London’s New Mayor: I Won’t Be Able To Visit The U.S. If Donald Trump Wins

Newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he wants to travel to the U.S. to collaborate with other mayors — but he won’t be able to if Donald Trump wins the presidency.

Khan, who was elected mayor last week after fending off racially c-harged attacks f-rom his opponents, is Muslim. Trump, the presumed Republican nominee for U.S. president, has vowed to ban anyone practicing Islam f-rom entering the United States. The GOP hopeful defended this plan as recently as Sunday, but has also indicated that he’d allow exceptions to the ban for sporting events and heads of state.

Khan pointed out that such a ban could prevent meaningful political collaboration. 

“I think Bill de Blasio is doing interesting housing stuff in New York, Rahm Emanuel is doing interesting stuff with the infrastructure bank in Chicago,” he told Time in an interview on Sunday. “I want to go to America to meet with and engage with American mayors. If Donald Trump becomes the president I’ll be stopped f-rom going there by virtue of my faith, which means I can’t engage with American mayors and swap ideas.”

But Khan, whose parents immigrated to the U.K. f-rom Pakistan, also didn’t seem too worried about Trump’s threats.

“Conservative tacticians thought those sort of tactics would win London and they were wrong,” he said. “I’m confident that Donald Trump’s approach to politics won’t win in America.”

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — f-rom entering the U.S.