Donald Trump’s in the UK at his Scotland golf course this week and he took the chance to take swings at Meghan Markle, Joe Biden, China and trans athletes in a wide ranging interview on GB News.
Questioned on Farage: The Trump Interview by Brexiteer politician-turned-broadcaster Nigel Farage, he twice claimed the Duchess of Sussex Meghan had disrespected the UK’s late Queen Elizabeth. He also commented on Prince Harry’s plan to attend his father King Charles’ Coronation on Saturday.
“It’s going to be a great day and they’ll do a great job. [Charles] really loves the country and he loved his mother and that’s why I thought she was treated so disrespectfully by Meghan,” he said. “There was just no reason to do that. I was actually surprised Harry was invited, to be honest.”
Trunmp agreed with Farage that the Queen was “the most popular human being in the world” during her lifetime and commended her for going through “years and decades without controversy.” She passed away in September last year, leading to Charles’ ascension to the throne.
Harry and Meghan stepped down from frontline royal family work in 2020 and now live in the U.S., where they made the controversial Netflix doc Harry & Meghan, which levelled several incendiary allegations at the royal family. Harry also authored Spare, an autobiography that revealed more about thew split between his family and the rest of the royal contingent.
“He said some terrible things in the book,” said Trump. “To me, it was horrible.”
“[Meghan] has been very disrespectful to the Queen,” he added. “People make mistakes but I can’t think of one mistake [the Queen] made. She went through years and decades without controversy. You cannot be disrespectful to her.”
Trump also slammed President Joe Biden for choosing not to attend the Coronation, though this is a tradition that American leaders have always held. First Lady Dr Jill Biden will lead a U.S. continent at the event on Saturday morning.
“I don’t think he can do it physically. It’s hard for him physically,” said Trump. “Certainly, he should be here as a representative of our country. I was surprised when I heard he wasn’t coming. It’s very disrespectful for him not to be there.”
Trump, who is standing for the Republican Presidential nomination, also criticized Biden for his handling of the Ukraine War, saying: “Putin never would have gone into Ukraine if it wasn’t for the incompetence of this administration.”
The former President claimed he could “end that war in one day,” adding: “I know Zelenskyy well and Putin well. It would be easy. That war has to be stopped, that war is a disaster.”
Trump also railed on China over role in the Covid-19 pandemic. The disease was first found in Wuhan province in 2019 and soon spread around the world, leading to many conspiracy theories and much debate over how it emerged.
“What they did to the world is unacceptable,” he said, claiming the country owes “trillions” of dollars in reparations.
“The number is $50 to 60 trillion dollars. They can never pay that, nobody can. You could have ten Chinas and they couldn’t pay it. I’m not even talking about the lives, which are far more important. Millions and millions and millions of people dead.
“And [it was] probably a mistake, [though] there are many people who believe it wasn’t. I know how to make them pay. You have to deal with them — I took in hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes from China.”
He added that “until Covid came along” had gotten along “very well” with China’s President Xi and Russian President Putin.
A final clip shared on Twitter showed Trump calling out trans athletes competing in women’s sports competitions. “When I see men participating in women’s sports and records being broken pretty easily, it’s very unfair and very disrespectful to women,” he said. “I talk about it all the time and I don’t do it for applause but one of the biggest hands I get is when I say we will not allow men to compete in women’s sports.”