President Donald Trump's (somewhat controversial) state visit to the United Kingdom continued this morning—and he's still talking about Meghan Markle, one of the members of the royal family whom he actually hasn't met during his trip. (Markle is still officially on maternity leave after the birth of baby Archie.)
During an interview with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain, Trump appeared to double down on his "nasty" comments about the Duchess of Sussex. In case you missed it, here's how we got here: Before traveling to London, he talked to the Sun about a variety of issues, including comments that Markle made during the 2016 presidential campaign about Trump being "misogynistic" and "divisive."
"I didn’t know that. What can I say? I didn’t know that she was nasty," he can be heard saying on an audio recording, even though the president subsequently claimed that the quote was "fake news."
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Morgan asked Trump directly, "Do you think Meghan Markle is nasty?"
"No, you know, the question was asked of me and I didn't know that she said anything bad about me, sounds like she did," Trump responded. "And that's okay—hey, join the crowd.... And I said, 'Well, I didn't know she was nasty.' I wasn't referring to that she's nasty, but that she was nasty about me. Essentially I didn't know she was nasty about me. But, you know what, she's doing a good job and I hope she enjoys her life.
"I think she's very nice," he continued. "Now, I don't know her, but it just shows you how terrible the news can be." Morgan said that Trump's comments on Markle did seem somewhat ambiguous, but the president continued to press the "fake news" angle. "That's okay for her to be nasty," he said. "But it's not good for me to be nasty to her, and I wasn’t.”
He went on to say that Prince Harry, who attended a private lunch with the Trumps, was a "terrific guy" but that he did not bring up the Markle situation with him. “We didn’t talk about it,” he said. “I was going to because it was so falsely put out there.” Trump says that Harry spent a good amount of time talking with Ivanka Trump and the rest of his family and that he "couldn't have been nicer."
Watch the full exchange below:
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Now if we could just have a video of Harry and Markle's conversation after he got home.
