‘Americans have had no closer friends than the British,’ says Donald Trump at UK royal visit – US politics live

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Donald Trump says Oval Office meeting with King Charles was 'really good' and calls monarch 'fantastic person'

Trump said the private Oval Office meeting with King Charles was “really good” and called the monarch a “fantastic person”.

The off-camera exchange avoids the fate of other foreign leaders subject to a public upbraiding by the US president and other senior administration officials.

According to the Guardian’s earlier reporting, British officials have pushed for the Oval Office meeting between the monarch and the US president to be held off camera for fear of a repeat of the scenes when Trump berated the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in front of the world’s press.

“It was a really good meeting,” Trump told reporters in brief remarks afterward. “He’s a fantastic person. They’re incredible people and it’s a real honor.”

US to embassies: deny visas to applicants who say they fear return to home country

Joseph Gedeon

Applicants seeking a temporary visa to the United States must now tell a consular officer that they have not experienced harm and do not fear returning to their home country, according to new guidance issued from the state department. If they answer yes or decline to respond to either question, the chance they will be denied will skyrocket.

The Guardian obtained a state department cable which instructs officers at every US embassy and consulate globally to amend their process and ask applicants to affirm they do not fear mistreatment if they return home as a prerequisite for the interview to continue.

The two new questions are: “Have you experienced harm or mistreatment in your country of nationality or last habitual residence?” and “Do you fear harm or mistreatment in returning to your country of nationality?”

The directive claims that the new process is designed to cut down on what the department claims are people misrepresenting themselves during the visa process.

On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel refused to apologise for a joke made days before the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting in which he described Melania Trump as glowing “like an expectant widow”, after both Donald Trump and the first lady accused him of inciting violence.

Melania Trump accused Kimmel of “hateful and violent rhetoric” and “atrocious behavior”, and said it was “time for ABC to take a stand” against the comedian, who has long been critical of Trump and his policies.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host made the joke on Thursday, well before the Saturday attack on the White House correspondents’ dinner, during a skit in which the ABC host pretended to be the event’s MC.

FCC to order early license reviews of Disney-owned ABC stations - report

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to order early reviews of eight Disney-owned ABC stations as soon as Tuesday in a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s fight with major media outlets, a source told Reuters.

The reviews – which could lead to the FCC seeking to revoke the stations licenses to operate on broadcast airwaves – come in the wake of the White House call to fire ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel but are not directly tied to that, the source added. The FCC, an independent federal agency, issues eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations, and has not revoked a broadcast TV station license in more than 40 years.

Kirsty McEwen

The royal White House visit’s aim of repairing the strained special relationship may have suffered a setback after the Financial Times reported comments by Britain’s new ambassador to Washington.

Christian Turner said it was “extraordinary” that scandals around Jeffrey Epstein had brought down a member of the royal family and senior officials in Britain “and yet here in the US, it really hasn’t touched anybody”, reported the Financial Times.

A recording of Turner’s comments to a group of British students was published on Tuesday by the FT, which said they were made in February.

Turner also said: “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States – and that is probably Israel.”

He said, though, that the UK and the US share “a deep history and affinity” and that “particularly on our defense and security, we are intertwined”.

The UK foreign office said “these were private, informal comments” and “certainly not any reflection of the UK government’s position”.

The Trumps, King Charles and Queen Camilla are now walking around the White House tennis pavilion, greeting student state champions from the presidential AI challenge as harpist plays on the lawn.

The cameras are following Melania Trump and Queen Camilla as they speak to some of the participants. Though there is no audio, they appear to be inquiring about the students’ work.

The day so far

• Donald and Melania Trump welcomed King Charles and Queen Camilla to the White House for the second day of their state visit to the US. The unprecedented pomp-filled arrival ceremony featured a military parade, canon fire and a military jet flyover, with top members of Trump’s cabinet in attendance. Despite fears that the US president could go off the rails and embarass the British monarch publicly, Trump remarkably stuck to the script in his brief remarks, praising the shared history of the US and UK and declaring that “Americans have no closer friends than the British”. After holding a meeting with Trump off-camera, Charles will later address a bipartisan session of the US Congress, with a state banquet to follow tonight back at the White House. The king is expected to use the speech to Congress to call for “reconciliation and renewal” amid strained relations between the US and UK over the US-Israeli war on Iran. “Time and again our two countries have always found ways to come together,” he is expected to say. Here’s our preview.

• Earlier, Trump claimed without evidence that Iran had “just informed” Washington that they are in a “state of collapse” and want the US to open the strait of Hormuz “as soon as possible”. Trump claimed this comes as Iran tries to “figure out” their “leadership situation”, which he says he believes is possible. We have not been able to verify the US president’s claims, and Iran has yet to comment on them.

• It comes as Trump has reportedly signaled to his top advisers that he is dissatisfied with and unlikely to accept Iran’s latest proposal to end the war, which would reopen the strait of Hormuz and leave discussion of Iran’s nuclear program for a later date. It is not immediately clear why the president is not satisfied with the proposal - but Trump has repeatedly insisted that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons – and his next steps remain unclear. More on our Middle East blog.

• Jimmy Kimmel refused to apologise for a joke made days before the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting in which he described Melania Trump as glowing “like an expectant widow”, after both Donald Trump and the first lady accused him of inciting violence. During his Monday night monologue, Kimmel pointed out he made the joke three days before the alleged assassination attempt. “Obviously, it was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together,” he said. “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not – by any stretch of the definition – a call to assassination. And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence, in particular.” Here’s our story.

After Donald Trump’s brief remarks, the four of them departed the stage and ascended the steps to a White House balcony, where they chatted as they watched the troops marching and playing across the south lawn.

After a military flyover, they waved to the crowd and went into the White House, where the president and King Charles will hold an off-camera bilateral meeting this morning.

A military flyover for Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White Housee. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

Donald and Melania Trump, and King Charles and Queen Camilla wave from the Blue Room balcony during the state visit arrival ceremony. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Donald Trump praises UK relationship during speech at White House

Trump also paid tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’s mother, referring to a tree she planted at the White House in 1991:

Queen Elizabeth II - very, very special woman who is very greatly missed on both sides of that mighty Atlantic - long ago planted a young tree, was a very young and beautiful tree, and look at it now.

Like the US, the tree “was laid by British hands on American soil”, he said.

In the centuries since the US achieved independence, Trump added, “Americans have had no closer friends than the British”.

Just to give more context to Trump’s “cute” comment, he was talking about how his mother, who was born in Scotland, had a “crush” on Charles.

He said his mother “loved the royal family”, adding:

Any time the Queen was involved in a ceremony ... my mother would be glued to the television, and she’d say, ‘look Donald, look how beautiful that is’.

She really did love the family ... but I also remember her saying very clearly, Charles ... he’s so cute ... my mother had a crush on Charles. Can you believe it?

Donald Trump calls King Charles ‘cute’. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Paying tribute to that shared history, Trump said:

Before Americans had a nation or a constitution, we first had a culture, a character and a creed. Before we ever proclaimed our independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts - moral courage - and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea.

Trump speaks much of the “centuries-old bond” between the US and UK and the shared history between the two nations, with references to Magna Carta and the American war of independence.

He’s also complimented King Charles’s “beautiful accent” and just called the monarch “cute”.