‘Better get your act together': Trump arrives in Scotland
Air Force One - the presidential plane - touched down at Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire on Friday just before 8.30pm (local time).
Mr Trump was met by Scottish Secretary Ian Murray as he disembarked, before heading to the waiting presidential helicopter Marine One, bound for his nearby Turnberry golf course.
His presence is expected to spark protests across the country, with Scottish Police being forced to request aid from other forces to help increase manpower for the trip.
Mr Trump is set to spend time at his golf resort in Turnberry on Scotland's west coast, before heading to his sprawling golf property 320 kilometres away near Aberdeen in the east.
But it won't be all play and no work.
He will meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who both want to talk about trade.
Mr Trump said Washington was also working hard on a possible trade deal with the EU, which he said was very keen to make a deal.
EU diplomats say a deal could result in a broad 15 per cent tariff on EU goods, mirroring a framework agreement with Japan and half of the 30 per cent tariff Trump is threatening to impose by August 1.
Speaking to reporters on the tarmac, Mr Trump said he'd be with his son and 'he's gonna cut a ribbon' for the second Trump golf course opening soon near Aberdeen.
Eric Trump, who now helps run the Trump Organisation, previously joined his father for the groundbreaking in 2023.
Although Eric did not travel with Donald on Air Force One, a Trump private plane was seen landing near Glasgow earlier in the day.
Mr Trump also used the opportunity to send a blunt message to Europe, saying, 'This immigration is killing Europe. And the other thing, stop the windmills.'
He added: 'Wind power generation is killing the beauty of your country.' His opposition to wind farms is longstanding, including previous legal efforts to protect views from his golf courses in Scotland.
On immigration, Mr Trump warned, 'On immigration, you better get your act together. You're not going to have Europe anymore.' He contrasted this with his administration's tough US-Mexico border policies, suggesting Europe needs to act decisively on immigration controls.
As part of the visit, he will open a second 18-hole course on the Aberdeen property named in honour of his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, who was born and raised on a Scottish island before emigrating to America.
The White House has described the trip as 'private'.
Mr Trump's visit to Scotland is in the 'public interest', UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves insisted, pointing out a recent trade deal.
'That has a tangible benefit for people here in Scotland, whether it is people working in the Scotch whisky industry or people working in the defence sector, like here at Rolls-Royce, that trade deal means lower tariffs than any country in the world on things that we send to the US,' she said.
While in the UK, he will also meet Scotland's First Minister John Swinney, who had publicly backed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential election.
'The Scottish leader is a good man, so I look forward to meeting him,' Mr Trump said.
Swinney flagged in an interview with PA that he intended to raise 'the awfulness of the situation in Gaza and the unbearable human suffering' with Trump.
'I intend to take that opportunity to make sure that Scotland's voice is heard,' he said.
The trip shows how the president has become increasingly comfortable intermingling his governing pursuits with promoting his family's business interests.
Mr Trump has described Scotland as a 'very special place' and made a similar trip there in 2016 during his first run for the presidency, but he will not necessarily get a warm welcome.
About 70 per cent of Scots have an unfavourable opinion of Trump, while 18 per cent have a favourable opinion, an Ipsos poll in March found.
His visit requires a major police operation that will cost Scottish taxpayers millions of pounds as protests are planned over the weekend.
The union representing officers is concerned that they are already overworked and will be diverted from their normal duties.
The overseas travel comes as Trump faces the biggest domestic political crisis of his second term in office.
Allies and opponents alike have criticised his administration's handling of investigative files related to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's criminal charges and the circumstances of his 2019 death in prison.
The issue has caused a rare breach with some of Trump's most loyal Make America Great Again supporters, and majorities of Americans and Trump's Republicans say they believe the government is hiding details on the case, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
White House officials, frustrated by the ongoing focus on the Epstein saga, are hoping the controversy dies down while Trump is abroad, one person familiar with the matter said.
