Donald Trump appears to have flown off the handle when addressing his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn over a missed phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former No 10 official has shared.
It appears there were high-profile witnesses of the unexpected rant – former British Prime Minister Theresa May, for instance, was present at “a fairly extraordinary” lunch during which POTUS literally yelled at Flynn, ex-chief of staff Nick Timothy recalled, speaking on the What Were They Thinking? podcast.
“Somebody just mentioned in passing that Vladimir Putin had asked for a call with him, and right in front [of] us he absolutely shouted down Mike Flynn”, he said, explaining that the dinner was formal – “with butlers and fancy crockery”.
Timothy, chief of staff between 2016 and 2017, went on to discuss the acute controversy over Huawei, which May had allowed in to Britain to set up local 5G projects, and recent Tory-government attitudes to both the US and China, as well as the duo’s trade and national security spat.