White House slams Keir Starmer for one thing Donald Trump did a day earlier
Donald Trump has been accused of hypocrisy after the White House accused Keir Starmer of ‘putting lives at risk’ over the kick off time of England’s last World Cup match
Trump overruled weather warnings so his speech could go ahea(Image: GEORGI LICOVSKI/EPA/Shutterstock)
Donald Trump has been accused of hypocrisy after the White House accused Keir Starmer of ‘putting lives at risk’ over the kick off time of England’s last World Cup match.
Just 24 hours earlier, Trump himself overruled the same weather warnings to get people to watch his Fourth of July speech.
There had been calls to change the time of the match against Mexico on Sunday due to a thunderstorm, which could have seen the match cancelled if lightning had struck nearby. In the end the game kicked off an hour late because of the storm.
Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York Mayor Rudy, who leads the White House task force on the World Cup, was asked on TalkSport about allegations that Trump pressured FIFA to overturn Team USA striker Folarin Balogun’s ban before their pummelling against Belgium.
“I would go and point to something I think is a much graver decision that was made just a couple days ago,” Giuliani said. “Keir Starmer’s intervention through diplomatic channels of not allowing the Mexico-England match time to be moved.”
He said that following an earlier match, three Mexicans had died during the celebrations – though this was from asphyxiation during the celebrations and nothing to do with the weather.
And just a day earlier, Trump himself said he had overruled a decision to cancel his Fourth of July speech on the National Mall in Washington DC.
“The Crowd at 7:05 in the evening was 422,000 people,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“All were forced to leave because of the weather, the event was cancelled, and everyone was gone because of lightning. When I heard that it was cancelled, I immediately overturned that decision, and waited a while for people to come back.”
Anna Sabine, the Lib Dem culture spokesperson said: “The White House must be suffering from a severe case of short-term memory loss. They are having a melt down over Keir Starmer intervening about a football match, completely ignoring that Donald Trump did the exact same thing 24 hours earlier to protect his Fourth of July firework display. What utter hypocrisy!”
Lightning strikes were seen in the sky during the 35-minute firework display, but no casualties were reported during the event. However, twelve people were taken to hospital due to high temperatures during the record-breaking heatwave that hit the US capital that day.
