A few weeks ago, we covered an early excerpt from Susan Page’s The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History. Page is an American journalist, and she was able to interview former presidents about their conversations and dealings with Queen Elizabeth II. In an early excerpt, Page spoke to a palace aide who (bizarrely) swore that QEII saw then-Meghan Markle as “calculated.” Page wrote: “Her Majesty had become wary of Meghan as an opportunist — was ‘on to her from the start,’ the aide said — and one with public relations skills that left the palace’s outdated press operation in the dust.” Well, would you like more excerpts from this book? Page asked Donald Trump about how QEII felt about Prince Harry and Meghan as well. Meanwhile, Barack Obama spoke about his conversation with the queen about Brexit in 2016.
Donald Trump has reopened his war with the Sussexes after saying that the late Queen Elizabeth II was left deeply wounded by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s public attacks on the monarchy, revealing that he repeatedly pressed her on the subject, only to be met with her legendary diplomatic composure.
“I asked her about it constantly,” Trump told the journalist Susan Page. “I’d say, ‘Come on, tell me.’ ‘No, no. It’s very nice.’ Everybody was nice. She liked everybody.”
But the president said he saw through the deflection. “I couldn’t get her to say it. I’m good at that, too,” he said. “She would always say, ‘No, no, would be lovely, lovely.’ But it wasn’t lovely, and I think it hurt her. I really think it hurt her. It was tremendous dissension, and I just don’t think they treated her with the respect that she should have, frankly.”
On the Sussexes, Trump told Page he admired the Queen’s restraint but said he could never have shown the same grace. “I actually told her I couldn’t do what she does, because she was very cool on the subject. She would talk about it but never said anything bad about either of them, and I think she loved Harry, really loved Harry. But Harry’s been, I feel, led astray. I really do. I think he’s been terribly led astray…. It’s just so disrespectful the way that happened, and she didn’t deserve that. This is a woman that everybody respected so much. I think she was stunned by what was happening, actually. She couldn’t believe it in real time.”
Trump also reveals, for the first time, that the Queen personally intervened after the 2019 leak of cables from the British ambassador Kim Darroch, in which the diplomat described Trump as someone who “radiates insecurity” and leads a dysfunctional administration. According to the book, the Queen reached out to calm troubled waters. Trump told Page that the Queen was appalled by Darroch’s comments. “She couldn’t believe it; she thought he was terrible,” he said. “She said, ‘He doesn’t speak for our government.’ Oh, she was furious over that.”
For British people, I suspect the most significant revelation in the book will be new details on the Queen’s private views on Brexit, a subject that was the source of endless speculation during her reign. According to Page, the Queen shared her real views with Obama during a private lunch on April 22, 2016, the day after her 90th birthday, at a time when the referendum debate was reaching fever pitch.
The Queen was not only wary of Brexit, Page reveals, but was dismayed by how David Cameron handled it. Obama told Page that the Queen had effectively questioned why a prime minister who understood politics would put forward a public referendum on a matter of such importance when he did not know what the answer would be. Obama said he was surprised by her candor and that it was the only time she commented directly on British politics to him.
So by Trump’s own admission, QEII never said one bad word about Harry and Meghan to him, yet he projected all of this sh-t about how he thought she felt. Since he hates Meghan, he believed that QEII hated Meghan and blamed her for everything. And the Tories used the Queen to run interference with Trump and help soothe his little salty-baby ego too. What Obama said is interesting though, and note how Obama’s comments are actually about politics and political maneuvering, while Trump’s comments are basically just “I begged her for royal gossip and she was tasked with soothing my diaper rash.”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
