Sky News Journalists Mock Trump-Hating UK Foreign Secretary’s Lengthy Presidential Handshake: ‘One Second for Every Insult!’
Sky News journalists mocked the U.K.’s Trump-hating Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper for her unusually long handshake as she greeted the president when he touched down in England on Wednesday – recalling how she protested his previous state visit and listing out all the times she insulted him in the past.
President Donald Trump greeted Cooper after landing at Stansted Airport and the irony of the moment was not lost on the British press as the pair clasped hands and exchanged words for just over 11 seconds on the tarmac before the president boarded Marine One for the short flight to Winfield House, the U.S. ambassador’s residence where he is staying.
Speaking on Sky News’ Trump 100 podcast as host James Matthews listened to journalist Mark Stone relay the moment and how, when a lawmaker whose party was out of government, she’d had some sharp words for the president.
“She shook his hand for a very long time. I counted about 8 seconds, a long handshake and I couldn’t help thinking that she was probably hoping that none of us were remembering what she has said about Donald Trump in the past. But obviously, we have looked it up,” Stone said.
He continued: “She has called him in the past inflammatory, ignorant, dangerous. She went on a march, a women’s march a few years back, where she called him out for the language that he has used … uh… about women in the past.”
He added: “She is a champion of women’s rights. She was extremely agitated and upset about those comments. But in her new life as foreign secretary, she can’t say any of that.”
Stone continued to comment that the Labour government was keen to remain close to Trump to support British “national interests” as the U.S. counterpart was “calling the shots.”
“So Yvette Cooper finds herself at the bottom of the steps meeting the man she once said had normalized hatred,” he quipped.
Laughing, Matthews replied: “Bottom of the steps trying to work her way up from the bottom of the pile. An 8-second handshake – one second for every insult!”
Sky News reporters were not the only ones calling out Cooper’s sudden civility, as commentators across the left and right mocked the politician.
Harry Cole, political editor for the right-leaning tabloid The Sun, mused at the “irony.”
Piers Morgan unloaded on Cooper as “a sycophantic barnacle” – sharing a past tweet by her attacking the president:
Other furious Brits online called out Cooper as a “hypocrite” and edited clips of her past tirades against Trump.
Watch above via Sky News.
