UK politicians reel as Trump unleashes criticism then charm

Britain has had a sharp lesson in dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump's appetite for disruption.

The British pound fell, then rallied, and U.K. politicians reeled, then steadied as Trump showered praise on Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday — hours after an interview in which he criticized her, praised a rival and gave her hard-won Brexit roadmap a battering.

President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May hold hands at the conclusion of their joint news conference at Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, England, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Trump threw his first visit to Britain as president into disarray with an interview in The Sun newspaper in which he said May had ignored his suggestions for negotiating Britain's departure from the European Union and likely "killed" a trans-Atlantic trade deal. He also said May's nemesis, Boris Johnson, who quit the government this week over Brexit differences, would make "a great prime minister."

President Donald Trump with British Prime Minister Theresa May during their joint news conference at Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, England, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Yet by Friday afternoon, Trump and May were fast friends. Trump labeled the U.S.-U.K. relationship "the highest level of special" and said May was an "incredible woman" doing a great job.

But his earlier attack shocked many politicians in Britain, where the most vicious differences are often masked by formal politeness.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, center, looks over toward President Donald Trump during their joint news conference at Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, England, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

In one of the milder responses, Universities Minister Sam Gyimah tweeted: "Where are your manners, Mr. President?"

Even May's political opponents rallied to her defense. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Trump should have kept his nose out of British politics.

"It's a very strange thing to do, to come on a visit to another country, to meet that country's prime minister, and then announce that you would like to see as her successor a person who's just resigned from her government," he said.

Close up of handshake between U.S. President Donald Trump, right, with British Prime Minister Theresa May, left, at Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, England, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Trump's Brexit broadside came as May was trying to shift stalled divorce negotiations with the EU into a higher gear. Britain will leave the bloc in March, but the two sides have not yet agreed on what sort of relationship they will have after that.

On Thursday, as Trump flew into Britain, May's government published a plan that includes free trade in goods and a common trade rule book with the EU.

Trump told The Sun that such a deal "will probably kill" any prospect of a U.S.-U.K. free-trade agreement. Boosting trans-Atlantic trade ties and paving the way for a post-Brexit deal was one of Britain's main goals for Trump's visit.

The pound fell 0.6 percent to $1.31 after Trump's comments. Connor Campbell, an analyst at SpreadEx, said Trump's remark about a trade deal "undermines the prime minister at the end of an already challenging week."

U.S. President Donald Trump, right, is greeted by British Prime Minister Theresa May, left, at Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, England, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

But after talks with May at her Chequers country retreat over a lunch of Dover sole, Chiltern lamb and lemon meringue pie, Trump said he thought a post-Brexit trade deal would be possible.

"The only thing I ask of Theresa is that we make sure we can trade and we don't have any restrictions because we want to trade with the U.K. and the U.K. wants to trade with us," he said.

Sterling rose to over $1.32 after the remarks.

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, gestures while speaking during their meeting with with British Prime Minister Theresa May, right, at Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, England, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Trump's interview had threatened to weaken May's already fragile hold on power. Her Conservative government is deeply split between supporters of a clean break with the EU and those who want to keep close ties with the bloc, Britain's biggest trading partner.

Brexit Secretary David Davis and Johnson, the former foreign secretary, both quit this week to protest May's trade plan. Johnson, who helped lead the campaign to take Britain out of the EU, accused May of killing "the Brexit dream."

In his interview, Trump praised Johnson — another unpredictable, talkative populist with a distinctive mop of hair.

A six-meter high cartoon baby blimp of U.S. President Donald Trump hovers next to the statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as it is flown as a protest against his visit, in Parliament Square in London, England, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

On Friday he repeated his opinion that Johnson "would be a great prime minister" — but added that May was doing "a fantastic job," too.

The bonhomie could not mask strong differences between Trump and politicians in Britain, from both government and opposition parties.

In the Sun interview, Trump renewed his attack on London's Mayor Sadiq Khan. The two politicians have clashed on Twitter over Trump's ban on immigrants from several mostly Muslim countries and on the president's views on crime and terrorism in Britain.

Khan's office also gave permission for London protesters to fly a 20-foot (6-meter) balloon depicting the U.S. president as a screaming baby near Parliament on Friday.

