Former President Donald Trump refuses to participate in the second Republican primary debate, but he’s open to verbally sparring with one surprising foe, the Duchess of Sussex.
In a recent radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, Trump declared that he’d “love” to debate Prince Harry’s wife, former “Suits” star Meghan Markle, because of how she handled the late Queen Elizabeth II, who he was quite fond of.
Hewitt asked Trump if he would sit down with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who don’t “like” him much, “for the ratings.”
“If you want to set it up, let’s set it up,” he told the radio host on Wednesday morning. “Let’s go do something, I’d love to debate her. I would love it.”
Donald Trump tells Hugh Hewitt he would “love to debate” Meghan Markle:
“I didn’t like the way she dealt with the queen … I’d love to debate her. I would love it. I disagree so much with what they’re doing.” pic.twitter.com/vc7KpzTaeJ
— The Recount (@therecount) September 6, 2023
Though he did contest that the ex-pat royals weren’t fans of his “Well, I don’t know that they don’t like me,” Trump remarked.
The GOP primary front runner noted that he wasn’t thrilled that the couple was “getting U.S. security” when they initially moved to the United States.
“I think it’s not a good situation going on with the two of them, but I didn’t know that they don’t like me,” he continued. “Somebody mentioned it might be possible. They wouldn’t be the only ones.”
Much of Trump’s distaste for Markle stems from how she handled Queen Elizabeth II upon marrying into the royal family.
“I said that I don’t think they are very appropriate what they’re saying, what they’re doing, and I didn’t like the way she dealt with the queen,” the 45th President stated.
Trump explained that he disagreed “so much” with the actions of the royal pair, who were married in 2018, then ditched their responsibilities as full-time working royals to move to California in 2020.
“I became very friendly with the Queen. She was an incredible woman,” he said about his relationship with the former monarch, who he compared with President Joe Biden in a jab about his cognition.
“At 95, she was so sharp. She was 100%,” he went on. “When you watch Biden, you say this is a different planet.”
“They treated her with great disrespect and I didn’t like it,” he concluded about Meghan and Harry.
It wasn’t the first time that Trump had something to say about Markle, who called him “divisive” and “misogynistic” during his 2016 presidential campaign.
“I didn’t know that. What can I say?” Trump commented in a 2019 interview with The Sun, prior to a state visit in the United Kingdom. “I didn’t know that she was nasty.”
He clarified his remarks during a chat with fellow Markle hater Piers Morgan, during an appearance on “Good Morning Britain,” which the host exited after being “cancelled” in 2021, for casting doubt on Markle’s reveal to Oprah Winfrey that she was suicidal while pregnant with her first child.
“They said some of the things that she said and it’s actually on tape,” Trump said in reference to his interview with The Sun.
“And I said, ‘Well, I didn’t know she was nasty,’” he explained to Morgan. “I wasn’t referring to she’s nasty. I said she was nasty about me. And essentially I didn’t know she was nasty about me.”
During his trip to the United Kingdom, Markle was a no-show to royal events with the then President, and Prince Harry, who he called a “terrific guy,” seemed to be hesitant to be photographed with him.
He also said that Markle was “doing a good job” as a member of the royal family at the time and hoped that she “enjoys her life,” but did admit that she was less than “very nice” to him personally.
“She was nasty to me. And that’s OK for her to be nasty, it’s not good for me to be nasty to her and I wasn’t,” he said to Morgan.