US President Donald Trump has reignited a war of words with Sir Sadiq Khan, accusing him of being a ‘horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor’.
During an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns, Trump accused Sir Sadiq of ‘doing a terrible job’ and claimed that he only got elected because ‘so many people have come in’.
This is not the first time the US President has publicly lambasted the London Mayor, who he called ‘terrible’ during his statement to the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
There, Trump claimed that London wanted ‘to go to Sharia law’ in comments Sir Keir Starmer branded as ‘ridiculous nonsense’.
‘If you take a look at London, you have a mayor named Khan. He’s a horrible mayor,’ Trump said in his latest diatribe against Sir Sadiq at the White House on December 8.
‘He’s an incompetent mayor, but he’s a horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor.’
‘I think he’s done a terrible job. London’s a different place. I love London,’ the US President said, adding: ‘And I hate to see it happen. My roots are in Europe, as you know.’
Trump’s made the comments after the White House published its bombshell new National Security Strategy (NSS), which predicted that European nations are under the threat of ‘civilisational erasure’ and will be ‘unrecognisable’ in the next 20 years due to mass migration.
US President Donald Trump has reignited a war of words with Sir Sadiq Khan after he accused him of being a ‘horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor’
During an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns, Trump accused Sir Sadiq of ‘doing a terrible job’ and claimed that London had become ‘a difference place’ under his leadership
Sir Sadiq Khan has previously accused Trump of being ‘racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic’
Trump called the London Mayor a ‘disaster’ and implied he was only elected as a result of the mass migration he said was happening in Europe.
‘He’s got a totally different ideology of what he’s supposed to have. And he gets elected because so many people have come in. They vote for him now,’ he said.
The US President continued: ‘I hate what’s happened to London, and I hate what’s happened to Paris. I hate when I see it.’
In September, Sir Sadiq accused Trump of being ‘racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic’ after the Trump suggested Sharia law would be brought into London under his watch.
In July, during a press conference in Scotland with Sir Keir, Trump called the London Mayor ‘a nasty person’ who has ‘done a terrible job’, before the Prime Minister awkwardly intervened, saying: ‘He’s a friend of mine, actually.’
‘This is one of the great places in the world, and they’re allowing people just to come in unchecked [and] unvetted,’ Trump said about London during his latest interview on December 8.
He cited Paris as another example of a European capital that he said was in a period of decline.
‘If you take a look at Paris, it’s a much different place. I loved Paris. It’s a much different place than it was,’ the US President said.
He claimed that immigrants were being let in to Europe ‘from all parts of the world’.
‘Not just the Middle East, they’re coming in from the Congo… And even worse, they’re coming from prisons of the Congo and many other countries.
‘And for some reason, they want to be politically correct, which actually, I think is the opposite of politically correct.
‘But they want to be politically correct, and they don’t want to send them back to where they came from,’ Trump said.
He warned that if Europe keeps going down the same path, ‘many of those countries will not be viable countries any longer’.
‘Their immigration policy is a disaster,’ he added.
Migrants from Eritrea, Libya and Sudan crowd the deck of a wooden boat as they wait to be assisted by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, in the Mediterranean sea, about 30 miles north of Libya, Saturday, June 17, 2023
Migrants, attempting to cross the Mediterranean sea, react as they are rescued by the Greek Coast Guard, off the south coast of Crete island, on November 18, 2025
Trump compared what he claimed were immigration failures in the EU to the successes of his own administration.
‘We had a disaster coming, but I was able to stop it. We have no people coming through our borders now, zero,’ he claimed.
‘We went from millions of people – in some cases, millions of people a month – but millions of people to no people.’
Net migration for 2025 in the US is likely to end up somewhere between a net loss of 525,000 and a modest gain of 115,000, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
Half a million illegal immigrants have been deported, while another million and a half have left of their own accord, according to figures quoted by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary.
The US President dramatically called into question the future of America’s close relationship with the EU, due to the fact that the continent’s nations had become ‘weaker’.
‘They’ll change their ideology, obviously, because the people coming in have a totally different ideology. It’s going to make them much weaker,’ Trump said.
When asked if this means the countries will no longer be perceived as US allies, Trump said: ‘Well, it depends.’
He criticised Europe’s handling of the war in Ukraine, echoing the sentiment of the scathing NSS report which accused the continent of blocking the peace process to end the near four-year conflict.
‘Europe is not doing a good job in many ways,’ he said. ‘They talk too much and they’re not producing.’
‘We’re talking about Ukraine. They talk but they don’t produce. And the war just keeps going on and on,’ he added.
In contrast to the weakness he attributed to Europe, Trump emphasised America’s strength on the world stage. ‘NATO calls me daddy,’ he said.
Donald Trump lashed out at Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky for ‘not reading’ the latest White House-backed proposal to secure a ceasefire
(L-R) Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron speak to each other as they depart from 10 Downing Street, London, Britain, December 8, 2025
The Trump administration sent shockwaves through Brussels after it published an unprecedented critique of the continent, accusing nations of undermining ‘political liberty and sovereignty’ due to policies of censorship and mass migration.
In the 33-page NSS, the White House committed to ‘cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations’ and called for the immediate restoration of ‘Western identity’.
‘It is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,’ the security document said.
The report noted that the continent is in economic decline but its ‘real problems are even deeper’, including ‘activities of the EU that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition’.
Such policies result in the ‘loss of national identities’, the document said.
Economic decline in Europe is ‘eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure‘, it ultimately warned.
The paper praised the influence of ‘patriotic European parties’, however, and said ‘America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit’.
