President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to cancel his trip to Denmark, saying that the Danish Prime Minister’s comments this week were “nasty” and “inappropriate” while speaking to reporters at the White House.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (left) at a joint press conference on July 11, 2019 at the Chancellery in Berlin and U.S. President Donald Trump before boarding Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, on Aug. 18, 2019. President Trump announced on Aug. 20, 2019, that he was postponing an upcoming meeting with Denmark’s prime minster due to her lack of interest in selling Greenland to the United States.(Credit: TOBIAS SCHWARZ,NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
“Denmark, I looked forward to going but I thought that the Prime Minister’s statement that it was ‘absurd’ … was nasty,” he said.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump had expressed interest in buying Greenland. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the idea “absurd.”
Trump had been scheduled to visit Denmark in less than two weeks.
The President has frequently used the word “nasty” to describe women he is angry with.
He called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person” during an interview on the 75th anniversary of D-Day while Trump was at the Normandy American Cemetery in France, where American soldiers who lost their lives in World War II are buried.
He also used the term to refer to Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex.
“I didn’t know she was nasty,” Trump said when asked by a British reporter about comments Markle had made about him during the 2016 presidential campaign. He later said he meant to say she was saying nasty thing about him, not that she herself was nasty.
Trump has also used the word “nasty” to characterize Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.