British Prime Minister Theresa May has said that US President Donald Trump advised her to sue the EU over Brexit during his visit to the UK this week.
Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mrs May said: "He told me I should sue the EU. Not go into negotiation, sue them."
She added: "What the president also said at that press conference was 'Don't walk away. Don't walk away from the negotiations. Then you're stuck'."
Mr Trump had said in an interview published on Friday that Mrs May had not followed his advice on Brexit - one of a number of comments that were seen as a damning critique of her exit plans and added fuel to the raging debate over Mrs May's plans to leave the EU.
The US president later used a news conference with Mrs May to play down his earlier remarks, saying he understood why she had found the advice "a little bit tough".
Mr Trump also said the United States and Britain could secure a "great" post-Brexit trade deal.
Mrs May insisted that her controversial blueprint for Brexit represents a "good deal" for the UK.
Amid mounting Tory anger over her proposal for a "common rule book" with the EU on trade in goods, she acknowledged she had been forced to make changes to her original plans by Brussels.
However, she said that result was a plan that would deliver "benefits" for Britain, protecting jobs and ensuring there would be no need for a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Mrs May defended her revised Brexit plan, agreed by her cabinet at Chequers, which led to the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson.
"This is a good deal for the UK. In this one area we needed to make a change - the question of trade in goods in relationship to the frictionless border - we needed to make a change," she said.
"We needed to come forward with another option to in order to ensure that we can get those negotiations on trade. The clock is ticking.
"But this a deal that has benefits. Our companies will abide by these rules anyway, giving them frictionless border means that the jobs that depend on that frictionless trade will be protected.
"It means we deliver on the Northern Ireland border. It means we have got benefits out of this deal. This is a good deal for the UK."
Mrs May said she had come forward with her revised approach after the EU offered two options for a deal - neither of which was acceptable to the UK.
"The European Commission' proposals that it put forward were no good. On the one hand it what would have been for us a very poor trade deal and would have kept Northern Ireland in the customs union, effectively carving Northern Ireland out in these terms of the UK. That is unacceptable to any government here in the UK," she said.
"On the other hand what they call EEA (European Economic Area) plus, which would have meant accepting free movement and accepting being in the customs union. Both of those are unacceptable. They are what people voted against.
"Faced with that we had an option. We could go for no deal - no deal is still there, it is still possible - but I think the best thing for the UK is to have a deal that sets a good relationship with our trading partners in the future.
"So if we were going to find something that was Britain's interest, that delivered on the referendum and that was negotiable, we had to make what is a compromise but is a positive in terms of the benefits it gives us."
May warns hard border cannot be legacy of Brexit
Mrs May has also said the legacy of Brexit cannot be a hard border on the island of Ireland that unpicks the Good Friday Agreement.
She also warned Tory rebels seeking to wreck her blueprint to leave the EU that they could be left with "no Brexit at all" unless they fall into line.
Mrs May said threatened Commons revolts by pro- and anti-EU MPs risked undermining any chances of a deal with Brussels.
In an article for The Mail on Sunday, she called for MPs to take a "practical and pragmatic" approach rather than face a "damaging and disorderly" Brexit.
However Brexiteer MPs, including arch-Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg, also took to the Sunday papers to make their opposition to the her approach clear.
Mrs May faces accusations the British government's Brexit White Paper was "surreptitiously" drafted in order to replace a version produced by David Davis's Brexit department.
In a scathing article in the Sunday Express, Mr Rees-Mogg suggested there had been an attempt to "gull Brexiteers", warning it had "broken trust".
The damning verdict from the head of the European Research Group of Leave-supporting MPs is likely to fuel speculation Mrs May could face a challenge to her leadership.
She acknowledged some MPs had concerns about her plan for a "common rule book" with the EU for goods and customs traded within what she called a new "UK-EU free trade area".
However, she insisted that she had yet to see a "workable alternative" to the proposals - agreed by her Cabinet at Chequers - that would ensure trade remained as "frictionless" as possible while avoiding the return of a hard border in Northern Ireland.
"We need to keep our eyes on the prize. If we don't, we risk ending up with no Brexit at all," she said.
"I know there are some who have concerns about the 'common rule book' for goods and the customs arrangements which we have proposed will underpin the new UK-EU free trade area. I understand those concerns," she said.
She added: "But the legacy of Brexit cannot be a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland that unpicks the historic Belfast Agreement.
"It cannot be the breaking up of our precious United Kingdom with a border down the Irish Sea.
"And it cannot be the destruction of integrated supply chains and just-in-time processes on which jobs and livelihoods depend."
Mr Rees-Mogg said Mrs May had apparently abandoned her "red lines" that had won her the support of the party in March.
Since setting out the five tests for a Brexit deal in her Mansion House speech, Mrs May had been "in a headlong retreat but in an oddly secretive manner," Mr Rees-Mogg said.
He alleged a white paper drawn up by former Brexit Secretary Mr Davis's department had been in vain.
"This was a waste of time and money because Downing Street was surreptitiously writing its own paper," Mr Rees-Mogg said.
"This is, at best, an untrusting way to behave and a more severe commentator would call it untrustworthy," he wrote.
"The Chequers U-turn, the failure of the Mansion House test and abandonment of "Brexit means Brexit" have broken trust.
"It would have been more straightforward to admit that no real Brexit was the intention all along rather than trying to gull Brexiteers.
"Perhaps we ought to have realised earlier on that a Remainer would stick with Remain."
