Trump: ‘Me late for the Queen? That’s fake!’
DONALD Trump has attacked reports he was late for his meeting with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, insisting she actually made him wait.
The US president pounced on claims he was 15 minutes late for his visit last month as more ‘fake, fake, disgusting news’.
Describing their tea and inspection of the Coldstream Guards as a ‘beautiful, beautiful visit’, Mr Trump claimed he had arrived 15 minutes early.
He said they ‘got along fantastically well’ and enjoyed ‘good chemistry’, but the media instead dwelt on the footage of the 92-year-old Queen waiting in temperatures of 27C for the presidential cavalcade to arrive. At one point, she was seen looking at her watch.
Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania in which he listed a string of grievances against the media, Mr Trump said: ‘I was asked to have tea with the Queen, who is incredible by the way. Incredible... I landed and I’m on the ground and I’m waiting with the king’s and with the Queen’s guards – wonderful people.
‘I’m waiting. I was about 15 minutes early and I’m waiting with my wife and that’s fine. Hey, it’s the Queen, right?’
He added: ‘We then go up and we have tea. And I didn’t know this – it was supposed to last 15 minutes but it lasted like an hour. Because we got along. And she liked our first lady and our first lady liked her. But we got along fantastically well. But the time went by – you know, sometimes if you like somebody you get along, good chemistry – the time goes by. So we were there for about an hour.
‘So here was the story by the fake news: the president was 15 minutes late for the Queen. Wrong… and then, here’s the rest of the story: the president overstayed… but they can make anything bad because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news.’
A day after UN experts warned his anti-media outbursts – including describing it as the ‘enemy’ of the people – were putting journalists at risk, Mr Trump described reporters as ‘horrendous people’ during a 15-minute diatribe – which resulted in angry chanting from the crowd.