Donald Trump did not know the UK is a nuclear power, former aide claims

The President of the United States is “stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge government”, a new book says

According to the US president’s former national security adviser, Donald Trump once revealed that he didn’t know that the UK is a nuclear power during a meeting with the former British Prime Minister Theresa May.

This particular allegation was among a series of outrageous claims about the US President made in a new book by John Bolton, who had been fired from his national security adviser role by Donald Trump in September after 17 months in the job at the White House.

The anecdote within the book, which the White House has launched legal action to block, focuses on a meeting with Theresa May back in 2018.

In the book, Mr Bolton said that a British official referred to the UK as a “nuclear power”, to which Donald Trump interjected, and said: “Oh, are you a nuclear power?”

This comes after the current British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has sparked outrage by falsely claiming that child poverty has fallen under the conservative government, despite soaring numbers with forecasts of worse to come.

John Bolton claimed that he could tell the question asked by the US president about the UK, which has maintained a nuclear arsenal for a long time, “was not intended as a joke.”

Trump has since accused Mr Bolton of breaking the law following the release of classified information within the excerpts from the book, titled “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir”.

“He broke the law. Very simple,” Donald Trump said to Fox News.

“I mean, as much as it’s going to be broken. It’s highly classified information, and he did not have approval.”

The US president also branded Mr Bolton a “wacko” on Twitter and said the book is “made up of lies and fake stories”.

“Said all good about me, in print, until the day I fired him,” he added.

“A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracised & happily dumped. What a dope!”

This comes after Boris Johnson is facing criticism for ignoring demands to condemn President Donald Trump’s response to demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality that are taking place all throughout the United States since the death of George Floyd.

The former security advisor said that because staff had served him so poorly in general, that the President “saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government”.

On the meeting with the president of China in Osaka, Japan, Mr Bolton wrote that Mr Trump told Mr Xi that the United States’ Democratic Party were hostile to the Chinese.

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Mr Bolton said.

“He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”