Queen Elizabeth II has met with almost all the presidents of the United States since Dwight Eisenhower during his more than 67 years on the throne. Next week, he will welcome President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump back to the United Kingdom, this time for a particular state visit.
Although Trump and the Royal Family are expected to adhere to the highest levels of protocol during the visit, Trump’s comments before the trip threaten to damage the Queen’s goodwill, publicly insulting her grandson’s wife in the eve of the visit.
During an interview with The Sun, Trump was asked about the comments made by Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, before the 2016 election. Speaking on “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” in 2016, Markle said that Trump was misogynist and said his policy was divisive and said he would move to Canada if he won the presidency.
Trump replied: I hope it’s okay, “and then added:” I’m sure it will go excellent (as real). It will be very good. “Buckingham Palace did not comment on Trump’s interview with Markle.
The ‘special relationship’
The “special relationship” with the United Kingdom also has a special meaning for the president. After his tea meeting of Donald Trump and Queen Elizabeth in 2018, Trump told the interviewer Piers Morgan that he was thinking about his mother when he met the queen.
“I was thinking about my mother. My mother passed away a while ago and was a great fan of the Queen. She thought I was an elegant woman, and my mother felt she was a great woman. I remember even as a child, if there was some kind of ceremony with the queen, my mother would be watching television, I wanted to see her, “said Trump at that moment.
State visits
Since then, he has met with all the US presidents, with the sole exception of President Lyndon B. Johnson. But this is only the third state visit by a president of the United States during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II; the invitation was extended only to Trump’s most recent predecessors: Barack and Michelle Obama, in May 2011, and George W. and Laura Bush, in November 2003.
He hosted the Kennedys for a banquet, not an official state visit, in 1961, which was recently described in the Netflix drama “The Crown,” implying an icy, if not entirely accurate, the relationship between the queen and first lady Jacqueline. Kennedy
The queen has traveled to the United States for informal visits and state visits several times during her reign. For her first state visit to the United States as queen in 1957, she and Prince Philip stayed in the same suite in the White House, where her parents, King George VI and Queen Mother, had stayed in 1939, according to the White House, and was greeted by large crowds in his caravan from the airport.
In the White House
In 1976, President Gerald Ford and Betty Ford invited her to a state dinner at the Rose Garden. President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan served enchiladas and chile rellenos when he visited at his ranch in Santa Barbara in 1983, and days later, he organized a state dinner in his honor at the Memorial Museum Youth San Francisco.
He rolled up his sleeves, though not literally, during an official state visit in 1991, planting a tree on the White House South Lawn with President George HW Bush, replacing one damaged by the storm that his father planted in 1937. Tree attended a dinner in the White House of George W. Bush in 2007.
He also shared a warm relationship with Obama, as Michelle Obama recently recalled.
“So, I had all this protocol buzzing in my head, and I thought, ‘Do not go down the stairs and do not touch anyone, whatever you do,'” the ex-lady said during a book tour event. “And then, the queen says: ‘Just come in, sit where you are’, she is telling you something and you are remembering the protocol and saying: ‘Oh, everything is garbage, just go in'”. “It remains to be seen if the queen shares the same affection for Trump.
When asked if he had the feeling that she liked him, Trump told Morgan: “Well, I do not want to speak for her, but I can say that I liked her. So, generally, that helps. But I liked it a lot. ”
