Trump cheers as the UK monarchy expels Harry and Meghan
By Imani Sutton · Reporting from Atlanta ·
Donald Trump is celebrating a homecoming he didn't invite.
# The Brand is a Closed Loop
Donald Trump welcomes a homecoming he did not invite. From the Oval Office, the US President spent early September signaling that the return of Prince Harry and Meghan to the UK—after six years in California—is the best news of his week. "I’m happy about it," Trump said. The Guardian reported that Trump also admitted he "was not a fan" of the couple. He did not stop there; he claimed Meghan was "terribly disrespectful" to the late Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III.
A Calculated Alignment
Trump is positioning himself. By calling King Charles III a "great, great guy" and praising the late Queen as a "great woman" who "really never made a mistake," he aligns himself with the royal hierarchy. This is not a conversation about respect; it is a conversation about the ledger. Anadolu Agency reports that the central conflict is whether British taxpayers will pay the salaries of the couple's armed guards and secure transport. Trump knows that in any power structure, the people at the top only care about who absorbs the cost.
Why the Machine Breaks?
The palace is not experiencing a family spat, but a refusal to compromise. This friction first appeared during Megxit in 2020, when the couple sought a "half-in half-out" arrangement that the monarchy could not process. The same logic drove the Abdication Crisis of 1936. When Edward VIII tried to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, the institution did not just disagree—it collapsed. The monarchy cannot integrate the pursuit of private profit or celebrity without a total rupture because the brand depends on the image of static duty.
The argument for this return is familial healing, a father and son reconciling after years of leaked memos and tell-all interviews. But the record shows the institution does not heal; it absorbs or expels. In 2025, the Court of Appeal rejected Prince Harry's bid for state-funded security. The monarchy has already calculated his value. Der Spiegel called the return a "longer stay" rather than a permanent move, suggesting it is a temporary reprieve before the system offloads the expense.
The Taxpayer's Tab
Trump’s satisfaction stems from the fact that the Sussexes failed to find a steady paycheck through their Netflix deals and podcasts. He is using this failure to cozy up to King Charles III, using the couple's perceived "disrespect" as a bridge to align US-UK relations under a banner of crowns and scepters.
Harry and Meghan are returning to a house that has already revoked their security clearances. The UK government will likely buckle under public pressure to deny funding, turning the couple into a liability the Crown can no longer subsidize. The British taxpayer is the only person in this scenario paying for a luxury they never requested.