Trump claimed that London's first Muslim mayor "has done a very bad job on terrorism" and said Khan "has not been very hospitable" to him.

Tens of thousands of people marched in London Friday to protest Trump's visit. Many condemned Trump's anti-immigration statements and policies.

At a news conference with May, Trump repeated his belief that immigration had been "very bad for Europe" and for the United States.

May declined to agree, saying that "over the years, overall, immigration has been good for the U.K."

But in general all was friendly, the calm after the storm, as the two leaders faced reporters in the sun outside Chequers. Trump and his wife, Melania, then flew to Windsor Castle for tea with Queen Elizabeth II before traveling to a Trump golf resort in Scotland for the weekend.

"I have a lot of respect for the prime minister," Trump said. "I would much rather have her as my friend than my enemy, I can tell you."

Chimed May: "And we are friends."

NEW YORK (AP) — Throughout the implosion of his once-skyrocketing Hollywood career, from his arrest almost exactly two years ago to his harassment and assault conviction, Jonathan Majors has maintained that he has never struck a woman.

But on Monday, as Majors was in the midst of a comeback attempt and a PR push that returned him to magazine covers, Rolling Stone published an audio recording of a conversation between Majors and Grace Jabbari. Majors was found guilty of one misdemeanor assault charge and one harassment violation for striking Jabbari in the head with an open hand and breaking her middle finger by squeezing it.

“I aggressed you,” Majors acknowledges in the recording, confirming her description of him strangling her and pushing her against a car. The recording appeared to contradict Majors’ previous claims and upend his redemption tour just as his film “Magazine Dreams” opens in theaters Friday.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Majors declined to address the recording, and whether he has assaulted women.

“I can’t answer that,” Majors responded. “I can’t speak to that.”

Majors, who was sentenced to probation and settled a lawsuit with Jabbari in November, is striving for an unusually swift rebound following a precipitous downfall. Before his March 2023 arrest, Majors was steering toward years of Marvel stardom and a possible Oscar nomination for Elijah Bynum’s “Magazine Dreams,” in which he plays a disturbed aspiring bodybuilder prone to violent outbursts.

Two years later, Majors returns to the public eye with a pledge that he’s changed just months after completing a year of court-ordered domestic violence counseling. At the same time, he's not directly addressing any of the allegations against him — including those from two previous partners, Emma Duncan and Maura Hooper, who in statements submitted pretrial, detailed physically violent and emotionally abusive incidents that bear some similarities to the Jabbari case.

“It’s not something I can talk about legally,” Majors says. “I said to my wife the other day, I’ve changed. I don’t recognize myself. I don’t recognize that guy. I’m in a completely different place. There’s no doubt that I was in turmoil. That guy then didn’t have any tools to deal with things. I don’t know if I liked the guy then. He was accomplished, he was doing great things in certain ways. But I don’t know if I would have hung out with him.”

Majors, who sat for an interview at a Manhattan hotel without a publicist present, spoke reflectively about his experience of the past two years — with the exception of anything specifically related to the conviction, the additional abuse allegations or the women who say he harmed them. Despite never naming a misdeed, Majors says he is reformed.

“I’d say to anyone who cares to listen: I’ve had two years of deep thought and mediation and rumination on myself and my actions, my community, my industry,” he said. “I’m stronger now. I’m wiser now. I’m better now.”

Not everyone is convinced. Hooper, who met Majors at Yale Drama School and dated him from 2013 to 2015, described a traumatizing and controlling relationship. A year after their relationship ended, Majors learned of her having a relationship with someone he knew, she said. According to Hooper's statement, Majors called her and shamed her for having an abortion, which he had encouraged, and told her to kill herself.

“The level of anger that I experienced from this man, I don’t know you exorcise that from your life or your behavior in only 52 weeks,” Hooper told the AP. “People go to therapy for years. I went to therapy for years after Jonathan Majors just to get my mind back.”

Hooper and Duncan's statements were ultimately not allowed as evidence during the trial, but they remain public record. Attorneys for Majors have denied some of their claims, describing both relationships as “toxic.”

