Trump Says He's Happy Harry and Meghan Left the U.S., Tells Royals He Would Not Have Taken Them Back

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was "happy" that Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, had left the United States for Britain, and he said that if he were in the royal family he would not have taken them back.

The remarks, made in the Oval Office after a meeting with travel executives, were Trump's first public comments on the couple since they arrived in England in late August with their children after six years in California.

"I'm happy about it. I was not a fan," Trump told reporters when asked about the move.

He praised his relationships with the late Queen Elizabeth II and with King Charles III, then turned to the Sussexes' break with the monarchy.

"I had a very good relationship with the Queen. Really good. I got to know her very well. A really good relationship with King Charles. I knew him as Prince Charles and King Charles. I've known him for a long time. He's a great, great guy," Trump said. "And I thought they treated the royal family with great disrespect. I didn't like it."

He singled out Meghan. "I didn't like the way she acted. I thought she was terribly disrespectful to the Queen, to King Charles," he said. "I don't know. Maybe I'm different. I wouldn't have taken them back. Frankly, if I were the royal family, I would not have taken them back."

Neither Buckingham Palace nor representatives for Harry and Meghan issued an immediate public response to the president's comments.

**A return framed as private, not official**

Harry, 41, and Meghan, 45, landed in Britain on Aug. 26 with Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, after reports that they intended to spend an extended period in the United Kingdom so the children could start school there in September.

A spokesperson for the couple said they were not returning as working members of the royal family. "On the heels of a wonderful trip with family and friends this summer, Harry and Meghan have decided to spend an extended period in the U.K. this autumn," the spokesperson said. "They are excited to have their children spend more time in the country that's such an important part of their family's story."

People familiar with the plans have said the family will live in a private home outside London, not a royal residence, and will keep their house in Montecito, California, as well as a property in Portugal. Their businesses are expected to remain based in the United States. One person close to the couple told British media the stay could last six months, a year or longer, and that even the family had not fixed an end date.

King Charles was informed of the decision on Aug. 16, according to people familiar with the matter. Palace officials have said he welcomes the chance to see more of his son's family in a personal capacity. There are no current plans for Harry or Meghan to resume official royal duties, an arrangement set when they stepped back in 2020 and later confirmed by Queen Elizabeth II, who rejected a "half-in, half-out" model.

**How they left, and why the move still stings**

In January 2020, Harry and Meghan announced they would "step back as 'senior' members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen." By March they had left Britain. They stayed first at a Los Angeles home belonging to Tyler Perry, then bought a house in Montecito.

The years that followed were defined by interviews, a Netflix series and Harry's memoir "Spare." In a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry accused the royal household of neglect. Meghan, whose mother is Black and father is white, said that while she was pregnant with Archie there were "concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born." Those claims deepened a rift that has never fully closed, particularly with Prince William and Catherine, the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Harry later said British tabloids had made family life untenable and argued that the loss of publicly funded security made a full-time return unsafe. He has pursued legal challenges over protection arrangements. Those concerns are why the August relocation drew immediate questions about what had changed. Neither the couple nor the British government has announced a new security settlement.

The family did travel back for major royal events: the queen's Platinum Jubilee and funeral in 2022, Charles's coronation in 2023, and a visit after the king's cancer diagnosis in 2024. In July 2026 they met Charles and Queen Camilla at Highgrove. People familiar with that visit said it was the first time Charles had seen Archie and Lilibet since 2022. The planned move was not discussed then, those people said.

**Trump's long-running feud**

Trump's Wednesday comments fit a pattern. He has criticized Meghan for years and has clashed with Harry over politics. After Harry visited Ukraine this year and urged Washington to help end the war with Russia, Trump told reporters, "Prince Harry is not speaking for the U.K. That's for sure. I think I'm speaking for the U.K. more than Prince Harry." He also offered a pointed aside: "How's his wife? Please give her my regards."

The president has often described his rapport with Elizabeth II as a personal highlight of his first term and has cultivated Charles since the king's accession. By placing that history next to a rebuke of the Sussexes, Trump cast himself as a defender of the institution Harry and Meghan left.

The couple's American chapter was commercially successful and politically exposed. Meghan built a lifestyle brand and a Netflix cooking series. Harry wrote a bestseller and worked with Archewell, their nonprofit. They also became frequent targets for conservative media in the United States. Leaving California does not end that scrutiny. It relocates it to a country whose press they have spent years accusing of intrusion.

**What the president cannot decide**

Trump's line that he would not have "taken them back" treats the move as a royal pardon. Palace reporting does not. Officials have described the return as private family life, not a restoration. Harry and Meghan will not represent the king on engagements. They will not live on the Windsor estate they once occupied at Frogmore Cottage, which they were asked to vacate after "Spare." They are not expected to receive a new public role.

That distinction matters in Britain, where working royals carry official duties and public funding rules that do not apply to the Sussexes. It also matters for the children. Archie and Lilibet will attend school as the children of non-working royals, a status that still draws cameras but does not place them on palace balconies.

Whether the stay becomes permanent is an open question the couple has declined to answer. Their spokesperson chose the phrase "extended period." British newspapers have speculated about everything from a school year to a lasting base. For now the verified facts are narrower: they arrived Aug. 26, the children are enrolled for the autumn term, the king was told days earlier, and they remain private citizens with homes on two continents.

Trump, speaking as president of the country they just left, offered a verdict rather than a policy. He said he was glad they were gone. He said they had shown "great disrespect." He said he would not have welcomed them. Those sentences will travel farther than any palace briefing. They do not change the couple's legal status in Britain, the king's stated wish to see his grandchildren, or the unfinished quarrel with William.

Harry and Meghan have not answered the president. They have not given a news conference about the move. The only on-the-record description from their camp remains the autumn stay, the children's schooling and the claim that Britain is "an important part of their family's story." Trump's Oval Office assessment was that the story should have ended without a return. The royal household, so far, has chosen a quieter path: family visits, no titles restored, no working role, and no public fight with the White House.