Featured Image Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Topics: King Charles III, Donald Trump
William Morgan
Topics: King Charles III, Donald Trump
King Charles III has landed in America for a four-day royal visit to mark the United States' 250 years of independence from Britain, with a number of glitzy events planned for the monarch's trip.
Naturally, King Charles and Queen Camilla began their journey by visiting Washington, D.C., for afternoon tea with President Trump, who they had in turn hosted for a state visit and banquet at Buckingham Palace last year.
Images from this meeting of the 77-year-old king and the 79-year-old president show them deep in conversation over tiny sandwiches and slivers of cake, with both men knowing each other for more than 20 years - before they'd ascended to the top position in their respective governments.
But despite this familiarity, an eagle-eyed observer of their conversation after this cordial tea noticed what appeared to be an awkward moment and chilling admission as the pair toured the South Lawn of the White House.
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"This shooting..." Trump appeared to start saying, barely 48 hours after a 31-year-old teacher from California allegedly attempted to assassinate him at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
But, professional lip reader Nicola Hickling told the Daily Mail that King Charles cut him off. "I'd rather not stand about here too long," the king appeared to respond amid the heightened political violence and seeming threat of assassination for major public figures.
"I feel I shouldn't be here," the softly spoken King Charles added, standing next to Trump in full public view after the third major attempt on the president's life.
Trump is then alleged to have asked the monarch if he was OK, before telling him: "It's not a good thing. I wasn't prepared, but now I am prepared."
With the subject apparently a source of tension, the president then turned their talk to geopolitics, saying to King Charles that he had spoken recently to Russia's Vladimir Putin.
"So right now, I am talking to Putin," Trump is believed to have said, before making a chilling admission to his fellow world leader: "He wants war."
The lip reader said that the king asked to speak about the topic later, but Trump went on saying: "I've got a feeling… if he did what he said, he will wipe out the population."
The British royal tried to avoid the subject again, supposedly saying: "Another time."
Of course, having been a public figure for even longer than the real estate developer turned TV host turned president, King Charles is no stranger to attempted assassinations himself, having survived a number of attempts on his life.
That includes a railway bomb in 1969 that was intended to kill him before he was installed as Prince of Wales, which exploded before the then 21-year-old's train passed by. 14 years later an Irish Republican Army bomb plot tried to kill him and Princess Diana at a Duran Duran concert in London.
This was foiled by a spy from the British state, embedded deep within the IRA, who notified his handlers of the bomb and conspirators. However, the most famous attempt to kill him came in 1994 during a visit to Australia.
While speaking to a large crowd for Australia Day, a man charged the stage and fired a gun at the monarch. The man who would later be king did not even flinch, instead adjusting his cufflinks as shots rang out around him.