Months ago, when I was covering some story about the Heritage Foundation pushing hard for Prince Harry’s visa records and eventual deportation, I remarked that if Donald Trump won the election, everyone would have much bigger worries than “is Harry going to be deported?” We absolutely do have bigger fish to fry, but predictably, the royalists are throwing a huge party because of Trump’s win. The Venn diagram of royalists and MAGAts is an overlapping circle, and they’re begging the incoming Trump administration to please spare a moment to release Harry’s visa records and throw him out of the country. They honestly believe that Trump is going to order someone to handcuff Harry and march him back to England. Like, they believe Harry has no other options? It’s bizarre. Anyway, the Mail’s Richard Eden must have talked to all of Prince William’s clownish advisors, because everyone over there is damp with expectations of Harry’s eventual deportation.
When I disclosed last month that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had bought a home on the coast of Portugal, the reasons behind the purchase remained shrouded in mystery. Why had the couple bought their first European property after being evicted from Windsor’s Frogmore Cottage by King Charles early last year? Now, things may have become clearer: Prince Harry and Meghan could have been seeking an escape route if Donald Trump returned to the White House.
A royal source told me earlier this year that the Sussexes were making increasingly ‘desperate’ efforts to extend olive branches across the Atlantic. It followed a string of hostile comments from the Trump family. And the same insider yesterday said: ‘We can expect to see more of Harry back in Britain in years to come.’
During a visit to the Trump International Golf Links in Scotland in August, the President-elect’s son Eric called the Duke and Duchess ‘spoiled apples’ and echoed his father’s claims that Harry could be deported if the Republicans won. ‘You can happily have those two,’ Eric added. ‘We might not want them anymore; it feels like they’re on an island of their own.’
Donald Trump had previously suggested that Harry – who has lived in California since 2020 – would not get ‘special privileges’ and indeed may be deported if he is found to have falsified information on his visa form.
Someone who worked for the royals while the couple were still part of ‘The Firm’ told me in August: ‘It seems quite clear that the Sussexes are desperate to start healing the rift [with the Royal Family].’ As evidence, the source pointed to the string of stories that had recently appeared in People magazine, a favoured outlet of Harry and Meghan. They included an article in July about Harry’s despair that his father was not accepting his phone calls and another claiming that his rift with Prince William was not ‘irreparable’.
“We can expect to see more of Harry back in Britain in years to come.” Sounds like that’s what William believes, maybe Charles too. But my sense is that Harry would rather live literally anywhere else with Meghan and their kids, and that his attempts to speak to Charles are about Charles’s health and not anything else.
Meanwhile, Heritage’s Nile Gardiner is already providing quotes to British media about his hopes, and Heritage’s hopes, that a Trump-administration’s DHS would release Harry’s visa records. Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told i News: “If [Trump] is provoked, it could get very messy. The whole thought of a member of the Royal Family being thrown out of the United States, especially given the special relationship, it would be very embarrassing for the Royal Family.” LOL, if this ends up being one of those “when the dog catches the car” situations, I will laugh my ass off. Trump’s DHS will release Harry’s visa records, then suddenly DHS is inundated with calls to release all visa records, and Heritage pressures Trump to deport Harry (for no reason, because Harry’s casual drug use years ago is not a deportation-level offense) and Trump doesn’t want to because even he knows it will opening a huge can of worms. Anyway, I’m glad Harry and Meghan have that Portuguese bolthole.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.