Cameron defends ‘entirely proper’ meeting with Trump as he claims he’s not in US to ‘lecture anybody’ on Ukraine funding

Former President Donald Trump held a meeting with David Cameron on Monday evening, one day before the foreign secretary was due in Washington to meet with his counterpart in the Biden administration, Antony Blinken.

The ex-president dined with Lord Cameron at his Mar-a-Lago estate where the two discussed a wide range of topics including Brexit, Ukraine, and the Nato alliance, according to a readout from Mr Trump’s team. The two were joined by Karen Pierce, the British ambassador to the United States.

“Among the topics discussed were the upcoming US and UK elections, policy matters specific to Brexit, the need for NATO countries to meet their defense spending requirements, and ending the killing in Ukraine,” read a statement from the Trump campaign.

It continued: “President Trump, Secretary Cameron and Ambassador Pierce also discussed their mutual admiration for the late Queen Elizabeth II.”

Lord Cameron went on to defend the optics of that meeting as “entirely proper” on Tuesday at a joint presser alongside Mr Blinken, noting that US officials had recently met with Labour leader Keir Starmer and his own past meeting with Mitt Romney when Mr Romney, now a retiring one-term senator from Utah, was running for president.

He declined to go into specifics about his conversation with the former president while stressing that he was not planning to “lecture anybody” on the importance of funding Ukraine’s defence against a Russian invasion force. The former prime minister’s past criticism of Mr Trump likely made the Monday dinner a somewhat awkward affair on Mr Cameron’s part, though the twice-impeached ex-president is more than used to critics turning over a new leaf. Lord Cameron was quizzed on his past references to Mr Trump