Dr Mahathir Mohamad has responded to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's allegation that millions were forked out to arrange a meeting between the former premier and then United States president George W Bush.

However, in a blog post this morning, Mahathir focused on his meeting with Bush's predecessor Ronald Reagan in 1984 and compared this to Najib's visit to the White House last week.

Soon after touching down at KLIA, Najib opened fire on Mahathir, claiming the latter paid lobbyists millions in Tenaga Nasional contracts to arrange a meeting with Bush at the White House.

The prime minister said Mahathir had put the late home minister Megat Junid Megat Ayub in charge of making the arrangements.

Megat Junid's son, Megat Fairouz also claimed in a news report that millions were paid for the meeting. 

However, Mahathir's blog post did not make clear which US president he was referring to when addressing allegations of having paid for a White House meeting.

"Megat Junid's son said I paid millions to lobbyists to meet the US president. This was apparently told to him by his father.

"I don't know whether this statement is true or not. Maybe the Wisma (Putra) officer who arranged my meeting knows.

"What I know is there was no instruction from me to lobby (for a meeting)," Mahathir said.

Met four US presidents

He then recalled that when he first became prime minister, he prioritised visiting other countries before finally going to the US to meet its president in 1984.

He had met with Bush in the Oval Office in 2002.

Mahathir's only mention of Bush in the blog post was that he had unofficial meetings with the 43rd US president, as well as other presidents, including George H Bush and Bill Clinton, in Washington and in other locations.

"Usually, I would raise the question of palm oil and the US' attitude towards Muslim countries," he said.

The allegation that Mahathir paid to meet Bush first garnered attention in 2005.

The Washington Post reported at the time that Mahathir had allegedly hired Washington lobbyists, through the US-based Heritage Foundation, to persuade the White House to agree to the meeting.

The report claimed that the expenditure for the lobby activities amounted to about RM5.3 million.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times claimed that the Mahathir government paid Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff US$1.2 million to set up the Bush meeting.

While denying that he or the government had paid any money to Abramoff, Mahathir said that money had been paid to set up the meeting.

"I understood some people paid a sum of money to lobbyists in America but I do not know who these people were and it was not the Malaysian government," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency in 2006.

"I did not touch the money at all. In the US, it is a practice that if you want to meet their leader, you have to go through a lobbyist and the lobbyist has to be paid.

"That is their system. It is not corruption at all and it is very open, but they don't reveal names," he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

Mahathir said the meeting was arranged by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"They said I would be able to influence (Bush) in some way regarding his policies.

Helis and limousines

Earlier in his blog post, Mahathir recounted the VIP treatment he received when he went to the US to meet Reagan.

He said the US had sent the president's special jet to LaGuardia Airport in New York to fly him and his wife Dr Siti Hasmah Ali to Washington.

They were then flown to the city in the president's helicopter, and welcomed by top US officials before they made their way to the Willard Hotel in Washington DC, as the Blair House (the White House's guest house) was under repair.

Mahathir also remembered how two stretch limousines with tinted windows were provided in his trip to the White House.

"Najib, instead, was welcomed at Washington Airport by the Malaysian ambassador to the US and he stayed at (US President Donald) Trump's hotel, which is known to be very expensive.

"Actually, Najib received the worst treatment compared to the treatment the other leaders and I received during our first official trip to the US,” he said.

Based on news reports and the American media, Mahathir claimed that Najib was treated like an outcast (pariah).