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Take Donald Trump seriously, not literally, warns Emily Thornberry following inauguration
20 January 2025, 22:35 | Updated: 20 January 2025, 22:38
Emily Thornberry joins Andrew Marr to discuss Trump's inauguration speech
The correct approach to Donald Trump is to "take him seriously, but not to take him literally", Emily Thornberry has said.
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Speaking to LBC's Andrew Marr, Ms Thornberry said she is doing her "best to be optimistic" following Trump's inauguration.
She said there is a "bravery that [Trump] might be prepared to do things in a way that cautious Biden wouldn't have been prepared to do".
"I have always said that I think the correct approach to Trump is to take him seriously, but not to take him literally," she said.
"Because he says a great deal and you never know is this exactly what he means, or is it a general feeling that he has, and will it manifest itself in another way? So, let me just take for example, Greenland.
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"He's going to buy Greenland, or he's going to take it by force. Is he really or is it in fact, that if you look again at the world from the North Pole, you can see that the North West Passage, which was such a preoccupation of explorers 100 years ago, actually doesn't really matter anymore, because the ice has melted so much that it's now easy to get across the poles.
"And there's new security threats when it comes to the Russians and the Chinese using that as an access point, and we know the way in which the Chinese are trying to restrict shipping access.
"And so, is it about that? Is it about actually making sure Americans have a proper presence? As I say, I think we'll take him seriously, but don't take him literally."
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On the predictability of Trump, she said: "The rules are you get a President who is predictable and that is absolutely not what we get with President Trump.
"It might be of use, particularly in relation to some of the conflicts that seem to have been impossible to deal with.
"So is it possible that a President who might be unpredictable, who might be persuaded that, for example, on Ukraine, that we have interests in common, that we want peace in Ukraine, we want there to be a deal.
"But obviously, we don't want a loser's deal, and he doesn't want as his first agreement for it to be a deal of a loser.
"So, what does winning look like? Winning looks like giving Ukraine independence, after the war is finished, true independence, which will mean that it will be allowed to get on the path to join NATO or the EU, and that anything else is essentially allowing Putin to eat Ukraine. And he shouldn't be involved in a deal like that.
"If he was persuaded that that was the sort of deal he should be pushing for. And if he then put it before Putin, then I can just see him, if Putin didn't agree to it, doubling down, increasing hugely the number of weapons that are available to Ukraine. And then who knows what would happen next.
"In many ways, there is a sort of bravery, some might say fool hardiness, but you know, let's say bravery that he might be prepared to do things in a way that cautious Biden wouldn't have been prepared to. And maybe in some circumstances, that will be a positive result.
"I'm doing my best to be optimistic here."
