President Donald Trump cheered the news of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s surprise return to the UK.
Speaking of the Sussexes’ decision to leave their home in Montecito and move back to Britain, Trump said: ‘I’m happy about it.’
‘I was not a fan,’ he added, noting that he had a ‘very good relationship with the Queen and with [King] Charles’.
‘I thought they treated the Royal Family with great disrespect. I didn’t like it,’ Trump told reporters of Harry and Meghan. ‘I didn’t like the way she acted.’
‘I thought she was terribly disrespectful to the Queen, to King Charles,’ Trump said of Meghan’s behavior and the couple’s decision to step back from their royal duties six years earlier.
‘I don’t know, maybe I’m different. I wouldn’t have taken them back,’ Trump said, before adding: ‘If I were the Royal Family, I would not have taken them back.’
Harry and Meghan told King Charles last month that they would be moving back to Britain with their children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, who are slated to begin school there in the fall.
The Sussexes are now staying in the UK for an ‘extended period’ after flying into the country on August 26.
Harry and Meghan are seen at the One805 Live Concert fundraising event in Santa Barbara in September 2023
Prince Harry, Prince Archie, Princess Lilibet and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in a family photo released in December last year
Prince Harry and his then-fiancee, Meghan Markle, pose for a photograph in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace in 2017
The family is said to be eyeing a home in the Cotswolds, an area that has gained prominence in recent years among wealthy Silicon Valley tech moguls and Hollywood elites – perhaps further endearing the area to Markle, a Golden State native.
While the couple appeared to be leading a quiet private life in Montecito, California, the pair had made no secret of their disillusionment with the current administration.
And with the November midterm elections fast approaching, concerns about the direction of the US have been top-of-mind, People first reported.
Their return to Britain was cheered by some in Trump’s orbit, who mocked the news following reports that the decision was motivated in part by their views of the current president.
Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, shared a report about their move on social media, noting: ‘They are moving back to Britain because they don’t like President Trump.’
Conservative personality Megyn Kelly also responded to their move and their decision to step down as senior members of the working family six years ago – a decision many dubbed ‘Megxit’.
‘We’ve done our time here in America my dear friend!’ Kelly said on X, replying to Right-wing commentator Dan Wootton’s post about Megxit being ‘reversed’.
The family is not severing their California ties for good, however. They plan to keep their home in Montecito, as well as a separate vacation property they own in Portugal.
King Charles and Trump share a laugh at the White House state dinner in April 2026. The monarch filled his speech with jokes – including about the Boston Tea Party
The President and the First Lady toast King Charles at a state dinner at the White House
‘What is absolutely crucial is that Harry never fell out of love with Britain – he fell out of love with the circumstances he found himself living in, and those are very different things,’ Harry’s friend Alex Rayner, who went with him on a charity trek to the North Pole in 2011, and remains in regular contact with him, told the Daily Mail of their return.
Others spoke of ‘an increasing and significant shift in sentiment, a feeling the American dream might not be all it was cracked up to be’.
That sentiment does not appear to be one-sided, either. ‘This is coming from Meghan as well as from him,’ a friend told the Daily Mail. ‘I hear that Meghan is all for rekindling with and reconnecting with Harry’s English side. She is fully behind it.’
President Trump and King Charles indeed appear to share a warm relationship.
Their camaraderie was on full display in April, when Trump hosted Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House for the first state dinner of his second term – and to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.
Trump previously said he and the late Queen Elizabeth II had an ‘incredible’ relationship
President Trump and King Charles share a joke before a state dinner in Washington, DC
Both Trump and the King made comments about their countries’ shared backstories, with Charles calling the fete a ‘very considerable improvement on the Boston Tea Party’.
The King also called attention to the president’s ‘readjustments’ to the East Wing, which is no longer standing.
‘I’m sorry to say that we British, of course, made our own small attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814,’ the King joked.
