Latest / The Front / How King Charles reeled in Donald Trump

Transcript

How King Charles reeled in Donald Trump · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, April thirty, twenty twenty six. Intelligence expert Dennis
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Richardson wanted spy agencies to reassess past persons of interest
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: after the Bondai massacre, but the interim report by the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Royal Commission will steer away from that idea. That's after
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Richardson quit his role in the inquiry. Jim Chalmers is
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: indicating heatbacks further interest rate rises by the Reserve Bank.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: That's after inflation jumped to a two year high. Chalmers
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: also says he'll keep spending under control in next month's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: federal budget. Those stories alive right now at the Australian
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: dot com dot a U. The Americans are falling all
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: over King Charles and Queen Camilla, with politicians giving the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: King a dozen standing ovations during his address to Charles
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: is on a charm offensive, while Donald Trump was with
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: British Prime Minister Kirs Starmer and Charles's son Prince Harry.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: So is it working? Our Royal expert Richard Ferguson is
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: here in just a.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Moment, President Trump and First Lady Malania Trump hosting a
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: ceremonial welcome for King Charles and Queen Camilla.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Your Majesty's welcome to the beautiful White House.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: The bonds between the US and UK are unbreakable.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: With the message from King Charles the Third speaking to
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: a joint session of Congress, I pray with all my
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: heart that Dara Lance would continue to defend our shared
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: values and that we ignore the clarion calls to become
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: ever more inward looking.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: King Charles and Queen Camilla arriving at the White House
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: for a lavish, black tie state dinner.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. They liked him more than they've
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: ever liked any Republican or Democrat.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Actually, Richard Ferguson is the Australian's Canber Bureau chief, and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: he's also in house royal expert. Richard, I've got you
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: on because the King is charming his way through the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: United States. My favorite ever portrayal, though, of a British
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: monarch in American culture, is King George the Third in
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the musical Hamilton by Lynn Manuel Miranda, first played on
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Broadway by Jonathan Groff, as a kind of psychotically evil
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: but also quite charming and lovable monarch on the edge
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of madness.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: And when push comes to shove, I will send a
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: fully armed battalion. You remind you of my love?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Is that still how Americans perceive the British royalty?
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: Well, nor if anything about? Like the French, the Americans
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: seem more in love with the British monarchy than the
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: British do. I think they slately regret the Revolution, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: they regret the way that the king or the queen
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: represents the glory and the government represents power, and instead
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: they've mixed it into one and a president. And I think,
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: especially with President Trump, the some Americans who wish they'd
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: kind of separated. I've always wondered if Trump would make
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: a great king, but he wouldn't make much of a
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: prime minister.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I think it would make an absolutely fabulous king. He'd
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: certainly bring the pomp and ceremony, which seems to be
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: at least part of the point of the British monarchy. Now,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: what's the point of this visit by King Charles and
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Camilla to the United States.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: Well, originally it was supposed to be a celebration of
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the end of
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: the War of Independence and essentially the breaking of the
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: British monarchy from the American people. But what it has
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: now become is essentially a diplomatic effort. Relations between care Starmer,
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: the British Prime Minister, and mister Trump have really collapsed,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: especially over Ker Starmer's refusal to be involved in the
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Iran War. It's now got to a point where the Americans,
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: in a memo at the Pentagon that was leaked, may
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: even consider supporting the Argentinians over the claims of the
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Falklands islands. And there's a lot of consternation about British
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: plans to hand over the Chegos Islands, where there's an
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: important us UK base. So, if anything, King Charles has
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: become the chief diplomat for the British government, which is
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: a role that he's very good at playing. But there's
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: a lot of questions in Britain about whether the King
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: should have gone at all. I mean, you've had President
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Trump lash out at Britain several times, but he's also
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: completely denigrated the memory of British soldiers who died in
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: Iraq and Afghanistan, where he suggested they weren't really on
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: the front lines. But hundreds of British soldiers died in
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: Afghanistan in Iraq fighting alongside the Americans. So most people
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: thought King Charles shouldn't have given him the dignity of
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: this visit. But the King and quin Camala have gone
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: and they're making the most of it.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: King Charles traded jokes with Donald Trump at a state
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: dinner at the White House.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Indeed, you recently commented, mister President, that if it were
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: be speaking French.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: It's unlikely Charles is going to be upstaged quite as
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: much as he was in nineteen eighty five when Princess
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Diana danced at the Reagan White House with John Travolta.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: She was at the peak of her powers. Is this
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: kind of glorious muse? He looked a bit helpless standing alongside.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: He's really stepped into his own character. He seems a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: lot happier now. Certainly, do you get the sense that
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: this is a bit of a reclamation for him of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the United States, for himself.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: There's an old adage that Essentially, your best kind of
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: monarchs are very very young, very very old. And I
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: think he's very good at playing a very very old monarch.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: He's very good at being a grandpa. We all know
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: that he's not the best dad in the world, but
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: he's very good at playing a grandpa. And I think
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: he's enjoying that. I think he enjoys the fact that
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Trump treats him like his mother.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: I cannot help but think of my late mother, Queen Elizabeth,
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: who in nineteen ninety one was also afforded this signal
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: honor and similarly spoke under the watchful eye of the
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Statue of Freedom above us.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: And I think, Look, I think the trip will be
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: kind of success on the surface. Whether it will do
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: anything to repair the relationship between the Trump administration and
