Nigel Farage believes that he can handle Trump

Nigel Farage was on gregarious and ebullient form at our Americano US election event in London Thursday night. 

He confidently assured the audience that Donald Trump is going to win. He repeatedly mocked the British Conservative and Labour parties. And he offered his services as a sort of unofficial transatlantic point man for the “special relationship.”

Having claimed in Politico Thursday that he was 90 percent sure that Trump would take back the White House, Farage upped the ante for The Spectator audience. “I tell you what, folks,” he said, “be in no doubt on November 5, Donald Trump is going to win. And thank God for that.”

Farage called Trump’s McDonald’s stunt last weekend “absolute political genius.” 

“We’re seeing the humorous side of Trump,” he said. “We’re seeing the fun side of Trump. And all the while, he’s smiling. He’s going to win.”

Farage conceded that he had experienced moments of doubt about a Trump comeback in the last four years. After January 6, 2021, for instance: “It was a very ugly day,” he said. “It wasn’t great at any level. The funny thing is, I was actually invited to be there on January 6, and I just thought, I don’t like the feel of this. It doesn’t make sense. I made my excuses and thank God I wasn’t there.”

“That was bad. Look, you know Trump, of course he gets things wrong. We all get things wrong.”

Farage also suggested that Trump made a mistake in accepting a debate with Joe Biden, an event that ended up effectively knocking Biden out of the race:

The decision to accept the Biden offer to do the debate was a disastrous tactical decision. It was that debate that knocked Biden out of the race. Trump should never, ever have done that debate. And I remember, before it, you know, good friends of mine in the Republican Party being absolutely furious. But of course, the trouble is, when you’re dealing with a Trump, you’re dealing with a warrior. You offer a warrior a fight, and the warrior goes in. But that was a very bad error.

But, he said, more and more voters now understand “two things about Trump… One, his instincts on the big stuff he generally gets right. And the other thing I’d say to you is in the last two weeks, the global public have begun to see who he really is. I know him personally. You have lunch with him, dinner with him, whatever it is, he’s got friends and family around him.”

He then challenged me, his interviewer, to an even money bet that Trump would triumph next month. I didn’t like those odds. 

Glugging on his glass of red, Farage turned to domestic politics. He repeatedly lambasted the Conservative party and attacked Keir Starmer’s government over its falling out this week with the Trump campaign. “The reason that the Labour intervention is causing this row is that America is our most important relationship in the world,” he said. Ever the patriot, however, he offered to “do whatever I can to help the relationship between Trump and the British Labour government.”

As an elected politician, Farage ruled himself out as an ambassador to the US — though he did say: “If I got the job of the UK ambassador in Washington, it would have been a very good thing — you would never have seen a wine cellar like it.”

Having shunned his wager, I did take a small gamble in asking, rather rudely, if he thought Trump could remember the name of the Reform Party. 

“It’s Nigel’s party,” Farage replied, impersonating Trump. “It’s a great party. They’re so good.”

He then reverted back into Nigel: “Does it matter?” The answer, I suppose, is no. 

Watch the full interview on SpectatorTV:

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.