BREXIT/BRITAIN/EU/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday [7-15-18] revealed the advice President Trump had given her on how to negotiate Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union: Go straight to court. Mrs. May was asked by the BBC about comments Mr. Trump made both in an interview in the British tabloid The Sun and later at a news conference on Friday at Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence, northwest of London. ‘He told me I should sue the E.U.,’ Mrs. May said. Her comments will most likely be seen as pushing back against Mr. Trump, who had criticized her for ignoring his suggestion and whose interview in The Sun embarrassed the prime minister just as she was rolling out the red carpet for his working visit to England, one that she had hoped would showcase the strength of trans-Atlantic ties. At the news conference, Mr. Trump, without revealing what he had advised Mrs. May, said that she had seemed to regard his suggestion as too ‘brutal.’ Some hard-line supporters of the withdrawal, known as Brexit, have criticized Mrs. May as not being tough enough in talks with the bloc, and Mr. Trump’s remarks seemed to back them up.”
-Stephen Castle, “Theresa May Says Trump Told Her to ‘Sue the E.U.’ in Brexit Talks,” The New York Times online, July 15, 2018