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: the Starmer government, I think is a whole other question.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Charles has this vision of the slimed down monarchy a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: much more kind of practical thing than perhaps previous monarchs
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: might have thought of it. As you know, it's less
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: of a burden on the taxpayer and more of a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I suppose, an arm of the mentor an arm of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: philanthropic thought. In Britain. Is this in keeping with the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: way Charles wants the monarchy to bay. Is this the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: use that he wants the British government to put him to.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: It's been quite a hard transition for Charles because we
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: all know that he's a man with a lot of
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: opinions from everything from architecture to climate change, to arts
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: to social policy, and he's had to really keep his
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: mouth shut because you can't do that as the king.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can sort of do it as Prince
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: of Wales, but even then, in this modern era, you
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: get a lot of flak for it, as he has,
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: so I think he likes playing the role. It has
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: been I think very hard for him with his cancer treatment,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: the fact that he has not been as active as
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: he probably wants to be. But look, I think he
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: will take this trip with Relish. I definitely think you
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: can see from the way he's conducted himself that him
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: and Queen Camilla had absolutely no plans of not going
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: ahead with it, and especially after the attempted assassination of
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: President Trump and Vice President Aunts at the White House
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: correspondence and are the fact that they are pushing ahead
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: with this sure as a bit of bravery on the
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: King and Queen's.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Part coming up. Meanwhile, back in London, the British Prime
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Minister is in serious trouble. The Declaration of Independence in
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six was a fairly major schism between the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: British royal family and the people of America, and it
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: took well over a century for a British reigning monarch
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: to set foot on American soil again. That was King
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: George the sixth and his wife, the future Queen Mother,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth, King Charles's grandparents, who went back in nineteen
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: thirty nine really to try and convince Americans that they
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: needed to join the looming war between civilization and Adolf Hitler.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: It didn't really work immediately. It took a very long
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: time for American into the war. In terms of political strategy,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: what would a good result look like from this visit?
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Is it going to be Donald Trump laying off case
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: elmoryb I.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Think the best result is that Donald Trump lays off
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: care starmer. But I think the British Labor Party is
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: ready to start laying into secure themselves. So by the
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: end of the week we will have British local elections,
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: including elections in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Parliament.
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: The Labor Party is expected to do very badly in Scotland.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: They are expected to be absolutely hammered in Wales where
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Labor has dominated Wales for decades and decades and decades.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: The Reform Party, led by Nigel Faras, who's obviously an
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: ally a long term ally of Donald Trump and the
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: MAGA movement, is expected to do very well, especially in
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: English councils and in Wales. So after those are done,
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: all the damage that has been done to care Starmer,
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: from his mishandling of economic policy, from his mishandling of Gaza,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: from his absolutely insane appointment of Peter Mandelson, the scandal
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: ridden new labor guru as the ambassador to Washington, who
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: turned out to be best friends with Jeffrey Epstein, the
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: notorious late pedophile. I think all of this is about
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: to come to roost for Keir Starmer. It's also looking
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: as if his main rival in the party, Angela Rayner,
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: who had at tax scandal, it looks like she's set
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: to have her tax affairs cleared, So I don't think
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: it's that long before ker Starmer's out of the way
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: and Donald Trump will have somebody else to attack on
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: true social.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: On Tuesday in London, impe's voted against calls for an
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: inquiry into the appointment of Sapeda. Mandelson as the UK's
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: ambassador to Washington DC. Mendelssohn failed the Foreign Office's national
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: security checks, but he was given the plumb diplomatic role anyway,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: allegedly at Stama's and it's since been revealed he had
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a long association with the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelsson,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: who denies any wrongdoing, is now the subject of an
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: investigation by UK police. They allege he shared sensitive financial
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: information with Epstein. Starmer's job is safe for now, but
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: about seventy Labour MPs either back the Tory motion for
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: an inquiry or abstained altogether. If Starmer does fall, how
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: much will the Mandelssohn affair and the taint of Jeffrey
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Epstein be responsible.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: I definitely think that Mandelsson was the end and the
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: way that party get was the end for Boris Johnson.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: But I think that he's made so many miss steps
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: on policy, on scandal, on the fact that he just
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: cannot communicate with the British people but also the fact,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Claire that Kirstarmer seems allergic to take responsibility. You know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: it's become a meme essentially of him saying, you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: narbody told me our worst prime minister, and I am
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: furious to hear that this is the House told me
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: at all. There was a British commentator recently who said
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: he's the embodiment of computer. Says no, and this is
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: why people dislike him. He projects no hope, no vision,
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: and after years of very very difficult Tory government and
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: a lot of crisis in Britain from Brexit to Ukraine,
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: to Iran to COVID obviously and the GFC which was
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: very very bad for Britain in a way that I
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: think Australians would struggle to understand because we whether the
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: GFC so well. They have been through so many crises.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: They've had many prime ministers in some ways much worse
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: prime ministers. Thank Heir Starmer, but I think he's just
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: an embodiment of where Britain has got itself to and
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: they're not happy when they see what's reflected in the mirror.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Focusing.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Thanks Claire.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Richard Ferguson is the Australian's Canbra bureau chief. You can
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: read all the letters from Charles and Camilla's visit to
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the US right now at the Australian dot com dot
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: a u