During his visit to the United Kingdom last week, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that people in the U.K. like him. Actor John Cleese responded on Friday with a series of blistering tweets in which he torpedoes Trump's baseless assumption.
After Trump said on Thursday: "I think they like me here" in Britain, Cleese took to Twitter to correct the president.
Cleese said Trump's claim is "unfounded" and that the president is "pronoid," or the opposite of paranoid.
Cleese explains why pronoia is an appropriate descriptor for Trump's claim.
Tens of thousands of people protested Trump's visit, culminating with a massive "Stop Trump" march in London on Friday. Cleese said Brits "loathe" Trump because "he is the polar opposite of a gentleman."
Cleese described a gentleman as "modest, well-mannered, self deprecating, quietly intelligent, considerate of other people's feeling, and well-informed," all of which are qualities Trump lacks.
Cleese referenced Gareth Southgate, manager of England's national football team, as an example of a gentleman. Southgate "is not vulgar, inflated, vain, boastful, noisily ignorant, sleazy," Cleese wrote, issuing a subtle dig at Trump.
Twitter users agreed, pointing out other examples of Trump's warped sense of reality. On Friday, for example, Trump said a recorded interview he gave with The Sun, in which he blasted Prime Minister Theresa May's handling of Brexit, is "fake news."
Americans "don't like him either," another person wrote. Recent polling showed Americans rank Barack Obama as the best president in their lifetimes, with Trump trailing in fourth place. Trump's job performance hovers around 41 percent.
"Trump is stupid," one follower wrote. "What's going on here is very dark stuff."
Others appreciated of the vocabulary lesson. (I know I did.)
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter