King Charles III brutally shut down President Donald Trump’s ramblings as soon as the leaders met in Washington, D.C., according to a lip reader.
Before the state dinners and the congressional address, before the pomp and the carefully choreographed ceremony, Trump apparently tried to accost the monarch with chat about a shooting, a nuclear threat, and a ballroom renovation.
But the 77-year-old son of Queen Elizabeth II apparently wasn’t keen on engaging in such heavy topics in the first few minutes of his arrival on the South Lawn.
Nicola Hickling analyzed the footage and revealed what the two leaders whispered to each other during their opening exchange, which was inaudible to television cameras. She told Mail Online that Trump led with Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and his latest contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This shooting...” Trump appeared to say, before the king responded, “I’d rather not stand about here too long. I feel I shouldn’t be here.”
Trump asked if Charles was OK, adding: “It’s not a good thing.” He then offered: “I wasn’t prepared, but now I am prepared.”
Trump pivoted to Putin. “So right now, I am talking to Putin,” he appeared to say. “He wants war.” Then: “I’ve got a feeling… if he did what he said, he will wipe out the population.”
The king’s response was typically measured, according to Hickling. “We will discuss that later,” he said. And when Trump pressed on, he added, “Another time.”
Trump then steered the conversation toward his White House ballroom project. “You can see right through there,” he said. “Right the way through to the ballroom. Would you like to see?” The king replied, according to Hickling: “I’m sure you shall show us.” The group was then guided inside.
The pair later had tea in the White House’s Green Room and toured the beehive in the Kitchen Garden, originally planted by former first lady Michelle Obama in 2009, before the royals headed to the British ambassador’s residence for a garden party.
More formal events followed, including a larger welcoming ceremony and a state dinner.
The South Lawn exchange sets up what promises to be a study in contrasts. King Charles is expected to address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, calling for “reconciliation and renewal.”
This rhetoric is starkly different from that of Trump of late. The president has threatened to wipe out “a whole civilization” in Iran and picked a public fight with the pope.
Charles, who is head of the Church of England and prayed alongside Pope Leo XIV in a historic first last year, is expected to strike a deliberately calming note.
Buckingham Palace previewed the speech to the BBC, saying the king will celebrate “one of the greatest alliances in human history” and remind lawmakers that despite not always seeing eye to eye, the “two countries have always found ways to come together.”
The address is expected to run around 20 minutes. Royal sources told Politico he will also reference NATO, Ukraine, and the trilateral AUKUS alliance.
The visit comes at a delicate moment in the U.S.-U.K. relationship. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer angered Trump when the U.K. refused to participate in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping lane through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, which Iran has closed, straining the global energy economy and pushing up prices at American gas pumps.
