Trump shrugs

Trump shrugs: 'Looks like' EU breakup is on its way

By Louis Nelson

The European Union is likely to break up as result of Britain's vote to leave, Donald Trump said Friday morning in Scotland, casting the stunning overnight referendum results as just the start of a larger movement across the continent and around the world.

“Well, it looks like it’s on its way and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said when asked if he saw Great Britain's vote as a precursor to a European Union breakup. “So I could see it happening. I have no opinion, really, but I could certainly see it happening. I saw this happening. I could read what was happening here and I could see things happening in Germany.

"I hope they straighten out the situation because you know it can really be very nasty. What’s going on can be really really nasty," he said.

“People want to take their country back. They want to have independence, in a sense. You see it with Europe, all over Europe,” Trump said. “You’re going to have more than just what happened last night, you’re going to have, I think, many other cases where they want to take their borders back, they want to take their monetary back, they want to take a lot of things back. They want to be able to have a country again. So I think you’re going to have this happen more and more, I really believe that.”

Trump’s visit to Scotland was largely a business trip to his newly renovated Turnberry golf course, though he cast it as an effort to support his family. He spent the bulk of his opening remarks at a press conference on the course’s 9th tee talking up renovations to the property and thanking his family and business associates. He was accompanied on the trip by his adult children.

“I really do see a parallel between what's happening in the United States and what's happening here,” Trump said, connecting his own America first message to Britain’s “leave” vote. “People want to see borders. They don't necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don't know who they are and where they come from.”