Opinion: Could there be anything more awkward and weird than King Charles’ state visit with the Trumps? Just don’t mention the Epstein files or the Truth Social posts — and keep your eyes fixed on the beehive. Holly Baxter reports on the itinerary for Charles, Camilla and the Trumps this week.
An Inopportune Moment for Diplomacy
What better time for King Charles to sit down over an expensive dinner with Donald Trump? There they are, just two old men nearing 80, each with vast generational wealth and a shared fondness for gold, spending the money of their respective taxpayers like it’s going out of fashion. What better time, when the ink is barely dry on the ‘No Kings’ placards; when the president just a couple of weeks ago threatened to wipe out an entire civilization on social media; when the world continues to reel from the economic impact of the Iran war? It would take a real stick-in-the-mud to ruin this special vacation for the loveable snowbirds, but I’ll do it. Because the world is quite literally on fire, but on Monday, King Charles and Camilla will officially visit Melania’s new beehive on the South Lawn at the White House. I wish I was joking. I often am. But here’s the actual, serious schedule for Charles and Camilla: tea with Melania and Donald at the beginning of the week; a presumably milquetoast address to Congress on Tuesday, followed by a banquet; a visit to the 9/11 memorial on Wednesday; and a national park visit in Virginia on Thursday, before — naturally — departing for Bermuda.
The Unspoken Tensions
It’s supposed to be all high tea and silly hats and soft power, and it’s just so desperately, horrifically awkward. Because there are now so many things it would be impolite to mention over dinner: Trump personally insulting Keir Starmer after he refused to follow him into war, ranting about so-called allies, referring to British warships as “toys,” and then threatening to pull out of NATO, for instance. Or the shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, who managed to bypass all Trump’s world-class security — also relied upon for this state visit — via the innovative and revolutionary strategy of simply running past them. Or the fact that Karoline Leavitt then immediately blamed the shooting at the gathering for journalists on journalists themselves.
Two members of the 'Stop Trump Coalition' action group pose with a mock missile and masks of Britain's King Charles III and US President Donald Trump in front of the gates of Buckingham Palace in central London (AFP/Getty). And then there’s Charles’ brother Andrew, Schrodinger’s pervert, who both did and did not go to Epstein’s island. Certainly don’t mention him. Nor should conversation alight, even for a second, on Peter Mandelson, about 10 seconds ago the UK ambassador to the US, who just lost his job because he couldn’t quite explain whether he had done bad things at the island. Come to think of it, no one should really mention anything about the island at all, or the files concerning the island, which will probably never actually be fully released. Best, perhaps, to focus on the beehive.
A Bizarre Spectacle
Nothing captures the mood of the mid-2020s better than a monarch, a billionaire president, and a beehive that “could increase honey production by about 30 pounds.” By sheer choreography and audacity, three geriatric traditionalists will successfully pretend to the cameras that the world has not moved under their feet. The old rituals will be adhered to; the British embassy will prepare sandwiches for 650 guests.
In some way, we’ll be told — as we grit our teeth and watch an out-of-touch play written by a clueless, pro-colonialist author for the hundredth time — this is all worth it. It’s done for our benefit. A king will visit a country founded on rejecting kings, weeks after protests explicitly rejecting kings, hosted by a president who oscillates between flirting with authoritarian aesthetics and publicly berating allies, all while everyone involved pretends this is just another week in the long, unbroken story of the “special relationship” Trump flagrantly abandoned in a Truth Social post. And it will all make sense. It won’t be a deeply embarrassing misfire on the part of both countries. At some point, something will almost certainly happen to justify it all.
Optimism vs. Reality
The optimists have been out in force, of course, claiming that this will be a “moment” for international relations. Democrat Ro Khanna even suggested to the Daily Telegraph that the British king might seriously pressure Trump to release the Epstein files. It’s a nice thought, a generous gloss on something patently absurd. But it’s about as likely as Charles giving up his homeopathy habit, or Trump resisting the urge to gild his next toilet. It’s their world and we’re just living in it.
In other words: How many millions does it cost to screw up a state visit? The answer is that it doesn’t matter — and the rest of you can get back to work.
