President Trump opened up on his meeting with Queen Elizabeth II in an interview on Air Force One.
The President sat down with controversial Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan, a former Celebrity Apprentice contestant, shortly after having afternoon tea with the 92-year-old monarch at the 11th-century Windsor Castle, one of the United Kingdom’s most iconic royal residences.
“The Queen is fantastic!” a beaming POTUS told Morgan.
“She’s a fantastic woman; so much energy and smart and sharp. She was amazing! Such a wonderful lady and so beautiful! It was such an honour to finally meet her. To have a Queen like that is great.”
Queen Elizabeth, who served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service and trained as a driver and mechanic during the Second World War, was coronated all the way back in 1953, and is the longest-serving head of state in British history.
The meeting held special significance for the President, who is half-British through his Scottish mother, Mary MacLeod, who was a great admirer of the monarch.
“Well, first of all I was thinking about my mother,” he told Morgan, when asked what was running through his mind when he was walking up to her.
“My mother passed away a while ago and she was a tremendous fan of the Queen. She thought she was a woman of elegance, and my mother felt she was a great woman. I remember even as a little guy, if there was any kind of a ceremony to do with the Queen, my mother would be watching the television— she wanted to see it.
“I was walking up and I was saying [to First Lady Melania Trump]: ‘Can you imagine my mother seeing this scene? Windsor. Windsor Castle.’ And it was beautiful, it was really beautiful — but the Queen is terrific.
“She is so sharp, so wise, so beautiful. Up close, you see she’s so beautiful. She’s a very special person. And the way she’s conducted herself for so many years. And she’s got a lotta years left.”
The President said the Queen described her meetings with many of his predecessors over the years, beginning with Harry Truman back in the 1950s.
“Harry Truman was the first president that she got to meet and know, and she went through a whole list. It was a very nice moment, Piers, very nice,” he said.
The President told Morgan the pair had discussed Brexit, but when pressed on the Queen’s views — she is reportedly not a fan of the European Union, upbraiding Brussels loyalist and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on the subject — he was respectful.
“Well, I can’t talk, you know I’ve heard very strongly from a lot of people, you just don’t talk about that conversation with the Queen, right?” he said.
“You don’t wanna do that… Let me tell you what I can talk about… she is an incredible woman, she is so sharp, she is so beautiful, when I say beautiful — inside and out. That is a beautiful woman.”