AYR, Scotland – Donald Trump, in a visit to Scotland on Friday, hailed Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, drawing parallels to the anger driving his own presidential campaign.
“I love to see people take their country back,” he said at a news conference at one of his golf courses in Scotland. “And that’s really what’s happening in the United States” and other parts of the world.
The campaign leading to Thursday’s stunning vote for Britain to leave the European Union shared some of the nationalist, populist themes driving Trump’s campaign, including a wariness of immigration, concern about borders and skepticism of the value of multinational organizations.
“I think there are great similarities between what happened here and my campaign,” he said. “People want to see borders. They don’t necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don’t know who they are and where they come from.”
Later Friday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign called Trump’s reaction to Britain’s vote to leave the European Union “dangerous and frightening.”
Trump, said her aides, reacted with “pathological self-congratulations,” a lack of understanding about the situation and a focus on his own businesses rather than the economic impact on American families.
Trump “actively rooted” for the United Kingdom to leave the EU and is “rooting for the economic turmoil in its wake,” Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
Trump, in a news conference in Scotland, praised the vote results and drew parallels to the populist anger driving his own presidential campaign.
Clinton’s team argues that the economic downturn likely to follow the vote will prompt Americans to pick a more experienced leader.
When Americans see the impact on markets, said Clinton communications director Jen Palmieiri, “they’re going to see the need for steady leadership.”
Trump, whose visit to Scotland is his first international trip since becoming the prospective Republican nominee, predicted that other nations will follow Britain’s lead.
“This will not be the last,” he said earlier at a ceremony to mark the reopening of the Turnberry golf resort he owns on Scotland’s west coast.
In a tweet on arrival, Trump said Scotland “is going wild over the vote. They took their country back.” But Scotland had voted firmly to remain in the EU. In fact, Scotland, which voted against independence in 2014, may now hold another referendum on independence in hopes of staying in the EU. Trump said he would support Scottish independence if a vote were held.
At the news conference, he described British Prime Minister David Cameron as “a good man” who “didn’t get the mood of his country right.”
Cameron wanted Britain to stay in the EU and announced Friday that he would step down.
Trump suggested that President Barack Obama, who expressed hopes that Britain would stay in the EU, was partially responsible for the outcome, claiming that some votes were cast to spite him.
“If he had said no to it, I think the vote might have been different. He’s constantly dictating what the world should do,” he said.
Trump also criticized his likely general election foe, Hillary Clinton who sided with Obama, for “misreading” the situation. Clinton issued a statement saying the economic uncertainty sparked by the vote “underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House.”
When asked if he had spoken to his foreign policy advisers about the vote, Trump said “there was nothing to talk about” and that a Trump administration would continue to count Britain as a close ally.
Trump’s reason for his trip to Scotland wasn’t politics, but to check on a pair of championship-level golf resorts he owns there. Trump spent Friday morning marking the $200 million-plus rehabilitation of Turnberry on the rocky Atlantic coast.
Trump’s news conference on the green of the course’s 9th hole underscored the frequent co-mingling Trump’s campaign with his businesses.
