UK minister grilled over tweet branding Donald Trump a ‘self-confessed groper’

LONDON — British government minister Ed Miliband was confronted Tuesday with his old tweets describing Donald Trump as “a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper.”

U.K. Energy Secretary Miliband — keen to talk up climate cooperation with the U.S. president-elect — became the latest member of the British government to have his social media posts dredged up as he appeared on BBC Breakfast.

Host Jon Kay asked Miliband: “How do you build a relationship with a man who you described in the past as a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper?”

Speaking from the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, Miliband shrugged off his 2016 post, and replied: “Look, you know, I said things in the past. My job now, as a government minister, is to work with the new U.S. administration.”

The former Labour leader added: “Donald Trump’s done lots of tweets in his time as well. I think what he will be interested in is serving a mandate from the American people.

“What we’re interested in is serving the mandate from the British people, and the British people have elected us to drive forward with this clean energy transition.”

Asked whether he would have sent those posts had he known he’d one day be dealing with a Trump administration on climate, Miliband replied: “Honestly, I think they’re irrelevant.

“I genuinely don’t think that Donald Trump is reading my tweets. I don’t have such a high opinion of myself.”

Miliband is the latest minister in the U.K.’s center-left Labour Party to face scrutiny for past comments on Trump. Foreign Secretary David Lammy — then a Labour backbencher — once branded Trump “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and said the then-U.S. president was “no friend of Britain.”