Foreign policy commentator Lee Cohen claims Donald Trump's comments to The People's Channel were more revealing about the special relationship
Donald Trump isn’t known for holding back, and his judgement seems to reflect what’s on the minds of ordinary Britons far better than the UK’s own governing class.
When GB News asked him straight about Andy Burnham – the likely favourite to replace Keir Starmer – Trump gave The People's Channel a raw answer.
He doesn’t know much about him, he said. Just that he was “mayor of a town” and he’s “extremely liberal”.
And that, Trump added, means he probably won’t open up the North Sea.
True to form, Trump was being honest in the way only he can.
And right now, millions of Britons, utterly fed up with Labour, are nodding along for good reason.
Starmer came in promising competence after the mess of recent years.
What Britain actually got was more of the same slow, managed decline dressed up in sensible suits.
Energy bills that hammer families and pensioners while the North Sea’s vast reserves stay mostly locked away.
Towns feeling the pressure of rapid change, violent streets, and a quiet sense that the country is on a worrying trajectory.
The gap between what politicians say and what taxpayers live has become unbearable.
Now Burnham rides in. The “King of the North", smooth and relatable, with the Manchester accent and the everyman touch that Starmer never quite managed.
He just won big in Makerfield and suddenly looks like Labour’s great hope.
Some in the media are already treating him as the reset button. Trump wasn’t impressed, and why should anyone be?
This doesn’t seem a bold new direction. Likely the same instincts, the same priorities, wearing a new face.
Burnham can talk convincingly about the left-behind. That’s his strength.
But when it comes to the big tests that actually decide a nation’s future and place in the world – unleashing energy, regaining control of the borders, and slashing the red tape that strangles businesses.
The pattern points to more caution, more net-zero timelines, and more of the progressive playbook that has held Britain back.
He’s called out Trump in the past for bringing “polarised, poisonous politics” and instability. The lack of chemistry is already baked in, leaving scant hope for an improved transatlantic relationship if he takes the keys to No10.
Trump speaks a language a lot of Britons clearly understand: nations should drill their own resources, secure their own borders, and put their own people first without endless hand-wringing.
He says he told Starmer directly: "Go to Aberdeen, open up the North Sea oil and gas, make Britain an energy powerhouse again instead of relying on Norway while your own fields sit idle."
Starmer didn’t listen. Trump has said Britain is “dying” under this approach. Harsh? Maybe.
But when your bills are punishing and your industry is squeezed, it feels closer to the truth than another round of green targets.
As an American who loves Britain and cares deeply about it, I won’t apologise for saying that too many in Britain’s ruling circles seem embarrassed by the country’s own strengths and towering achievements.
They govern miserably. The result is obvious to the world: families choosing between heating and eating properly, young people shut out of housing, communities changed beyond recognition, and a slow erosion of that British confidence that once measurably improved the world.
Who is to say a Burnham premiership would not deliver the same medicine with a better bedside manner? He may win some early applause simply by not being Starmer.
But unless he’s prepared, should he become PM, to break ranks on the net-zero lunacy that’s costing jobs and competitiveness and get deadly serious about stopping the small boats and apologising for Britain’s inspiring values, the direction of travel won’t change until Labour is out once and for all.
That’s why this matters for the special relationship. It was never just tea and handshakes. It thrived when Britain and America shared instincts about strength, enterprise, self-reliance and national pride.
When Britain acts like another hesitant European social democracy — apologising for its own exceptionalism while struggling with basic sovereignty — the relationship sours. Trump will do deals with whoever sits in Number 10. But optimal cooperation is only earned by seriousness and results, not rebranded failure.
From my side of the Atlantic, a strong, independent Britain is good for America and good for the free world. We want a proud partner that drills its own oil and gas, controls its own borders, backs its own workers, and stands tall without constant qualification. We don’t need another impotent ally stuck in the same European rut of high taxes, high regulation and low confidence.
Trump has sized up Burnham fast and sees continuity rather than courage. Britain has the talent, the resources in the North Sea, the post-Brexit freedom, and the raw capacity to roar back.
What it desperately needs now is leaders with the spine to use them without apology. But it won’t happen by swapping one Labour leader for another who shares the same grim assumptions about what Britain should be.