Duncan, who dated and was engaged to Majors from 2015 to 2019, described at least eight physical or threatening encounters in her statement. During an argument in 2016 while driving in Chautauqua, New York, he threatened to strangle and kill her, she said. At a spa in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she discovered text messages between Majors and another woman and began packing to leave. He pushed her into couch and began choking her while saying he was going to kill her, Duncan said. (She didn't respond to an email from the AP seeking comment. Attorneys for Jabbari also didn't respond to emails.)

“There is a documented history of 10 years of abuse of women where he calls women ‘sluts,’ he calls us ‘fat whores,’ he tells us to kill ourselves,” Hooper says. “When I hear people say, ‘Come on, how come he can’t come back into the fold?’ I don’t know that those people have read this or understand that we’re talking about a pattern.”

A changed political climate and several recent cases, including the overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s New York sexual assault conviction, have suggested Hollywood has entered a new chapter in the #MeToo movement. Majors' attempted comeback is one of the most conspicuous tests to the fraying curbs of cancellation and #MeToo vindication.

“We’re suffering a period of tremendous political retrenchment and backlash in this movement,” says Debra Katz, the civil rights attorney who represented Christine Blasey Ford, accuser of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, along with Weinstein accusers. “Much of what we’ve fought for seems to be on the line.”

But women are still coming forward, and Katz believes companies and industries will hold the accused accountable. For his part, Majors, who was dropped from all projects following his conviction, has no new films announced. “Magazine Dreams,” which debuted at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival before his arrest and was subsequently dropped by Searchlight Pictures, is being released by Briarcliff Entertainment, the indie distributor of “The Apprentice.”

“Jonathan made a mistake. There was due process. Justice was served. And then we move on, which I think is generally how we like to think this country operates,” Tom Ortenberg, chief executive of Briarcliff, said Thursday. “We’re faced with two choices: Should ‘Magazine Dreams’ be allowed to be seen? Or should we burn the negative?”

Numerous A-listers, including Michael B. Jordan and Matthew McConaughey, have advocated for Majors’ return to Hollywood. Still, Katz believes Majors’ comeback will ultimately sputter because it hasn’t gone beyond the strategy of what she describes as “get a good PR firm and show my soft side.”

“I think he’s going to suffer a significant comeuppance,” says Katz. “He hasn’t owned up to the behavior. He hasn’t apologized. The only thing he appears to be sorry about is that he got caught.”

For Majors, his self-examination has focused more on an earlier experience he suggests was at the root of what he calls his turmoil.

“There was a lot of trauma that was piled up and ignored. The best way to describe it is it as an energy that unfortunately was there,” says Majors. “I was feeding the wrong wolf. And that wolf became unignorable. And I was really good at moving fast and outrunning the rabid wolf of trauma. The best thing that could have happened to me — not to my career but to me — was to have to face it.”

Majors, who was raised by his pastor mother in Texas after his father left, says from the age of 9 to about 13, he was the victim of multiple incidents of sexual abuse, from, he says, “two male family members and my sisters’ friends who were older than me — they were older than her.”

“It felt like kids being kids and then it became something different very quickly,” Majors says. “And then it became a pattern.”

Majors only recently began wrestling with this past, he says, working through it in therapy and in conversations with his family. A phone call with his sister, he says, reawakened memories.

“It was an experience that I just killed in my head,” Majors says, tearing up.

“It’s not a boo-hoo-bro, so-sad-for-you situation,” he says, wiping away tears. “It’s life. It’s the hand you’re dealt, and I didn’t know how to play those cards. I’m learning how to play those cards.”

Now, Majors says, he’s never been happier. On Tuesday, he and Meagan Good were wed in a small, impromptu ceremony in Los Angeles officiated by his mother. “We called the family and said, ‘Hey, jump on FaceTime,’” he says, calling it the best day of his life.

“Magazine Dreams,” he thought, would never see the light of day. Now, though, he’s hopeful he can act again.

“I now understand that acting is in many ways my ministry. It’s in many ways my calling,” Majors says. “If it’s not, I’m waiting for someone to tell me it’s not. I’m waiting for God to tell me it’s not. He’s not said that.”

Actors Jonathan Majors, left, and Meagan Good pose together at the premiere of the documentary film "Number One on the Call Sheet" at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

FILE - Jonathan Majors appears in court during a hearing in his domestic violence case on June 20, 2023 in New York. (AP Photo/Steven Hirsch, Pool)