with PA and Reuters
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And at the age of 79, no less. (Mr Trump himself insists his handicap is, preposterously, below 3, which is equivalent to claiming Madagascar is in the Atlantic.) Why then, does he cheat so brazenly, and so relentlessly? He doesn't need to! Therein lies the great mystery. 'And how can he be so shameless as to cheat right in front of people?' sportswriter Rick Reilly wondered in his 2019 book on the matter, Commander in Cheat, a tome long on my to-read list, which I finally found an excuse to inhale after this week's videos. 'They call him on it, but he just shrugs and cheats some more. It's ruined his reputation in the golf world. Ninety per cent of the people I interviewed – on and off the record – say he openly cheats. A lot of them said they stopped playing with him because of it. 'So why? Why cheat? Why lie? Why exaggerate his handicap, his scores, his club championships?' (Mr Trump claims to have won almost 20 golf championships, all but two of which are so baseless as to be deemed laughable by Mr Reilly. And those other two are dubious as well. More than once, the President has demanded to be named the winner of a tournament even though he was in a different state when it was held.) The book includes a frequently hilarious collection of anecdotes from people who have witnessed Mr Trump's behaviour. You're struck by how brazen it all is. Everybody knows he's doing it. Everybody. No one is even remotely fooled. It's a decades-long running joke. The footage from Scotland shows a couple of examples. In one clip, a caddy surreptitiously drops a ball for Mr Trump just off the fairway – his actual shot having landed, presumably, in much dicier territory. Mr Trump drives up in his cart, which was trailing close behind, and approaches it as though nothing unusual has happened. Just a routine bit of skulduggery. 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I saw him make a chipping motion from the side of the hill, but no ball came up. 'Then he walked up the hill, stuck his hand into the hole and pulled a ball out. It must have been a ball he had in his hand the whole time. Then he looks up and yells, 'I chipped it in!' I mean, who does that?' Another tale, here, from probably Mr Trump's favourite course, his own one in New Jersey. 'People like to tell about the time Trump hit one in the pond. Everybody saw it splash a good 30 feet from shore,' says Mr Reilly. 'When the group got up to the pond, the caddy says, 'Boss, your ball is right here.' It was sitting safely on the grass. 'Someone in the group yelled at the caddy: 'What did you do with your mask and flippers?'' Buy the book if you want more of these anecdotes. They are plentiful. The impression you have is of a man who will do anything possible, no matter how dodgy or brazen, to help him shoot a better score. And of a man who has precisely zero shame. I would like to think that most of us, having shanked a ball in front of multiple witnesses, would laugh about it and play on. Not this guy. He insists the shot was perfect, whatever your lying eyes tell you, and then shoots his next from the fairway, and then brags about making a birdie. But wait! That is not the end of his chicanery. Mr Trump is also notorious for fudging his scores, and for claiming titles he could not possibly have won. Mr Reilly recounts a day on which Mr Trump entered the clubhouse at a respected course, claiming to have shot a very impressive 68. He spent some time hobnobbing and boasting about the score, then left. The club's head pro summoned the caddies from Mr Trump's group into his office. 'Mr Trump said he shot a 68 here today. Is that true?' the pro asked. The caddies' responses were, in turn, 'no way' and 'no f***ing way'. At best, they said, Mr Trump had shot a 79. Probably worse, but the sheer volume of cheating made it hard to tell. 'There was so much trickery and fraud, it was impossible to know what he'd really shot,' writes Mr Reilly. 'The 68, they said, came with tosses, kicks, and golf balls getting free rides back to the short grass. It came with do-overs, takeovers, and floating mulligans. It came with very little sound of plastic balls actually going into little plastic cups.' The book starts with a relevant, if clichéd, quote from the English author P.G. Wodehouse (whose full, far more amusing name was Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse): 'To find a man's true character, play golf with him.' It sounds glib, even stupid, but ... yeah, actually. Sport is psychological. That is why it's more compelling than most scripted dramas. When a man is petty enough to rig a casual game of golf in his favour, and to do it as a matter of habit, year after year, you do start to consider how he approaches other aspects of life. The law, for example. The treatment of his tax affairs. The treatment of other human beings, outside the clubhouse. 'Trump doesn't just cheat at golf. He cheats like a three-card Monte dealer,' says Mr Reilly. 'He throws it, boots it, and moves it. He lies about his lies. He fudges and foozles and fluffs. At Winged Foot (a golf course where Trump is a member), the caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back onto the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: 'Pele'.' One more story, because I'm sorry, but they're really very amusing. One of Trump's playing partners, NFL commentator Mike Tirico was competing with him on a par 5, and hit 'the 3-wood of his life'. 'The thing had the flag covered from the start. It crested the hill perfectly, and was going to be tight to the pin,' says Mr Reilly. 'Shocked at his sudden skill, Tirico high-fived his caddie and strode towards the green, his shoes barely touching the grass. 'But somehow, when they got there, the ball wasn't near the pin. It wasn't even on the green. It was 50 feet left of the pin, in the bunker. Unless it hit a drone and ricocheted sideways, there was no physical way it could have ended up there.' Mr Trump's reaction to this was to tell Mr Tirico 'lousy break'. Later, the future president's caddy came up to the commentator. 'You know that shot you hit on the par 5? It was about ten feet from the hole. Trump threw it into the bunker. I watched him do it,' the caddy said. Funny and pathetic, in equal measure. And another data point in our continuing, ever-grimmer assessment of Donald Trump's character.
