No royal invite, but Trump happy for Harry
LONDON — Donald Trump says he hopes Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are “happy” — even if he does not receive an invitation to their wedding.
In an interview with Piers Morgan to be broadcast Sunday, Trump admitted that he sometimes tweets from bed. And he suggested the U.S. could return to the Paris climate accord if a better deal was struck. The issue of whether he would be invited to the royal wedding on May 19 has become controversial due to the prince’s friendship with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Markle has been critical of Trump, once suggesting she’d leave the U.S. for Canada if he was elected president. When asked if he had received an invitation, Trump said: “Not that I know of.” He declined to address whether he would like to go, instead saying: “I want them to be happy. I really want them to be happy. They look like a lovely couple.”
When Morgan reminded him that Markle had called him a “divisive misogynist” the president replied: “Well, I still hope they’re happy.”
Trump went on to say that his own mother had a “great sense of regal”. He added: “She had a love for the Queen. She had a love for the Royal family. She really respected the Queen, and she loved the pomp and ceremony. The fact is, she loved the U.K..”
Trump accepted an invitation made by Prime Minister Theresa May a year ago for a state visit but no date has yet been fixed. Following their recent meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, officials said Trump would visit in the second half of this year, although it may be a lower-key working trip rather than a full state occasion.
The president was asked if Mary Anne MacLeod, his late mother, who was born on the Isle of Lewis, would have loved him to receive a state visit.
He said: “You know, she was a terrific woman, and she loved Scotland. And maybe that’s one of the reasons that I feel the same way about it.”
Quizzing Trump about his social media habits, Morgan asked: “Are you actually lying in bed with your phone, working out how to wind everybody up?” Trump replied: “Well, perhaps sometimes in bed, and perhaps sometimes at breakfast, or lunch, or whatever.”
Trump said there was “always a chance” he could return the U.S. to the climate accord but it would “have to be a completely different deal because we had a horrible deal. As usual, they took advantage of the United States.”