Trump was offended that a Republican senator compared him to Winston Churchill — and called to let him know

• Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia once compared President Donald Trump to Winston Churchill.
• Trump did not find this to be a compliment, Perdue told Business Insider.

A top Republican once compared President Donald Trump to Winston Churchill – but the president did not find this to be a compliment.

Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, who is close with the president, chatted with The New York Times in November for a story about Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the accuracy of the “Access Hollywood” tape. That recording, released a month before the 2016 presidential election, featured Trump making vulgar comments about women.

Perdue told The Times that Trump was “nobody’s choir boy, but neither were people like Winston Churchill, for example.” He added that, like Churchill, the UK prime minister during World War II, Trump “is a historic person of destiny at a time and place in America when we’ve got to make a right-hand turn here.”

Trump took offense to the comparison, Perdue told Business Insider.

"And so he saw that New York Times article - he called me up and said, 'So you think I'm like Churchill?'" Perdue said. "He didn't think that was a compliment."

Churchill is credited with turning around Britain's fate in World War II as the rest of Europe fell to the Axis.