Donald Trump Jr sparks outrage for blasting Sadiq Khan in wake of London terror attack

'You use a terrorist attack on our city to attack London’s Mayor for your own political gain. You’re a disgrace,' says Labour MP

Donald Trump Jnr has sparked outrage for launching into a scathing attack on Sadiq Khan in the aftermath of the Westminster attack.

The President’s eldest son shared a link to a six-month-old story by The Independent on Twitter which quoted the Mayor of London saying terror attacks were “part and parcel” of living in a global city.

Trump Jnr, an executive of the Trump Organisation, said: “You have to be kidding me?!”

It is not clear whether Trump Jnr read Mr Khan’s actual article before misrepresenting the London Mayor’s comments. It also is unclear whether he was aware the six-month-old piece bore no relation to the Wednesday attack outside the Houses of Parliament and instead centred on Mr Khan’s reaction to a bombing in the Chelsea neighbourhood of New York.

In the resurfaced article, Mr Khan said: “Nothing is more important to me than keeping Londoners safe. I want to be reassured that every single agency and individual involved in protecting our city has the resources and expertise they need to respond in the event that London is attacked.”

Trump Jnr, a steadfast supporter of his father, came under fire for weighing in on the London atrocity while details about the attack were still coming in. He was hounded by those in the UK and the US.

Wes Streeting, the Labour MP for Ilford North, said: “You use a terrorist attack on our city to attack London’s Mayor for your own political gain. You’re a disgrace.”

Ciaran Jenkins, a Channel 4 correspondent, asked Trump Jnr if he thought his remarks were “helpful.”

“Did you even read the article before goading London’s Mayor during a live incident?” he said on Twitter, before adding: “Headline is based on very first sentence, which if you’d bothered to read it could apply to any major city in the world. Key word: ‘threat.’ ”

Tom Coates, a tech entrepreneur, swore at the president’s son and highlighted the fact he himself was a Londoner who has “lived through the IRA, anti-gay nail bombings and 7/7”.

Mr Khan, who has organised a vigil in Trafalgar Square at 6pm to commemorate victims of the attack, has refused to talk about Trump Jnr’s scornful tweet in two separate interviews, saying: "I've been doing far more important things over the last 24 hours."

After being pressed about whether we should accept terror attacks as “part and parcel” of London life, Mr Khan remained insistent terrorism should never be accepted.

“We must never accept terrorists being successful, we must never accept that terrorists can destroy our life or destroy the way we lead our lives,” he said on the Today Programme on Radio 4.

“We must never accept a situation where people try and divide Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs from each other or from those who are not members of organised faith. We must never accept a situation where people incite hatred against people because of the faith they belong to.”

The Metropolitan Police is deploying extra armed and unarmed patrols across the capital to provide protection and reassurance in the aftermath of the tragedy, which investigators are treating as an Islamist-inspired terror attack.

In the aftermath of the attacks, Trump Jnr also retweeted an unverified image posted by Breaking911 titled: “Al Jazeera viewers seem to react with joy over London terror attack”.

The president’s son, who is the first child of Mr Trump and Czech former model Ivana Trump, has no White House role but remains an occasional surrogate for his father.

Trump Jnr, who claimed his father’s comments about “grabbing” women by the “pussy” are typical among some men and are “a fact of life” last year, also occasionally calls out the President's political opponents on Twitter.

Like his father, Trump Jnr has also made numerous appearances on shock jock radio shows over the years. On the day a gunman killed a dozen people in a cinema in Colorado in 2012, Trump Jr appeared on Opie and Anthony and the hosts played a recording of a witness describing the tragic incident, to which Trump Jr retorted, “Overall, I give the movie two thumbs up!”

In other radio appearances, Trump Jr mocked the treatment of children in beauty pageants, assumed all Arab people were named “Mohammed” or “Ali” and came to the defence of his father’s rhetoric on immigrants.

A representative for Trump Jnr did not immediately respond to request for comment but has decline to comment on the matter to other publications.