President Barack Obama takes selfies and pumps iron at hotel gyms. He also sometimes uses colloquialisms when he addresses at least one foreign leader.
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday revealed that his relationship with Obama is so close that the president “sometimes calls me ‘bro’” during telephone conversations at his office at 10 Downing Street in London.
“The president has said the special relationship is stronger than it has ever been privately and in public, and I agree,” Cameron, who is seeking reelection in May, said in an interview with the British newspaper The Daily Mail.
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Cameron’s comments marked another example of the personal bond between the two leaders. In the past, they snapped a selfie, co-wrote an op-ed vowing renewed support for NATO amid Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine and ISIS’s barbarism in the Middle East, paired up for ping pong, and attended a National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball game. The Obamas once gave the Camerons a barbecue grill and monogrammed bean bag chairs. In return, the British family supplied the Obamas with a ping pong table.
“When you see us standing next to each other, it is quite clear that the person who needs the exercise is the British prime minister and the person who needs the barbecue is the president of the United States,” Cameron joked in March 2012.
The duo that first defined this “special relationship” between American and British leaders were former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who lived at the White House periodically during World War II. Also, former President George W. Bush often greeted former British Prime Minister Tony Blair by saying, “Yo, Blair.”
Michele Richinick