SIMON HARRIS HAS described Donald Trump’s promise to give every American adult $5,000 if the Republican Party wins the midterm elections as “peculiar”. 

Speaking to reporters in Gorey today, where the final day of the Fine Gael think-in is being held, the Tánaiste said: 

“Well, from a finance minister’s point of view, it’s certainly it’s peculiar in terms of how you’d fund such a measure.

“I don’t want to involve myself, because I wouldn’t appreciate it if the US president started involving himself in Irish politics, so I’m not going to involve myself in US politics other than democratic elections are obviously very important,” he said. 

Harris said any political leader can make commitments in the run-up to an election, but the finance minister said the pledge is “certainly not one I could ever see being made in an Irish context”.

Speaking about the visit of US President Trump this weekend, Harris said the eyes of the United States will be on Ireland, and it was an opportunity “to showcase our country”, which he said is important.

Harris said the Taoiseach will have an opportunity to have a substantive bilateral with the president, stating that Micheal Martin has made it clear he intends to raise a number of global matters with the president. 

Ahead of tomorrow’s visit, reporters again raised with Harris a radio interview he did in 2020 on the 2FM breakfast radio programme, in which Harris said he was willing to call Trump an “awful gowl”.

Asked by the host if he would be willing to commit to calling Trump an “awful gowl” if he lost the 2020 election, Harris replied: “I’ll do that now, if you wish.”

Asked today about the comments and whether he still believed Trump to be an awful gowl, the Taoiseach said the comments had been raised with him on previous occasions over the last few years. 

“So I didn’t quite say that,” he said, stating the radio interviewer asked him in a “light-hearted manner, “if President Trump lost the election, would I then call him a gowl? And I think I said I would, but he went on to win the election, and he is the democratically elected president of the United States”. 

Harris said there are points of agreement and points of disagreement between the US administration and the Irish government.

“I think our views on a whole wide range of issues and the different views we have are very clearly known, and we’ve shown as a government an ability to articulate those views, in all our interactions with the US administration. And this weekend will be no different,” Harris said.