President Donald Trump landed in for Scotland on Friday evening with wife Melania for two days of rest and relaxation before they make one final stop abroad in Finland at the conclusion of their European trip.
The president and first lady are staying at the Trump-owned Turnberry property in South Ayrshire. Their plans are mostly unknown — they are not in Scotland on official business — although the American president is expected to make use of the lavish property’s golf facilities.
Trump’s son Eric, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, is also making his way to Turnberry for business and a mini-family reunion. He arrived on the Trump-family plane in Aberdeen on Thursday and confirmed that he would be seeing his father over the weekend in comments to DailyMail.com.
President Donald Trump landed in for Scotland on Friday evening with wife Melania for two days of rest and relaxation before they make one final stop abroad in Finland for the conclusion of their European trip
The president and first lady are staying at the Trump-owned Turnberry property in South Ayrshire
The First Couple made the short flight to Scotland after meeting the Queen at Windsor
Always looks the part: Melania made her third wardrobe change of the day and went with a more country look in a light quilted jacket and heels
And we’re off: The Trumps were escorted from the tarmac to an awaiting SUV
Scotland is close to Donald Trump’s heart. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, emigrated to the U.S. in 1930 from the United Kingdom.
He said Friday that his mother’s ties to the country makes his first visit to the U.K. as president extra special.
‘I would give our relationship with the UK the highest level of special. Am I allowed to go higher than that? They are very special people, it’s a very special country and my mother was born in Scotland,’ he stated at a news conference alongside British Prime Minister Theresa May.
A gift from May to Trump in celebration of the trip acknowledged the president’s Scottish heritage.
She gave him an illustrated ancestral chart highlighting the birth of his mother in 1912 on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides.
Eric Trump wearing chino’s, dark blue polo shirt will spend the weekend at Turnberry schmoozing with business contacts fl
Trump christened the revamped Ayrshire property in midst of the presidential election that brought him to power after buying and renaming the golf course on in 2014
According to the prime minister’s office, ‘The chart traces her family on both sides back three generations through official records and old parish registers.
‘The family line goes back on the paternal side to the birth of President Trump’s great, great, great grandfather, Kenneth Macleod, born near Stornoway in 1776 – the year of the US declaration of independence,’ a statement from the PM’s office said.
At his news conference with May, the president relatedly remarked that the U.K. is ”a special place.’
‘My mother was born here, so it means something maybe just a little bit extra; maybe even a lot extra,’ the president admitted.
President Trump last visited Scotland at the height of his presidential campaign.
He owns two local golf properties, one at Aberdeen in the north and another at Turnberry, a little more than an hour south of Glasgow.
Trump christened the revamped Ayrshire property in midst of the presidential election that brought him to power after buying and renaming the golf course on in 2014.
Trump will use the Turnberry golf property in Scotland as relief point after days of diplomatic talks with U.S. allies prior to a Monday meeting with Vladimir Putin.
If the president is hoping for a quiet weekend at his country resort, he may not be so fortunate. Protests were planned at his stops across the U.K., including at two commercial properties in Ayrshire and Edinburgh
Activists from Stand Up to Racism Scotland (SUTR) stage a protest at the Trump Turnberry resort in South Ayrshire, ahead of the US president’s arrival in the UK
The par 3, 11th hole of the Ailsa Course at the Trump Turnberry Resort is seen here in 2016
Final preparations being made at Trump Turnberry, Ayrshire, Scotland, ahead of President Trump’s visit to his hotel on Friday night. Secret Service staff have been seen at the hotel and a large anti-terrorist fence has been erected along Turnberry’s main road
‘I’m going to Scotland while I wait for the meeting,’ Trump on Thursday said. ‘I have Turnberry in Scotland, which is a magical place, one of my favorite places’
Donald Trump’s son Eric has arrived in Scotland ahead of his father’s visit to the. Eric Trump is playing golf at the Trump International Golf Links at Menie, Aberdeenshire, and also plans to visit Trump Turnberry, near Girvan, South Ayrshire
He told reporters in Brussels before departing on Thursday afternoon for London that he would decamp there for the weekend while he awaits his face-to-face with the Russian president.
‘I’m going to Scotland while I wait for the meeting,’ he said. ‘I have Turnberry in Scotland, which is a magical place, one of my favorite places. I’m going there for two days while I wait for the Monday meeting.’
Trump’s agenda in Scotland has not been released, but the billionaire president typically likes to spend his off-time in the states at one of three properties that he owns. He almost always golfs on the trips, sightings that wind up on social media show, although the White House routinely refuses to confirm property whereabouts.
The White House has not shed light on the president’s plans this weekend in response to inquires from DailyMail.com. U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Woody Johnson said Friday that Trump would use the time to prepare for his meeting on Monday in Helsinki with Putin.
He was also anticipated to spend some family time with at least one of his adult sons, Eric, while in town.
Don Jr’s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle posted a picture of herself and Trump’s other adult son on Thursday in Paris. The photo suggested Don Jr. could swing by Turnberry, too, and turn the weekend into a family visit.
If the president was hoping for a quiet weekend at his country resort, he may not be so fortunate, however. Protests were planned at his stops across the U.K., including at two commercial properties in Scotland.
His immigration policies, which critics have lambasted over family separation and strict vetting they say is tantamount to a Muslim ban, are also upsetting locals.
Trump said Thursday that he wants no drama while he is town, saying its for residents of the U.K. to decide how they want to run their government. ‘I have no message. It’s not for me to say,’ he said with uncharacteristic restraint.
‘I think that those people, they like me a lot, and they agree with me on immigration,’ he said of his tough stance on border control in the U.S. that has also been protested at home as divisive.
