Donald Trump told Theresa May she was ‘weak’ and called Angela Merkel ‘stupid’ in a series of leaked phone calls, according to veteran reporter Carl Bernstein.

The journalist who broke the Watergate scandal said the US President was much more friendly with Vladimir Putin, speaking to him with the tone of ‘two guys in a steam bath’.

Trump was said to be so unprepared for calls with world leaders in which he was ‘outplayed by adversaries’ and ‘hostile to traditional allies’ that several US officials considered him to be a danger to national security, according to Bernstein’s report for CNN.

Sources claim the POTUS constantly boasted to Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un about his own wealth and ‘genius’. While talking to Putin, the President reportedly bragged about his ‘unprecedented’ success in building the US economy and criticised the ‘imbeciles’ and ‘weaklings’ who served before him – especially Barack Obama.

Sources said all of these classified calls were recorded by professional notetakers, along with voice-generated computer texts. According to Bernstein Trump’s most scathing attacks were made to female world leaders.

His conversations with Theresa May between 2016 and 2019 were described as ‘humiliating and bullying. He reportedly called the former Prime Minister a ‘fool’ and said she was ‘spineless’ over Brexit, immigration and NATO.

A source added: ‘He’d get agitated about something with Theresa May, then he’d get nasty with her on the phone call. It’s the same interaction in every setting — coronavirus or Brexit — with just no filter applied.’

May is said to have sounded ‘flustered and nervous’ while on the phone to Trump, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained ‘unruffled’ by whatever was thrown at her.

The President called her ‘stupid’ and accused her of being ‘in the pocket of the Russians’ in a series of ‘near-sadistic’ phone calls, Bernstein’s report claims. One source told him: ‘Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable… He’s toughest with those he looks at as weaklings and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with.’

Trump also reportedly ignored the UK’s request to ask Merkel to publicly hold Putin accountable for the Salisbury poisoning of ex-Russian spy spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

Sources compared Putin to a ‘chess grandmaster’ and Trump to an ‘occasional player of checkers’ who ‘sits there and thinks he can build himself up enough as a businessman and tough guy’ to win the Russian leader’s respect.

National security aides said they were left ‘flabbergasted’ by some of their calls, in which Trump avoided important bilateral issues between the two countries, including human rights and an arms control agreement.

Trump reportedly told Turkey’s Erdogan that Obama and George W. Bush ‘didn’t know BS’ and that dealing with him would be ‘far more fruitful’, according to Bernstein.

Trump was also said to have regularly ‘bullied and disparaged’ a number of other world leaders including Australia’s Scott Morrison, France’s Emmanuel Macron, and Canada’s Justin Trudeau.

A spokesman for Morrison denied the claims, saying: ‘The Prime Minister has only ever had polite, respectful and positive calls with the President’.

Sources familiar with his phone calls say he would typically start off with a grievance and launch into a tirade. One said: ‘With almost every problem, all it takes is someone asking him to do something as President on behalf of the United States and he doesn’t see it that way; he goes to being ripped off; he’s not interested in cooperative issues or working on them together; instead he’s deflecting things or pushing real issues off into a corner.’

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