has never been popular. And as the months go on, he gets less and less popular.

0:29.5

The leader of the opposition has issued rare support for the Prime Minister by calling out Donald

0:34.5

Trump's repeated personal attacks on Kirstama

0:37.5

and distancing herself from Trump's war in Iran.

0:41.2

So is the special relationship damaged beyond repair?

0:44.7

From The Guardians today in focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoff.

0:50.3

I'm joined by Peter Walker, the Guardian's senior political correspondent.

0:53.7

Thanks for dialing in from Westminster, Peter.

0:56.1

Hello.

0:56.5

So it's been quite interesting hearing these comments from Kemi Bidnock, hasn't it?

1:01.6

Effectively supporting Kier Stama in the way he's having to defend himself against very personal attacks from the US President Trump, which is, you know,

1:13.0

rare, shall we say, from the leader of the opposition.

1:16.2

I mean, it's interesting.

1:17.6

And she did say that she's the prominent's biggest critic, which is probably fair to say as well.

1:21.4

I mean, actually, there's probably bigger ones in the Labour Party, but that's a different thing.

1:25.9

And it's interesting because she's still

...

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