A new book reveals Donald Trump privately dismissed his first sit-down with then-Prince Charles as "terrible" because the heir to the throne spent the entire meeting pressing him on climate change, yet years later, Trump calls Charles "the greatest King."
Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page details the 2019 encounter in her book The Queen and Her Presidents, as first reported by Hello! Magazine and the Irish Star. Trump sat down with Prince Charles for afternoon tea at Clarence House during a state visit to the United Kingdom. The conversation, by all accounts relayed in the book, revolved almost entirely around environmental policy, a subject on which the two men could hardly have been further apart.
Trump had already pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Charles was, and remains, a longtime advocate for environmental protection. The result was a meeting that left the American president cold.
Page's book recounts that Trump complained to aide Stephanie Grisham immediately after the meeting. The passage reads:
"Afterward, Trump told Grisham that the conversation had been terrible. 'Nothing but climate change,' Trump groused, rolling his eyes."
Melania Trump confirmed the account with characteristic directness. Page quotes the First Lady laughing about it:
"Oh, yes, he was very bored."
The exchange is a small but telling window into how Trump processes diplomatic encounters. He has never hidden his impatience with what he considers lecture-style advocacy, and a royal heir spending an afternoon tea on carbon emissions apparently qualified. Melania, for her part, has fought back aggressively against authors and media figures who she believes misrepresent her family, but in this case, she cheerfully confirmed the anecdote.
Page's book also notes that Trump said he had experienced "a change of heart about Charles since then." The timeline bears that out.
By September 2025, Trump and Melania conducted a full state visit to the United Kingdom, meeting King Charles, who had ascended to the throne following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The visit went well enough that Charles and Queen Camilla traveled to Washington, D.C., in April 2026 for a reciprocal visit.
As Charles departed the capital, Trump offered a sendoff that bore no trace of the eye-rolling from seven years earlier.
"He's a great King. The greatest King, in my book."
Trump met Charles on "several occasions" during his second presidential term, and the relationship appears to have warmed considerably. Whatever friction climate change introduced in 2019, it did not define the long arc of the two men's dealings.
That stands in contrast to how Trump has handled another branch of the Royal Family. On September 2, speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, Trump made clear he draws a sharp line between the King and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Trump told reporters he was "not a fan" of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who had relocated from California back to the United Kingdom with their two children. He did not hold back about his view of their conduct toward the monarchy:
"And I thought they treated the royal family with great disrespect. I didn't like it. I didn't like the way they acted. I thought she was terribly disrespectful to the queen, to King Charles."
He went further, offering unsolicited advice on what the Royal Family should have done:
"I don't know, maybe I'm different. I wouldn't have taken them back. Frankly, if I were the royal family, I wouldn't have taken them back."
In the same Oval Office session, Trump spoke warmly about his history with the late Queen Elizabeth II. "I had a very good relationship with the queen. Really good. I got to know her very well," he said, before adding of Charles: "He's great, great guy."
The contrast is deliberate. Trump has repeatedly voiced his disapproval of Harry and Meghan's return to the U.K. in recent days, while simultaneously praising the King. It is a posture that aligns with mainstream conservative sentiment, loyalty to institutions, respect for tradition, and skepticism toward those who publicly air grievances against their own family while trading on the family name.
Page's book captures a relationship that evolved from a stilted afternoon tea into something Trump now describes in superlatives. The publishing world has produced no shortage of books claiming to reveal unflattering details about the Trumps' private lives, and many have drawn legal challenges or flat denials. This particular anecdote is notable because neither Trump nor Melania disputes it, Melania laughed about it on the record.
Susan Page, a Washington Bureau Chief, built the book around the broader relationship between American presidents and the British Crown. The 2019 climate meeting is one episode in a longer narrative, and it may be the least damaging "bombshell" any author has managed to extract from the Trump orbit, a president who found a policy conversation boring and said so.
Melania's willingness to confirm the account with humor rather than push back suggests the Trumps view the anecdote as harmless, even endearing. It fits a pattern: Trump says what he thinks, does not pretend to enjoy lectures he finds pointless, and moves on. The First Lady has shown no hesitation in deploying legal force against claims she considers genuinely damaging. A story about her husband being bored by climate talk apparently does not meet that threshold.
The broader context matters, too. Trump's second-term diplomatic calendar has included multiple high-profile meetings with world leaders, and his relationship with the British monarchy has become one of the warmer bilateral threads. The September 2025 state visit and the April 2026 Washington visit suggest a genuine rapport, one that survived a rocky first impression over carbon policy.
Trump's inner circle has been the subject of intense media scrutiny throughout both terms, and Grisham's role as the aide who received Trump's post-meeting complaints places her at the center of yet another behind-the-scenes account. The book does not specify her exact title at the time of the 2019 meeting.
What Page's book ultimately captures is not a scandal but a personality. Trump sat through a meeting he found tedious, told his staff exactly what he thought, and his wife confirmed it years later without a hint of embarrassment. Charles, for his part, kept advocating for environmental causes regardless of his audience's interest level. Both men stayed who they are.
The relationship improved anyway. That may be the most useful detail in the entire book, not that Trump was bored in 2019, but that it did not matter by 2026. Diplomacy between adults does not require agreement on every issue. It requires showing up, and Trump and Charles both did.
When the biggest revelation a Washington author can produce is that a president found a climate lecture dull, the republic is probably in decent shape.
