Donald Trump’s Twitter reaction Friday to the latest terror attack on London’s underground received a scathing response from British Prime Minister Theresa May, who called his comments unhelpful.
In his early morning tweet, Trump called the person who carried out the attack a “loser terrorist” and suggested that London’s Metropolitan police knew about the bomber, whose attack at the Parsons Green Tube station in West London injured at least 22 people.
“These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard,” the president said, adding a tweet promoting his highly contested travel ban, saying it should be “far larger, tougher and more specific” before lamenting the fact that such a ban is “stupidly … politically incorrect.”
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“I never think it’s helpful for anybody to speculate on what is an ongoing investigation,” May later said in an interview with BBC.
Just after 8:20 a.m. local time (3:20 a.m. ET) Friday, the fiery detonation of an improvised device exploded on the train, sparking chaos among morning commuters. At the time of Trump’s tweet, no suspect had been identified.
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Metropolitan Police went on to say that the comment was “pure speculation,” according to The Guardian.
“This is a live investigation and we will provide further updates as it progresses,” the police said in a statement. “Any speculation is extremely unhelpful at this time.”
Later, Trump told reporters at the White House he planned to speak with May. “It’s [terrorism] a terrible thing,” he said. “It just keeps going and going, and we have to be very smart, we have to be very, very tough. Perhaps we are not nearly tough enough.”
Trump’s tweet wobbles an already unstable intelligence relationship with the U.K. following the Manchester bombing in May at an Ariana Grande concert.
U.S. outlets The New York Times and CBS published the name of the suspect and photographs of the bomb scene after British intelligence had asked media to withhold information to protect ongoing investigations, causing British police to temporarily suspend intelligence sharing with the U.S.