Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK will go down September 17-19. At first, King Charles (and the government) offered Trump a more informal visit to Balmoral this summer, because Trump is currently on vacation in Scotland right now. But Trump turned him down and demanded a real state visit, so now Charles has to play host to this degenerate in September. According to the Daily Beast’s Royalist, there are significant concerns among palace staff that Trump will go off-script and say some wildly offensive sh-t about immigrants. I mean… Charles will be really lucky if that’s the worst thing that happens.
King Charles III is “very concerned” that President Donald Trump could launch into an unfiltered rant about immigration while standing alongside him during his state visit to the United Kingdom in September after Trump claimed a “horrible invasion” of migrants was “killing Europe” while visiting Scotland on Friday, a friend of the monarch told the Daily Beast.
A civil servant also told The Daily Beast that there was a risk Trump could upend protocol and make politicized comments when delivering a traditional speech at his state banquet. The palace was already anxious about Trump’s visit because of his trolling of Canada—a British “realm” which counts the king as head of state—as the “51st state.” But those concerns pale in comparison to the prospect of Trump using the official visit with the king as a platform to make further inflammatory remarks about immigration in the U.K.
Immigration has become a source of increasingly bitter division and public protest in the U.K. in recent months after figures showed that record numbers of so-called “small boats” laden with undocumented immigrants have landed on British shores this year. There are genuine fears that riots triggered by anti-immigration protests could engulf the U.K. in the coming weeks. Hotels used to house migrants have seen violent protests flare, and Nigel Farage, the Reform U.K. leader credited with making Brexit happen, has warned that Britain is close to “civil disobedience on a vast scale” over the issue.
It was in this environment that, shortly after touching down on Air Force One at Glasgow Airport on Friday, Trump told waiting reporters on the tarmac: “You better get your act together or you’re not going to have Europe anymore. You’ve got to stop this horrible invasion that is happening to Europe, many countries in Europe. Some leaders have not let it happen, and they’re not getting the proper credit,” Trump added. “I could name them to you right now, but I’m not going to embarrass the other ones. But stop, this immigration is killing Europe.”
The friend of the king told The Royalist, “Charles has spent his entire life promoting tolerance and compassion. He will be appalled by what Trump said on Friday, which seems to be entirely driven by his domestic agenda, and will be very concerned about the possibility of a repeat of Trump’s outburst in September.”
A civil servant told the Daily Beast that foreign visitors meeting the king are routinely advised that he is constitutionally apolitical and should not be involved in political controversy but said, “The trouble with Trump is, he doesn’t feel bound by the rules.”
The civil servant said the risks of Trump freewheeling with the media during the state visit were “priced in.” They said everything would be done to ensure the king would not be put in a position where he could be embarrassed. The civil servant added, “Parliament is not sitting, so he won’t be making an inflammatory speech to MPs. But, of course, he will make a speech and propose toasts at the banquet in his honor. Usually, these speeches are ceremonial diplomacy of the highest order and honor the relationship between the two nations. The one group of people Trump seems to respect is the British royal family, so we will just have to hope for the best.”
The king does not typically give a formal, joint press conference with visiting foreign leaders, but it is Trump’s habit of delivering impromptu interviews to the media that has the king’s pals worried. “If Trump starts sounding off about the evils of immigration to the cameras while the king is standing next to him, the king would find that hard to take,” the friend added.
If Charles wants to get the upper hand here, perhaps he should explicitly threaten Trump with an “offer” to invite Prince Andrew to the state events so that Andrew and Trump can catch up on all of their Epstein connections. Yes, it would make the monarchy look terrible too, but it would be an effective threat and one of the few deterrences available. While I have no doubt that Trump is going to be a horse’s ass in a million different ways during this state visit, it’s probably not going to be about immigration. I predict it will be about something else entirely!
This is how Scotland welcomed Trump:
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, cover courtesy of The National.
