King Charles is heading to America in just hours for his US state visit to see Donald Trump amid years of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex butting heads with the US president
King Charles is just hours away from kicking off his eagerly-awaited US state visit where he will have meetings with president Donald Trump.
The controversial trip comes amid a volley of verbal attacks by Trump on Prime Minister Keir Starmer amid the UK and other Nato allies not joining his war in Iran, leading to the US president to describe the PM as being “no Winston Churchill” and branding the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers as ‘toys’.
But it seems it might not be the only elephant in the Oval Office when the King travels to Washington. That’s because Trump has often butted heads online with Charles’ estranged son Prince Harry and daughter-in-law Meghan Markle, engaging in a war of words.
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In recent years, Trump has lashed out at the Sussexes over their decision to quit the Firm in 2020, with the president launching a series of scathing attacks on both Harry and Meghan…
Security scuffle
When Harry and Meghan were in the midst of moving to the US, speculation was mounting over who would fit the bill for the Sussexes’ security, and Trump was adamant it would not be the US government.
He tweeted in March 2020: “I am a great friend and admirer of the Queen & the United Kingdom. It was reported that Harry and Meghan, who left the Kingdom, would reside permanently in Canada. Now they have left Canada for the U.S. however, the U.S. will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!”
It was later clarified that the couple had no intention of asking for security from the government and would foot the bill themselves.
Election outrage
Soon after Harry and Meghan moved to California six years ago, Trump was up for re-election at the end of his first term in office and went head-to-head with current President Joe Biden. During the campaign, the Sussexes appeared in a video urging Americans to ‘vote against hate speech’.
While they did not specifically mention anyone by name, the remarks were interpreted as referring to Mr Trump and therefore an endorsement of Mr Biden, with some claiming it was a breach of the Sandringham Summit agreement.
Later Mr Trump spoke out saying he was “no fan” of Meghan and added: “I wish a lot of luck to Harry, he’s going to need it.”
Harry attacks
After losing the 2020 election, Trump then hit out at Harry in several interviews when he was asked about the Royal Family. He told Nigel Farage in 2021 that Harry’s marriage had “ruined his relationship with his family” and that it “hurts the Queen”.
A year later in 2022, he told Piers Morgan : “Harry is whipped like no person I think I’ve ever seen” and added Meghan will likely leave him “when she decides that she likes some other guy better”.
When it emerged a year later that Harry had been invited to King Charles‘ Coronation and would be attending, as Trump told Mr Farage in another chat: “I was actually surprised that Harry was invited to be honest. He said some terrible things…the book [Spare] was just…to me, it was horrible.”
Visa row
In 2024, Harry found himself in the centre of a row over his visa, which allows him to live in California. After admitting to using marijuana, cocaine and psychedelic mushrooms in his controversial memoir Spare, a lawsuit from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation argued that the US Government should release records about the Duke’s US visa application to show whether his drug use was disclosed.
Before a ruling was made in the case, Mr Trump raged at the Biden administration for maintaining the privacy of Harry’s immigration application in order to “protect Harry.”
He told the Express US : “I wouldn’t protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me.”
Meghan’s blunt response
Amid the visa row, Trump later clarified he would not be taking action against Harry saying he had “enough problems with his wife” and branding her terrible.
But on a podcast back in August, Meghan refused to get drawn into the controversy when she was asked about him and the then riots between locals and ICE agents, after tough immigration laws came into effect.
In an interview on The Circuit YouTube show, host Emily Chang, she recalled Meghan’s interview on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore in 2016, when the Duchess was still working as an actress before she met Prince Harry, and spoke about her “choice words” she had for Trump at the time.
During the 2016 interview, Meghan called Trump “divisive and misogynistic”, before she explained: “You don’t really want that kind of world.” Emily asked Meghan about the comments, saying: “Are there things you’re dying to say or do right now but you feel like you can’t?”
Meghan deflected the question as she responded: “No, I just make a choice of what matters to me and what’s important to me. And that was a different time in 2016 certainly. I think if there’s anything I wanted to say or that felt necessary to say, then I would say it, but that’s not where I’m at right now. I haven’t said anything [political] since 2016, which was well before I met my husband too.”
Army controversy
More recently, Harry hit back at claims made by Trump in January this year that NATO soldiers didn’t serve on the frontlines of Afghanistan.
The Duke of Sussex, a former soldier who served in Afghanistan, made an emotional appeal to remember the sacrifices made by allies who “answered the call” in aid of the US. His statement came following comments from the President – a known draft-dodger – that were branded “insulting and frankly appalling”.
The royal spent two tours in Afghanistan, his first being 10 weeks in Helmand Province between 2007 and 2008, before returning a few years later in 2012 and staying for 20 weeks with the Army Air Corps.
He said: “I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there. The United Kingdom alone had 457 service personnel killed. Thousands of lives were changed forever. Mothers and fathers buried sons and daughters. Children were left without a parent. Families are left carrying the cost. Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defence of diplomacy and peace.”
Harry released his statement after the US President denigrated NATO troops who were deployed to Afghanistan, claiming they had served “a little off the frontlines”.
He claimed: “We’ve never needed them. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan… and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.”
Ukraine comments
On Thursday, just days before King Charles is expected to arrive in the US, Donald Trump said Prince Harry is not speaking for the UK after the Duke of Sussex called on the President to do more to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
Harry arrived in Kyiv on Thursday where he delivered a speech at the Kyiv Security Forum, issuing messages to both Trump and Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Harry told the Russian president: “Years into this war with immense losses and limited gains, it is increasingly clear that this path offers no victor – only more loss.”
The Prince did not mention Donald Trump by name but he said he had a message for the “American leadership”. Harry said the US – his adopted country – has a “singular role” in this conflict because, when Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons, America had pledged to protect Ukraine’s borders and its sovereignty.
When asked about Harry’s comments by reporters, Trump said: “How’s he doing? How’s his wife? Please give her my regards, OK?” He went on: “I don’t know. I know one thing, Prince Harry is not speaking for the UK, that’s for sure. I think I’m speaking for the UK more than Prince Harry, that’s for sure. But thank him for his advice.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
