UPDATE - Trump slams UK envoy over leaked insults

UPDATES WITH REMARKS BY UK PM SPOKESMAN, UK TRADE MINISTER, AND ONE DELETED SENTENCE AT THE BOTTOM; RE-EDITED THROUGHOUT

By Vakkas Dogantekin

ANKARA (AA) - U.S. President Donald Trump has slammed Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. over leaked emails insulting the "dysfunctional" Trump administration.

"We are not big fans of that man and he has not served well to the UK. I can tell you that," Trump told reporters on Sunday.

"I can say things about him but I won't bother," Trump added.

As published by The Daily Mail on Sunday, Ambassador Kim Darroch told his superiors in London: "We don't really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction-riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept."

His private evaluation of Trump in the leaked memos -- whose authenticity has been confirmed by the British government -- included words like "insecure" and "incompetent."

Darroch told U.K. officials that Trump's "career could end in disgrace," and used the term "knife fights" to describe the political situation within the White House.

Speaking on the incident, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman told reporters Monday: "Contact has been made with the Trump administration, setting out our view that we believe the leak is unacceptable.”

“It is, of course, a matter of regret that this has happened.”

British Trade Minister Liam Fox told BBC Radio that when he sees Trump’s daughter Ivanka in Washington this week, he would apologize for what he called a "most extraordinary and unacceptable" lapse.

Such "malicious leaks" can harm British-U.S. relations and "our wider security interest,” he warned.

The leaks came just weeks after the queen hosted Trump and his family with a 41-gun salute and a state banquet at Buckingham Palace.

Though controversial, the leaks largely square with many accounts of the Trump administration by insiders in both books and press accounts.