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.