Nigel Farage dined out with Donald Trump on Saturday night after managing to secure a last-minute invitation to join the US president for an evening meal.
The former Ukip leader was photographed sitting opposite Trump and alongside his daughter Ivanka, her husband and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, and the Florida governor, Rick Scott, at the president’s luxury hotel in Washington DC.
Posting the photograph on Twitter, Mr Farage wrote “Dinner with The Donald”. However, onlookers revealed that a place had only been made for him at the table at short notice.
Journalist Benny Johnson, who said the Secret Service “swarmed the place” before Trump’s arrival, had been keeping tabs on the group at the Trump International hotel.
Johnson, the creative director of online news outlet Independent Journal Review, wrote on Twitter: “Farage was not invited to this dinner. Squeezed in at last minute.”
Earlier in the day Mr Farage had backed Mr Trump’s treatment of the mainstream media, heaping praise on his political ally in a television interview. He told Fox News: “They [the media] are simply not prepared to accept that Brexit happened, that Trump happened, they kind of want to turn the clock back. And what they don’t realise is they are losing viewers, they are losing listeners, they are losing this battle big time and I’m pleased the president is not afraid to stand up to them.”
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on Friday, Mr Farage said the Brexit vote and Mr Trump’s election had launched a “great global revolution”.
He added: “And it’s not going to stop, it’s one that is going to roll out across the rest of the great world.”
Mr Farage said he was proud to have supported Mr Trump in the election and attacked US mainstream media for being “in deep denial” about Mr Trump’s victory, but said Americans as a whole would grow to appreciate their new leader. “Just as Brexit becomes more popular by the day, president Trump will become more popular in America by the day,” he said.
Guardian