BBC Journalist Reveals He Accidentally Hung Up on Trump

In a surreal twist to an already chaotic political landscape, President Donald Trump’s first sit-down with BBC News in over a decade nearly didn’t happen—because the journalist hung up on him.

Gary O’Donoghue, the BBC’s chief North America correspondent, was granted a rare one-on-one interview with President Trump to mark one year since the failed assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. But the historic exchange almost crashed before takeoff.

“I was asleep,” O’Donoghue confessed. “The White House called, and in my scramble to answer, I fumbled the phone and accidentally cut the line. Not exactly ideal—hanging up on the president.”

O’Donoghue, who is blind and known for his sharp political reporting, said he had already given up hope that the interview would actually happen after “a few false starts.” But when the call finally came through again, he rushed to grab his recorder and pray it was working.

“I hit record and hoped for the best. We were told we’d get five minutes. Somehow, it turned into twenty,” he said.

What followed was a revealing, if disjointed, conversation with a president who seemed unusually introspective—though not necessarily coherent.

Asked about the 2024 shooting in Pennsylvania, Trump said he tries “not to think about it.” He added, “I like to think about it as little as possible,” brushing off the memory of being rushed from the stage with blood on his face as if it were a scheduling inconvenience.

O’Donoghue also pressed Trump on foreign relations, asking whether he trusted Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s answer? “I trust almost no one.” He went on to describe bizarre, schizophrenic diplomacy with the Kremlin: “We’ll have a great conversation… then he knocks down a building in Kyiv.”

In another strange turn, Trump offered praise for Britain’s new Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer—despite their stark political differences.

“I really like the prime minister a lot,” Trump said, before qualifying it with, “even though he is a liberal.”

When asked what he hoped to accomplish during his upcoming state visit to the UK, the president replied, “Have a good time and respect King Charles, because he’s a great gentleman.” That was the full extent of his stated foreign policy agenda.

This marked the first time a sitting U.S. president has granted the BBC an exclusive interview since Barack Obama in 2015. The BBC’s coverage of the Butler rally—where Trump was nearly killed—was praised by Trump himself, who called it “fair” during the interview.

Still, critics say the interview exposed more about the president’s evasive mindset than his policies.

“He speaks in riddles and shrugs when it comes to life-and-death issues,” said one Democratic strategist. “He calls Starmer a liberal like it’s a compliment—maybe he forgot what party he’s in.”

And yet, somehow, it all aired. An international journalist half-asleep, a recorder that miraculously worked, and a president who rambled through twenty minutes of diplomacy, trauma, and self-congratulation.

A fitting portrait of the Trump presidency in 2025—chaotic, unscripted, and dangerously unserious.