The British monarchy has centuries of practice at pageantry. They can deliver history, heritage, and high ceremony with the crisp precision of a Guardsman’s salute. All Trump had to do was show up, smile, and not embarrass the republic. Predictably, he managed only one of the three.

King Charles gave a statesmanlike toast, rich in history, nods to Shakespeare and Newton, NATO solidarity, climate stewardship, and the small matter of Ukraine. It was the kind of polished speech designed to remind the world that Britain, for all its royal oddities, still knows how to play host.

Trump’s reply, however, was Windsor Castle meets Mar-a-Lago banquet hall. He declared himself the “first American president welcomed here”, an ahistorical flex that would’ve made JFK, Reagan, Obama, and every diplomatic historian within earshot choke on their claret. He butchered names, proudly citing “Shakespeare and Dickens and Tolen, Lewis, Orwell and Kipling,” as if Middle Earth had been dreamed up by some guy named “Tolen.”

He attributed the abolition of slavery to the British Empire as though Wilberforce freed the Western Hemisphere single-handed, telling the royal audience that “the lionhearted people of this kingdom… destroyed slavery.” For Americans who recall a bloody Civil War, the remark landed somewhere between awkward and offensive.

The whole thing played like a campaign stump speech dropped into a royal dinner: lists of “unbelievable people” we’ll never see again, declarations that America is now the “hottest country in the world” (no, not a climate admission, just his usual self-promotion), and a finale where he managed to toast Charles, Camilla, and, in spirit, himself.

For Britain, this was meant to showcase the “special relationship.” What they got instead was Trump playing Churchill cosplay while confusing history with his hotel gift shop brochure. For America, it was another reminder: send this man abroad, and he’ll embarrass us on live television in front of people who actually know their own history.