U.S. Ambassador Dismisses UK Foreign Secretary Miliband's Past Trump Criticism

LONDON — U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Warren Stephens on Thursday brushed off strident past criticism of Donald Trump from Britain’s new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband.

Miliband, who become Britain’s top diplomat Monday under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, called Trump a “racist, misogynistic self-confessed groper” after his first election victory in 2016, and subsequently said the U.S. president had “lowered the bar for idiocy.”

But Stephens told Sky News Thursday “those were some time ago, I think, and, hopefully, his views have changed.”

Pushed on whether Miliband could work effectively with his White House counterparts, Stephens said only: “People were people. People’s view of President Trump in 2016 is probably a lot different than it is … now.”

While Miliband was “wrong then,” Stephens acknowledged he had also made remarks “where you come back a few years later and say, Yeah, why did I say that? I don’t think that’s really right.”

Miliband was previously quizzed about his combative comments following the U.S. president’s second election victory in 2024. He has described his prior statements as “irrelevant,” adding: “I genuinely don’t think that Donald Trump is reading my tweets. I don’t have such a high opinion of myself.”

The foreign secretary’s predecessor-but-one, David Lammy, also had a history of posting critical tweets about Trump before taking on the top diplomacy job. But he was able to point to a friendship with U.S. Vice President JD Vance.