Donald Trump’s Scottish cousin Calum Murray sends blunt message to US President-elect
Trump's family worry about the publicity he would attract to the tiny Outer Hebridean island
JUBILANT Calum Murray sent congratulations to cousin Donald Trump — but urged the President not to hurry back to his mum’s Scottish island home.
Calum fears a return visit by the Leader of the Free World would bring an unwanted blaze of global media scrutiny to tiny Tong on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides - where his aunt Mary Anne, Trump's mum, was born.
But he promised his all-powerful relative his Scots family is made up for him after Tuesday’s bombshell poll triumph.
Calum, 69, said much has changed since Trump’s last visit eight years ago. He went on: “It’s been a journey — we are very happy and very proud of him.
“But I don’t know if it would be possible for him to come back. It was different then — the island couldn’t cope with it now.”
At the family home, cousin Alasdair said: “Of course everyone here is happy for him. We are just waiting for it to sink in a bit.”
Trump, 70, was best known as a billionaire businessman and presenter of reality TV smash The Apprentice USA when he last set foot on Lewis.
He flew into Stornoway on a private jet with his name on the side, he had a photo taken with Alasdair and said: “I feel very comfortable here — I think I do feel Scottish.”
Fan Derick Mackenzie, 52 — who researched Trump’s links to the island and set up a Facebook page backing his presidency bid — also hailed his triumph.
He said in Stornoway: “It’s a proud day for the island.
“It’s a long way from Lewis to the White House although he still has strong links here.”
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He hopes anti-Trump locals will change their mind about his hero.
Derick added: “Fence sitters might come around and those who were afraid to speak in support of him might feel they can now. It would be good if he came back. He is not one to hold grudges.
“If someone comes around to him he will bring them into the fold.”
Meanwhile, locals in Girvan, Ayrshire, down the road from Trump’s Turnberry golf complex, revealed they recoiled in horror when they heard he had won.
Annette Borland, 62, said yesterday: “The man’s a maniac.
“His whole campaign was little more than a hate campaign against Hillary Clinton.
“He just opens his mouth and says what he thinks — and damn the consequences. We don’t live in America, but the people that he’s going to come up against, the leaders in other countries, is hugely worrying.”
Carol McGeechan, 56, added: “I was up all night watching the election — it was terrifying.
“Goodness knows what’s going to happen to the world — he’s such a divisive man.
“Maybe people want someone a bit ballsy in the job to see if it makes a change.”
Steven Hill, 19, said: “It’s a bit like putting a large baby into the White House.
“I think he is just a bit of an attention seeker.
“I don’t believe he’s as bad as people make him out — he says stuff to rile people.”
But John Lennie, 31, said: “It’s similar to Brexit, I think working class people have not been recognised and this is who he’s targeted. I don’t think it’s going to have a big impact on us.
“All of these people voting for him are uneducated in what’s happening, I think that’s how he’s won.
“I don’t know what the next four years are going to hold but I don’t think we are going to be unsafe.”
We told earlier this year how a family scandal on Lewis in the 1900s led to Trump’s life in America — and ultimately to his winning the White House race.
Mum Mary Anne’s unmarried sister Catherine Ann Macleod emigrated to the States after she fell pregnant with an illegitimate child and abandoned it.
She fled to New York with Mary Anne — who was later to meet Trump’s father Fred.
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