Scottish Press Under Fire Over Trump Headline – Here’s What Really Happened

PRESTWICK, SCOTLAND: Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trumpvis­it­ed Scot­land on Fri­day, July 25, for a four-day pri­vate vis­it. 

How­ev­er, before Trump land­ed in Scot­land, a rumor cir­cu­lat­ed online claim­ing that Scot­tish news­pa­per The Nation­al ran a front page sto­ry with the head­line “Con­vict­ed US felon to arrive in Scot­land”. But is there any truth to this? Let us find out below

Claim: Scottish newspaper The National’s headline about Trump’s visit referred to him as ‘convicted US felon’

In July, before Pres­i­dent Trump flew to Scot­land for trade talks and golf, rumors cir­cu­lat­ed online claim­ing that the Scot­tish news­pa­per The Nation­al’s front page read “Con­vict­ed US felon to arrive in Scot­land”.

A Red­dit user made a post and wrote, “Trump is expect­ed to arrive in Scot­land tomor­row. This is the front page of The Nation­al

An alleged pic­ture of the front page of the news­pa­per was also attached in the post.

The rumor also cir­cu­lat­ed across social media plat­form X where users shared the same post.

The out­let’s X account also post­ed a video that showed one of the news­pa­per’s jour­nal­ists, Lau­ra Pol­lock, hold­ing the print ver­sion, and say­ing, “Sup­port­ers of Don­ald Trump are very angry at our front page this morn­ing but we have a chal­lenge for them. Which part is fac­tu­al­ly inac­cu­rate?”

Inter­est­ing­ly, Trump was con­vict­ed on May 30, 2024, by a Man­hat­tan jury on all 34 felony counts of fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records relat­ed to hush-mon­ey pay­ments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

How­ev­er, he received an “uncon­di­tion­al dis­charge” sen­tence on Jan­u­ary 10, 2025, but the con­vic­tion remains on his record.

Donald Trump’s Scotland visit

Pres­i­dent Trump land­ed in Scot­land for his first trip to the UK dur­ing his sec­ond run as the POTUS. He is set to meet UK Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer, Scot­tish First Min­is­ter John Swin­ney, and Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Ursu­la von der Leyen.

White House press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­ittmen­tioned that the trip would be a “work­ing vis­it that will include a bilat­er­al meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Starmer to refine the his­toric US-UK trade deal”.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump points as he arrives at Glas­gow Prest­wick Air­port while War­ren Stephens Ambas­sador to the Unit­ed King­dom (Left) stands beside him on July 25, 2025, in Prest­wick, Scot­land (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The POTUS and British PM Keir Starmer are expect­ed to con­tin­ue their trade talks days after the two par­ties reached an agree­ment on the Lib­er­a­tion Day tar­iffs, per the White House.

More­over, the UK orig­i­nal­ly faced a 10 per­cent base­line tar­iff, but the deal low­ered rates on auto­mo­biles and steel.

Fur­ther­more, Trump is expect­ed to vis­it his golf cours­es in Scot­land — Trump Turn­ber­ry and Trump Inter­na­tion­al Scot­land.

Inter­est­ing­ly, this trip comes ahead of the open­ing of a sec­ond golf course at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Scot­land resort.