James Landale

Very, very rarely.

That was one occasion, perhaps.

Another was over Canada when Donald Trump sort of, you know, made acquisitive noises over Canada.

people were inferring why the king is wearing a sort of Canadian flag and suddenly Canadians are being invited to San Diego.

Do you know what I mean?

There are ways that messages can be conveyed.

Well, the thing that impressed me most, or was impressed upon me most, was just the sheer, ruthless, relentless riposte to Trumpism.

that these speeches involved, you know, amidst all the charm and the flattery and the jokes and the humor and the praise and the joint history and all the rest of it.

You know, this was the king speaking up for alliances.

This was alliances first, not America first.

He spoke up in favour of NATO, in favour of Europe, in favour of the Commonwealth.

He praised international law, international rules that this administration have overtly, rhetorically and in practice, completely denigrated.

He made it absolutely clear and said that you cannot take on the world's challenges one nation alone.

And the point is that that is a complete...

the complete opposite of what Donald Trump does and says.

And I think he was able to make that argument.

And the fact that he was able to make that argument without the administration reacting to it was, I thought, amazing because very few politicians ever come near to that.

And of course, the King's not a politician, but in terms of making an argument,

in favor and it wasn't just it wasn't just the environmental stuff it was a it was a piece by piece block by block argument against the core ideology of donald trump and his administration um and i so i think the real test for this trip is not you know does donald trump's genuine warmth and affection for the king

sort of begin to smooth over some of the cracks between the two governments.