Donald Trump 'Surprised' Prince Harry Was Invited to Coronation
Donald Trump said he was "surprised" that Prince Harry was invited to his father's coronation ceremony on Saturday.
On Saturday, King Charles III will be officially crowned with his wife, Queen Camilla, at the country's first coronation in 70 years. He succeeds his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died last September and was coronated in 1953.
The London event will be widely televised. Politicians from around the world will attend along with members of the royal family, including Harry, despite ongoing tensions with his family since he and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped away from their royal duties in 2020.
Harry and Meghan dropped bombshells about their relationships with the family in their 2022 Harry & Meghan docuseries on Netflix and in Harry's memoir, Spare, which was published in January.
The drama surrounding the royal family has recently captured the interest of the former president, who didn't expect that the youngest son of Charles and Princess Diana would attend his father's coronation.
In a Wednesday interview with London-based GB News, Trump said Elizabeth was treated disrespectfully by Meghan, despite there being "no reason" to do that.
"I was actually surprised that Harry was invited, to be honest," Trump said. "He said some terrible things, when you see what he said, and the book was just...to me, it was horrible."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign by email for comment.
Meghan won't be accompanying her husband on Saturday. Buckingham Palace has confirmed that she will stay at the couple's home in California with their two children, Archie and Lilibet. Her son's fourth birthday is on the same day as the coronation.
As for others attending or not attending the event, Harry wasn't the only one who caught Trump's attention. He said he was surprised that President Joe Biden won't be there as well.
In April, a royal expert told Newsweek that Biden's anticipated absence at the coronation shouldn't be considered a "snub." No American president has ever attended a coronation for a British monarch.
Trump, who is in the midst of his third presidential campaign, said that if he were the president now, he would have attended the coronation. He also said that Biden's absence showed a lack of respect and speculated that it was due to the president's physical abilities.
"I think it's hard for him to do it physically," Trump said. "I was very surprised. I think it's very disrespectful for him not to be here."
Global figures who will be attending the coronation include French President Emmanuel Macron, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
