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All Smiles
Ahead of his arrival in London tomorrow on a state visit, Donald Trump is busy gaslighting the world over the comments he made calling Meghan Markle ‘nasty,’ claiming it’s all a big stitch up by, you guessed it, the fake news media.
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As a refresher, during an interview with the British media ahead of his state visit to the UK this week, Trump was presented with comments made by Meghan when she was just another actress in which she said she would move to Canada if he won the presidency. Trump told The Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn: “I didn’t know that she was nasty.”
Today Trump tweeted: “I never called Meghan Markle “nasty.” Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will @CNN, @nytimes and others apologize? Doubt it!”
It’s a classic Trump double down. Yesterday he retweeted a message from David Brody, a presenter on his beloved Christian Broadcasting Network, claiming that Jake Tapper of CNN was “spreading a false story. This is a perfect example of how the liberal media takes something completely out of context to make it look bad against [Trump] when it wasn’t.”
Brody’s defense of Trump echoed a line taken by the “Official Trump War Room” Twitter account, which claims to be managed by Trump’s re-election campaign.
“Fake News CNN is at it again, falsely claiming President Trump called Meghan Markle ‘nasty,’” the account tweeted Saturday morning.
“Here is what he actually said. Listen for yourself!”
Lots of people did, and here is what they heard:
“She said she’d move to Canada if you got elected. It turned out she moved to Britain,” the Sun’s reporter asked.
“A lot of people moving here, so what can I say? No, I didn’t know that she was nasty,” Trump said.
Golf Diplomacy, Prince Andrew-style
We have no doubt Prince Harry will smile sweetly and do his duty when he meets the President on Monday. It’s going to be a little awks, but at least it will be over after just be a few hours.
In contrast, Harry’s little-loved uncle, Prince Andrew, will be at the Presidential side for two whole days of the three day visit. The Telegraph explains that the hope is their ‘love of golf’ will allow them to forge a bond but notes they have other things in common; no, not dodgy property deals but their shared “friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier and sex offender convicted of soliciting an underage prostitute, who was also a regular at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago complex.”
What could possibly go wrong?
Meghan and Harry’s Powerful Pride Message
Complete with rainbow symbols, Meghan and Harry have sent a powerful message of support to the LGBT community to mark Pride month. Via their Instagram account, the couple wrote a message that read: “Continuing with our tradition to rotate the accounts we follow based on causes and social issues that matter to us: For the month of June we ‘proudly’ shine a light on PRIDE.
“This month we pay tribute to the accounts supporting the LGBTQ+ community—those young and old, their families and friends, accounts that reflect on the past and are hopeful for a deservedly more inclusive future. We stand with you and support you. Because it’s very simple: love is love.”
The tableau of images included one of Princess Diana with a patient at London Lighthouse in October 1996.
The couple linked their post to a number of LGBT organizations in the U.K. and U.S, including the Human Rights Foundation, Elton John AIDS Foundation, Sage USA, PFLAG, Alfred Kennedy Trust, Matthew Shepard Foundation, Trevor Project, and Stonewall U.K.
End of an Era
Let the royal brand endorsements begin! Meghan has proved her modern credentials by bidding farewell to the royal tradition of wheeling one’s progeny around in a super-bouncy Silver Cross pram, opting for the $1400 Bugaboo Frog instead, which, according to the Sun, she was given by a pal before the birth.
Silver Cross has been the royal choice for every baby from the Queen through to Princes William, Harry and the Cambridge kids. Kate chose a $2,000 Silver Cross model for Prince George, which was custom fitted with an insect net to keep her little Prince safe.
Beat Dad
It’s all the rage among the 1% not to have a maternity nurse for the first few weeks these days, and evidence emerges that this may be the case in the Sussex household after Prince Harry was photographed looking wrecked on a British Airways flight from Rome to London.
He had been overseas playing a polo match to benefit his African AIDS charity Sentebale when he was snapped by another passenger, who wrote on Facebook that she saw Harry sitting in the front row when she got up to use the loo. “As I'm standing there, I look over and see a guy who looks like Prince Harry,” she wrote on Facebook, “And he has a wedding ring on and looks very tired.” The woman said Harry “politely smiled and said ‘hi’ when he realized I knew who he was.”
Royal fashion watch
Consistently, the queen brings brightly-dressed joy to wherever she travels. On Saturday, she was at Epsom race course for Derby Day, in blue coat with floral dress underneath. Eventually, she took off the coat, and put on a pair of sunglasses with the floral print dress and looked even cooler.
The Queen at Epsom on Saturday.
Mark Cuthbert/GettyThis week in royal history
The present queen’s coronation took place in London's Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953. The coronation followed the death of Elizabeth's father George VI a year a half previously, and was the first coronation to be televised. 27 million (out of then-36 million viewers) watched the ceremony in the U.K., with an audience of millions more around the world. The queen's gown was by Normal Hartnell.
The three-hour plus ceremony set the TV template for grand royal occasions, like the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981.
Unanswered questions
Just what will Prince Charles and Donald Trump talk about when he takes tea with him on Monday afternoon? Trump famously once spoke of his sadness at not having managed to sleep with Princess Diana, so maybe the environment would be a safer bet.