Dutch politician Geert Wilders, the head of the hard-Right Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, welcomed the astonishing report: ‘President @realDonaldTrump @POTUS speaks the truth,’ he wrote on X.
‘Europe is changing rapidly into a medieval continent thanks to open borders and mass immigration.
‘Indeed, an erasure of our culture if we don’t act soon and close our borders for illegal aliens!’
Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, one of Trump’s top supporters in Europe, criticised the EU’s support for Ukraine while praising the American and Russian presidents’ negotiations to end the war.
‘Those who have power, act; those who don’t only speak,’ Orban told Kossuth Radio.
‘This is why strong players like Russia and the United States negotiate and make deals, while weak Europe is left out of shaping its own future and chooses to talk instead.’
The US President showered compliments on the hard-right leader in the December 8 interview, saying ‘he’s doing a very good job in a different sense on immigration’.
‘Poland has done a very good job in that respect, too,’ Trump said.
‘But most European nations, they’re decaying,’ he added.
When the interviewer suggested that European countries might be feeling ‘freaked out’ because of Trump’s distancing from the bloc, Trump said: ‘No, they should be freaked out by what they’re doing to their countries.’
‘They’re destroying their countries,’ he said.
Sir Keir Starmer stepped in to defend his ‘friend’ Sir Sadiq Khan after Donald Trump branded the London mayor a ‘nasty person’ in July 2025
President Volodymyr Zelensky met British, French and German leaders in London on Monday in a show of European support for Ukraine at what they called a ‘critical moment’ in the US-led effort to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The high-level talks followed fiery comment from Trump, who accused the Ukrainian leader of dragging his feet over the peace deal.
‘I have to say that I am a little bit disappointed that President Zelensky hasn’t yet read the proposal,’ the US leader said to reporters in Washington at the Kennedy Centre on Sunday night.
‘Russia is, I believe, fine with it. But I’m not sure that Zelensky is fine with it. His people love it. But he hasn’t read it,’ Trump said.
During the POLITICO interview, the US President issued a blunt directive to the Ukrainian leader, who announced plans to submit a revised peace proposal Tuesday with ‘obvious anti-Ukraine points’ eliminated.
‘He’s going to have to get on the ball and start accepting things.’
Trump last month ratcheted pressure on Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin as he unveiled a 28-point peace plan, modeled on his landmark Gaza deal.
However, the plan faces significant hurdles, particularly concerning Kyiv’s potential territorial concessions to the Kremlin and measures to protect against future military action from Moscow.
When pressed on whether Ukraine or Russia holds greater leverage at the negotiating table, Trump was unequivocal: ‘There can be no doubt about that. It’s Russia. It’s a much bigger country.’
Zelensky said the current US peace plan differs from earlier versions in that it now has 20 points, down from 28, after some of Ukraine’s longstanding red lines were removed.
On security guarantees, he said the main questions to be resolved are: ‘What if after the end of the war, Russia will start another aggression? What will the partners be ready for? What could Ukraine count on?’
The answers to these questions ‘must be in the core of the security guarantees for Ukraine,’ he said.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (L) welcomes President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy outside 10 Downing Street ahead of their meeting in London, United Kingdom on December 8, 2025
The leaders of Britain, Ukraine, France and Germany met to discuss ongoing talks between the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia on proposed peace plan and security guarantees
The contentious NSS report echoed Trump’s previous comments at the UN when he said European countries were ‘going to hell’ because of unchecked immigration.
In a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York in September, he said: ‘You’re destroying your countries. They’re being destroyed. Europe is in serious trouble.
‘They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe.’
It also recalled some of the language used in a speech by Vice President JD Vance in Munich in February, where he said the greatest threat facing the continent was not from Russia and China, but ‘from within’.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the document, which spells out the administration’s core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
‘The nuances that we see in the new concept certainly look appealing to us,’ he said Monday.
‘It mentions the need for dialogue and building constructive, friendly relations. This cannot but appeal to us, and it absolutely corresponds to our vision.
‘We understand that by eliminating the irritants that currently exist in bilateral relations, a prospect may open for us to truly restore our relations and bring them out of the rather deep crisis.’
In an outcome no-doubt favourable to Vladimir Putin, the report has stoked tense divisions within the continent, with centrist politicians blasting the strategy while populist parties rush to defend it.
‘For the first time since the end of the Second World War, the USA is no longer standing by the Europeans,’ said Norbert Röttgen, a member of the German Bundestag.
‘If this strategy were to succeed, the EU would no longer exist,’ he told the Editorial Network Germany.
‘What we cannot accept is the threat to interfere in European politics,’ European Council President António Costa told a conference in Brussels.
‘The United States cannot replace Europe in what its vision is of freedom of expression,’ he said.
In a social media post addressed to his ‘American friends’, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote: ‘Europe is your closest ally, not your problem’ and noted their ‘common enemies’.
Reacting to the security document, German foreign minister Johann Wadephul said Europe did ‘not need outside advice’, while former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt wrote that the report ‘places itself to the right of the extreme right’.
Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Wadephul said that the US was still Germany’s most important ally in NATO but that ‘questions like freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and how we organise our liberal society here in the Federal Republic of Germany are not part of that’.
‘At least that’s how it has been in the last 80 years. We need to stick to this, this is the only reasonable strategy of our common security. Unless something has changed,’ he said.
But as the NSS clearly outline: ‘The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.’
Far from being a foreign policy U-turn, the security document crystallises Trump’s longstanding ‘America First’ doctrine, sparking fear across European nations which still heavily rely on US military support.