Meeting the proud pro-Trumper who could be Romania's new president

We are ushered down some stairs beside a Lebanese restaurant and along a path next to a small garden.

We walk past some guards, into a private dining room and there is a man in a hoodie, offering a hand. This is George Simion, just 38 years old but now sitting on the threshold of remarkable power.

He is the populist politician who has made it to the run-off to become Romania's president. The disruptor up against the mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan.

The radical against the centrist. Simion apologises for dressing down and tells me, with a laugh, that he will be wearing a suit "when I meet President Zelenskyy and President Trump".

The name Trump will crop up a few times in our conversation. On the table next to him is a red Make America Great Again baseball hat.

Simion makes no secret of his admiration for Donald Trump. So what, I ask, does he take from the leadership style of the American president? "His way of speaking the truth," he replies.

"His way of defending one's country and one's interests. "We are all, in Europe and America, fed up with politically correct people who undermine our freedom and opinions.

"We are fighting for freedom of speech and free election. We are fighting for God against evil." The remarkable thing about this election is that, really, it shouldn't be happening.

It is six months since the initial presidential election was annulled, after the country's highest court decided that the leading candidate, the nationalist Calin Georgescu, should be disqualified due to allegations of electoral interference by Russia. Simion could be the one to prosper from that.

But - and here's the twist - he's also been one of the loudest critics of the decision to cancel the election. He blames "the deep state" for trying to subvert democracy, and insists the move has failed.

"They managed to build a big statue for Mr Georgescu to make him a big victim," says Simion. "Clearly the majority of the Romanian people now hate their guts for how they manage to govern the country.

"We are getting poorer and poorer and that's why we have so many Romanians in Great Britain." And in the biggest twist of all, he now talks of bringing Georgescu into government, should he win the presidency. So, I ask, would he really offer the job of prime minister to Georgescu - a man who once told me that COVID wasn't real and that he was being undermined by a global conspiracy led by George Soros? "If we have a landslide victory tomorrow - and if Calin Georgescu wants it - then yes, of course.

"They tried to ban me, kick me out, bribe me - with lots and lots of cash. I'm not for sale.

I'm doing this for my country and for honour." He said he would follow Trump's lead on Ukraine, which neighbours Romania, and played down any suggestion that he would extend a hand of friendship to Moscow. "Russia left really bad memories here, and many scars, and we don't believe that in the foreseeable future we would have good relations," he told me.

He did support peace negotiations between Russia and the United States, insisting they would need to include security guarantees, particularly to protect countries such as Romania and the Baltic states. Read more:The chilling moment in Russia-Ukraine peace talksIt's the Trump era and Putin knows how to exploit it 'We want you Brits back' And there was a word, too, for Britain.

Simion told me he regretted Britain's decision to leave the European Union, but said he could understand "why you want to get away from Ursula von der Leyden and Emmanuel Macron". Romania, he emphasised, had worked hard to get a place within the EU and NATO "so we are here to stay and won't be going anywhere".

But he said the EU should focus on being an economic project - the idea of a more federal Europe seems to horrify him. "We would like more and more cooperation with you British," he said.

"We feel bad that we are not in the same single market and we share lots of history together and we want you Brits back. "I learned much more about British culture and civilisation during the English lessons in my school than many of your high school kids do.

So we hope to have the same future as part of the free world." 'It will be a landslide' Our time is up, but before I leave he shows me a chart on the wall, marked with predictions from his team. The most optimistic has him winning with 57% of the vote, but he disagrees.

"It will be a landslide," he tells me. "At least 60%." He may not have decades of experience, but he does not lack for confidence..