Video: Donald Trump draws laughs as he suggests some kind of Irish 'merger' - which would cause 'trouble'

Mr Trump was speaking at the Friends of Ireland gathering on Capitol Hill, where he also suggested that if he hadn’t won the 2024 election he could be spending his time in Ireland.

During the opening remarks of his speech, as he stood in front of the Irish tricolour and the stars-and-stripes, he thanked various dignitaries present.

Here is a verbatim transcript of what he said: "Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and they get along so well – I saw that, you get along very well together, that's the way it's supposed to be, huh?

"I don't know if I should be promoting merger.

"I love mergers [laughter] but I don't d-... we're going to get it a little to-... we're going to get in more trouble, more trouble with that than the beauty.

"But Emma Little-Pengelly, thank you very much Emma, thank you very much.”

It is not immediately clear if he meant a merger of the Republic and Northern Ireland, a merger of the DUP and Sinn Fein, or something else.

It is possible that his comment about “more trouble than the beauty” refers to an earlier part of his address, when he indicated he would get in trouble for describing a woman as “beautiful”.

He also went on to say: “I wasn’t supposed to be president right now.

"It was supposed to be… maybe in Ireland, taking it easy, or someplace taking it easy.

"But I’m president now.”

He went on to say that the war in Iran is “proceeding very, very strongly” and the USA is “knocking the hell out of them” because "we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon – they were two weeks away, in my opinion, two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon”.

Returning to the subject of Ireland, he said Irish people were “incredible” but “they’re difficult though, they’re very difficult – and they’re great politicians”.

"I was just told that 23 American presidents have some Irish blood in them.

"Some a little bit – and some a lot.

"That’s a pretty big number… nobody else competes with that.”

He said 11 signatories of the Declaration of Independence were “patriots with their roots in Ireland”.

Then he referred to Strabane man John Dunlap, an emigre to America who produced the first printed copies of the US Declaration of Independence (as such, his name appears at the bottom: “Philadelphia: printed by John Dunlap”).

Mr Trump said: “On July 4, 1776, it was a son of Ireland who actually printed that sacred document for the first time – who knew that?

"And it was also an Irishman who first read its immortal words to the American public, proclaiming aloud that we are all made free and equal by the hand of our Creator, and endowed by God with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [colonel John Nixon].

"It came out of the blood of Ireland.

"The Irish did not come to America – they helped found America, the fact is.”

He noted that Fort McHenry in Baltimore is named after James McHenry (an Ulster-Scot from Ballymena who helped to found the United States).

He also made reference to the fact the Irish Open golf tournament is being held at his course in Doonbeg, Ireland, in September, telling his son Eric to “say hello to Rory McIlroy and all of those great players, ‘cause they are truly great talents – they’re wonderful people, friends of mine”.