Queen Elizabeth and Donald Trump had a “genuine rapport”, according to a new biography of the King.
The suggestion contradicts Craig Brown’s 2024 book A Voyage Around The Queen, which said the late British monarch found the US President “very rude” when she hosted him during her reign.
Robert Hardman’s book – Charles III: The Inside Story – denies the claims that Trump kept the late queen waiting at Windsor Castle in 2018 by arriving late and that he walked in front of her while inspecting the Guard of Honour.
“Trump did nothing wrong at all. He arrived exactly on time,” Hardman writes.
“It was the queen who had come out early because she wanted to check the dais and the steps, which were always a concern at that stage of her life.”
It was Elizabeth’s first big event since the Duke of Edinburgh’s retirement from public duties the year before, Hardman wrote.
“She wanted to get it right. It was the same inspecting the troops. All through her reign, it would be the duke who escorted the visitor to do the inspection and she hadn’t done it before.
“Trump did the right thing. The visitor is always invited to walk first and she had to gesture to him to go in front. The anti-Trump crowd were determined to find a faux pas. There wasn’t one.”
A member of the late queen’s staff recalled how the monarch — who died aged 96 in 2022 — and Trump, 79, bonded over their Scottish roots.
“It wasn’t just small talk. They discussed policy matters. He was super charming, on his best behaviour throughout,” the royal staffer is quoted in the book, which is being serialised in Britain’s Mail on Sunday newspaper.
Queen Elizabeth was also said to be surprised by Trump’s boundless energy.
“He would bound up and down the stairs. When Joe Biden came three years later, we had to put him in the creaky old Edwardian lift,” the royal employee said.
Brown’s book claims Elizabeth had complained about Trump’s behaviour to a lunch guest a few weeks after one of his visits to the UK.
“Over the course of her reign, Her Majesty entertained many controversial foreign leaders, including Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito and Vladimir Putin.
“She may not have found their company convivial; upon their departure, she may even have voiced a discreet word of disapproval.
“A few weeks after President Trump’s visit, for instance, she confided in one lunch guest that she found him ‘very rude’: She particularly disliked the way he couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting.”
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