Trump characterized the U.K. as a conglomerate in ‘turmoil’ as he left the U.S. to meet up with British PM Theresa May and other American allies at the NATO summit in Brussels. He refused to weigh in on the issue then, saying it’s not his decision to make, despite endorsing Brexit from Turnberry as a candidate.
In an interview with the Sun newspaper, however, Trump appeared to criticize May for the way she was handling Brexit while warning that Europe would lose its culture if it doesn’t get a better handle on the inward flow of migrants.
‘I think it changed the fabric of Europe and, unless you act very quickly, it’s never going to be what it was and I don’t mean that in a positive way,’ he stated. ‘So I think allowing millions and millions of people to come into Europe is very, very sad.’
Wading into the complicated issue that did play heavily in Britons’ vote to exist the EU, Trump said, ‘I think you are losing your culture. Look around. You go through certain areas that didn’t exist ten or 15 years ago.’
Donald Trump and his granddaughter Kai visit Trump International Golf Links on June 25, 2016 in Aberdeen, Scotland. The US presidential hopeful was in Scotland for the reopening of the refurbished Open venue golf resort Trump Turnberry
The Trump family is seen arriving by helicopter at Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, U.K, on Saturday, June 25, 2016
Trump’s agenda in Scotland has not been released, but the billionaire president typically likes to spend his off-time at properties that he owns. He almost always golfs on the trips
At an impromptu news conference on Thursday Trump also said that he remains supportive of the controversial move that will see the U.K. withdraw itself from the European Union, directly citing mass migration as a reason.
‘I think that’s why you have Brexit in the first place, because of immigration,’ he assessed.
Immigration protesters had already lined up at the president’s Turnberry property on Wednesday, two days before his arrival.
They held up signs that said, ‘TRUMP NOT WELCOME’ and ‘BABY JAILER.’
Speaking to MailOnline, the president’s son, Eric, said, his family has ‘thick-skin’ and can handle them.
‘If you look at the people in Aberdeen and Turnberry they love what we have done to the two sites we have and the hundreds of millions we have invested in the country,’ he said of the golf properties.
‘It’s something that should be celebrated and not criticized. I think it takes a pretty shallow person to criticize it and many of these people are shallow.’
Eric Trump triumphantly said in a slam aimed at Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, ‘They will come and go and we won’t and we will still be here investing in these properties for generations to come.’
Sturgeon said prior to the trip that she would not meet with President Trump while he was in her country. She said just after his election that many of his comments on the campaign trail were ‘deeply abhorrent.’
The president is likely to face protests near Turnberry. But one place he won’t encounter naysayers is in the airspace near and over his luxurious property in South Ayrshire.
Scottish police denied a request from a protest group flying around a giant diaper-wearing in inflatable in Trump’s likeness that’s meant to troll the U.S. president whose mother was an immigrant from Scotland.
‘We need to ensure there is a balance between protection and public safety and the public’s right to peacefully protest,’ Assistant Chief Constable Mark Williams told Press Association Scotland. ‘With that in mind and on this occasion we are unable to grant permission for the balloon to fly in that area, however we are in discussion with the applicants about possible alternatives.’
The 20ft high blimp is chasing Trump through the U.K. and will still come to Scotland, although organizers have yet to say where they will instead deploy it.
According to PA Scotland, nearly 9,000 people signed a petition asking local authorities to overturn the decision to ban it from Trump Turnberry.
Balloon babysitter Matthew Butcher said the blimp is meant to ‘hold up a mirror’ to Trump’s ‘toddler-like politics.’
‘I think that the thing that the Trump balloon does is that it brings an element of fun to the protests, but it also gets under Donald Trump’s very thin skin,’ he told PA Scotland.
While the president is likely to face protests near Turnberry, one place he won’t encounter naysayers is in the airspace near and over his luxurious Ayrshire property. Scottish Police denied a request from a protest group fly a Trump Baby Blimp overhead
Trump brushed off the planned protests of his policies when he’s in Scotland, saying Thursday at a news conference that he’s used to confrontation. After all, he’s been facing protests over his rule since the night he was elected.
‘I’m sure there will be protests, because there are always protests. But I think — there were protests the night of the election, both ways,’ he said. ‘But in the end, we got 206 electoral — 306 electoral votes.’
He told the Sun that the expected protests in London had, however, rubbed him the wrong way.
In the interview that posted after his arrival in the U.K., Trump said the blimp made him feel ‘unwelcome’ in England’s capital and took shots at the city’s mayor Sadiq Khan, who had approved the the use of balloon while he was there..
Trump told the newspaper, ‘I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London.’
‘I used to love London as a city. I haven’t been there in a long time. But when they make you feel unwelcome, why would I stay there?’ he said, hinting at a possible reason for his quick recusal to Scotland.
Trump participated in a defense demonstration and working meetings on Friday with May before an engagement at Windsor Castle with Her Majesty The Queen prior to his departure for Scotland.
‘Following the visit to Windsor, the President and the First Lady will travel to Scotland to spend some time preparing for Helsinki,’ Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to the U.K., told reporters last Friday.
Asked directly about the president’s favorite sport and whether he would visit any of his golf courses, Johnson said, ‘Whether the President plays golf or not, I’m not sure.
‘I think that’s — he’s going to spend a lot of time preparing for Helsinki,’ the U.S. ambassador said. ‘That’s a very important agreement — very important meeting, rather. And his schedule hasn’t been finalized.’
Trump made no mention of golf at his press conferences in Europe, saying instead on Thursday, ‘I have great friendships. My mother was born in Scotland. I have great friendships over there.’
The U.S. president will depart Scotland for Finland on Sunday. He has a meeting on Monday in Helsinki with Putin.