Trump took a huge dump on May's Brexit plans – then blamed The Sun for not cleaning it up

It was an aerial assault. The President of the United States hovered above Britain, took a dump, then switched the blades of his V-22 tiltrotor escort aircraft to fixed wing mode and sped off to Putin

At least the Trump blimp wears a nappy. The real thing just pulls down his slacks and s**ts wherever and over whomever he so pleases.

But it does mean that, the morning after using The Sun newspaper to soil the special relationship to such an extent that frankly the bin is the only place for it, those gathered at Chequers for the joint press conference between the prime minister and her theoretically closest ally were treated to a wonderfully cathartic spectacle. This was the sight of a toddler, knowing it has shat itself with thermonuclear effect, mounting an embarrassed attempt to clean up the mess itself, and with entirely predictable results.

Because a mess of this kind can only be cleared up with something absorbent. You can’t stomp up and down in it and expect it to go away. You can’t, as the president attempted, pick it up and throw it at other people in the hope that everyone might think it was their s**t not yours to begin with.

And you also can’t clean it up by just pointing at it and claiming it isn’t there.

That the day had been choreographed to bear every outward resemblance to a wedding and was instead a curious Jeremy Kyle/Jerry Springer mash-up on “Late Life Forced Marriages Go Wrong” was unfortunate.

The president had strolled out into the sunlight of the Chequers garden, forced his hand into the decidedly un-outstretched palm of the prime minister, and carried on like nothing at all had happened.

Theresa May was, naturally, the president’s new best friend, for no greater reason than she happens to be the last person he spoke to.

The Sun’s interview, recorded, filmed and published in full online, was “fake news”.

The special relationship had been elevated to “the highest level of special” and as the prime minister stood there and grimaced for almost a full hour, the president made her fall in love all over again by pushing her under every available bus that came by.

He had, he said, tried to apologise for the interview last night, and was told by Theresa May, “Don’t worry, it’s only the press.” The press laughed. They won’t forget that quickly.

As for the bombshell interview itself, the president did his level best to set the truth out into the grand garden like the snitch in Quidditch, somehow impossible to find, but it didn’t pay off.

Donald Trump stood there, telling reporters, for example, “Yes I said Boris Johnson would make a great prime minister, but I also said this wonderful lady here is doing a fantastic job.”

Yet four rows into the audience right in front of him, the journalist from The Sun who did the interview, just said to himself and to others, “No you didn’t.”

And the president has promised to make the transcripts available, too, so we’ll see who’s right and one suspects the answer won’t shock anyone.

Nato, we learned, had been left “stronger” and “more powerful” than ever, by virtue of its members being told they must meet their 2024 spending targets by January or else risk the United States pulling out. To meet those targets is politically impossible.

European leaders can’t be bullied into vast spending commitments by a disliked president and keep their support. It is being pushed into a crisis by the man standing right there, saying it is all fine thanks to him, and anything else is "fake news".

And as for Brexit, he repeated several times he had given Theresa May “a suggestion” for what to do and it would be up to her if she took it. Quite what “the suggestion” was, he never made clear. It seems to take on a life of its own, as if “the suggestion” might be carried around in a briefcase by Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta, only the very luckiest ever catching a glimpse of it.

That the most powerful man in the world nevertheless has skin so thin it can be punctured from whole counties away, means that 90 per cent of the Trump visit had to be conducted as an air operation. Not so long ago, President Trump once claimed he wouldn’t hesitate before running unarmed into the middle of a high school shooting, so why the entirety of his UK visit still had to occur at least 50 miles away from a protest featuring a 20ft-high balloon replica of him is something of a mystery.

But his incessant helicoptering in and out of London and Windsor and Blenheim and Chequers at least had the advantage of making obvious the most appropriate metaphor for it.

It was an aerial assault. The president of the United States hovered above Britain, took a dump, then switched the blades of his V-22 tiltrotor escort aircraft to fixed wing mode and sped off to Putin.

Whether the president knew the severity of what he was doing in his interview with The Sun, when he told Theresa May she had ruined the Brexit negotiations, and a US trade deal was off the table, is the key subject of much debate.

When asked a question does he just say the first thought in his head, his geo-politically world-altering opinions formed only to fill the silence? Or is it part of a concerted strategy to undermine Nato, and undermine the EU as a large trading bloc that for as long as it sticks together has the muscle to match America?

The answer is almost certainly both. But the diplomatic world is a delicate place. Normal people always wonder why politicians appear to move heaven and earth not to say anything, not to give a straight answer to a straight question. Donald Trump amply demonstrates at least part of the answer. The world needs alliances between democratic countries, and those alliances can’t survive if they undermine one another, if the leaders are politically sabotaged and weakened by their friends walking other corridors of power.

To see Donald Trump up close is to watch your house being trashed in real time over CCTV. The only question is whether someone can put a stop to it before the damage is irrevocable. Six more years of this and there will only be s**t left to s**t on.