Andy Burnham says he would call out Trump ‘if it was the right thing to do’
The Prime Minister also explicitly ruled out holding a general election before 2029 for the first time.
Andy Burnham says he would stand up to Donald Trump 'if it was the right thing to do.'
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The new prime minister said he had a good first exchange with a "really warm" Trump, but also said he "wouldn't hold back from saying what I think is right".
When asked if he would call out Trump if it was the right thing, he said, "of course", before adding, "you have to defend your own national interest before anything else.
"That's what you're required to do if you're to do this job properly."
On the question of whether he could trust the US President, he said, "we've had one phone call." He said he found him warm during that conversation, but acknowledged that "it's a changing world isn't it, and you just obviously have to call things as they develop".
He also said that, if he disagrees with Donald Trump, he may "need to voice a different idea that is right for Britain," and that going forward he "wouldn't hold back from saying what I think is right".
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The prime minister also explicitly ruled out holding a general election before 2029 for the first time.
He said, "I'm going to rule it out...I don't think people want it." Instead, he said that he's focused on "getting the country back where it should be".
The Makerfield MP said his "strength is remaining close to people, close to the public. That will not change because I'm prime minister."
Andy Burnham would also not tell the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme a date when the government would spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence.
His Chancellor John Healey resigned from Keir Starmer's cabinet over defence spending, saying that the country would not be safe unless the government committed to spending that much by 2030.
Keir Starmer's successor said that he "appointed my new chancellor very aware of what he had said about the critical importance of defence spending and the position that he had taken about that."
"The first challenge facing us both is to ensure that the defence investment plan is fully funded and that's the thing that's right in front of us and we need to work that through as we go towards the budget later this year."
Asked again specifically about the commitment to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP, he said: "We've got to work out the way of doing that."