Queen Elizabeth II found Donald Trump and his family to be “gracious” and “wonderful guests” — despite recent claims the late monarch called him “very rude,” according to a former Buckingham Palace official.
In his forthcoming biography, “A Voyage Around the Queen,” author Craig Brown claims the queen confided to her staff that she was irritated by the way the former president behaved when they met, and that she “particularly disliked” the way he kept looking over her shoulder.
However, a former aide familiar with the Queen’s views told the Post: “I know first-hand that this is false.
“I spoke to the Queen afterwards after the state visit, as well as other members of the Royal Household, and she told me that she had found them [the Trumps] “to be truly gracious and wonderful guests to have at the palace.”
Trump, 78, has been hosted by the queen in the United Kingdom twice during his presidency: once for a working trip in July 2018 and again for a state visit in June 2019, when he brought his wife Melania and four of his five children — Ivanka, Donald Jr., Eric and Tiffany — to stay at Buckingham Palace.
The former staff member added: “She said they were a lovely family to have at the palace.”
Brown writes that the queen made her thoughts about the current Republican presidential candidate clear at a private lunch.
“A few weeks after President Trump’s visit, for example, she told one of his guests that she found him ‘very rude’: she particularly hated the way he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder, as if he were looking for other, more interesting people,” Brown continues, according to an excerpt serialized in the Daily Mail.
“She also believed that President Trump ‘must have some sort of arrangement’ with his wife Melania, otherwise why would she have stayed married to him?” he adds.
While the palace source confirmed to the Post that the monarch would host private lunches with a small cross-section of household staff once a month, they added: “I always found her incredibly private in the private lunches she hosted.
“That doesn’t seem true, as someone who worked for her, it’s not the kind of thing she would say.
“This directly contradicts what she told me about the state visit and the general atmosphere at the time… I find it hard to believe because it was so out of character for her. She was so impossible to read on certain issues, by choice. She didn’t want to be partisan, and people projected their own thoughts onto her,” the source said.
“I worked for her for over three years and most of the time she was certainly impenetrable.”
Trump has indeed made a series of gaffes during his meetings with the Queen.
At Windsor Castle in July 2018, he walked in front of the monarch during the inspection of the guard of honour, a clear breach of protocol.
A year later, Trump made another mistake during an official state visit by placing his hand on Queen Elizabeth’s back during the state banquet at Buckingham Palace.
Although the Royal Family website states that there is “no mandatory code of behaviour when meeting The Queen or any member of the Royal Family”, the traditional forms of etiquette suggested are a bow for men and a curtsy for women.
However, the palace source recalled: “I remember someone once asking her what the protocol was for a particular person on another state visit. She made it very clear that her interest was to be the best host possible and to make our guest feel comfortable.
“She wasn’t really interested in people following protocol. She wanted them to feel comfortable and welcome. As for Trump, as he was reviewing these troops, she was just worried that he was in the right place at the right time,” the source added. “The book seems to misuse her ethics and her approach to these kinds of visits.”
During her state visit, the Queen presented Trump with an abridged first edition of Winston Churchill’s book on World War II and presented Melania with a “specially commissioned silver box” with a “hand-crafted enamel lid” designed to match the ceiling of the Music Room at Buckingham Palace.
Trump, meanwhile, boasted: “I have a great relationship with her, we laughed and had a great time. And her people said she hasn’t had this much fun in 25 years.”
Asked about Brown’s book, Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, told the Post: “This is nothing more than fake news designed to use made-up and salacious fabrications to sell copies of a book that should be in the bargain bin in the fiction section.”
