{"id":485189,"date":"2026-03-20T03:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T03:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/485189\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T03:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T03:56:07","slug":"trumps-team-repeatedly-tried-to-intervene-over-mandelson-appointment-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/485189\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s team repeatedly tried to intervene over Mandelson appointment \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Then-Ambassador Pierce and senior U.K. embassy aide Senay Bulbul, both of whom were credited with building good links<\/a>\u00a0with MAGA figures, were also in attendance at the Palm Beach meeting.<\/p>\n

Pierce herself discussed the diplomatic matter with Mike Waltz, who briefly served as Trump\u2019s national security adviser, but did not attempt to escalate any concerns as a result of their conversation, an email in the tranche of documents shows.<\/p>\n

McSweeney, a close ally of Mandelson, remained an advocate for the Labour veteran long after the meeting and even until the day he was fired, according to contemporary accounts<\/a>. McSweeney could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

By January 2025, any major concerns appear to have been allayed.\u00a0An\u00a0email from Olly Robbins<\/a>, the top civil servant at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, to Downing Street indicated that Pierce had spoken\u00a0to\u00a0Waltz and there was \u201cno suggestion that Peter\u2019s nomination was an issue\u201d for Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starmer apologized again<\/a>\u00a0for the debacle last week, saying \u201cit was me that made a mistake\u201d in deciding that the former business secretary should become the U.K.\u2019s top diplomat in Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Then-Ambassador Pierce and senior U.K. embassy aide Senay Bulbul, both of whom were credited with building good links\u00a0with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[625,141,2992,59,57,58,420,172169,50,424,1351,30299,56,54,158,55],"class_list":["post-485189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-british-politics","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-policy","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-keir-starmer","tag-mike-waltz","tag-news","tag-peter-mandelson","tag-security","tag-u-s-politics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}