President Trump hosted King Charles III at the White House on Tuesday morning, before the British monarch is set to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress. President Trump first noted the bad weather, saying, “What a beautiful British day this is!” And then he complimented the King on his “elegant” accent. “Here in the shadows of monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, honoring the British king might seem an ironic beginning to our celebration of 250 years of American independence. But in fact, no tribute could be more appropriate,” Trump said. “But before we ever proclaimed our independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts-moral courage-and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea.” “Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that no man should be denied either justice or right.” “American patriots today can sing ‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,’ sweet land of liberty, only because our colonial ancestors first sang ‘God Save the King.'” “We speak the same language. We hold the same values. And together, our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white and blue,” Trump said.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You’re going to Congress, and you’re going to make a speech that’s going to make everybody very envious of that beautiful accent of yours-very elegant. He’s a very elegant man. Here in the shadows of monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, honoring the British king might seem an ironic beginning to our celebration of 250 years of American independence. But in fact, no tribute could be more appropriate. Long before Americans had a nation or a Constitution, we first had a culture, a character, and a creed. Before we ever proclaimed our independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts-moral courage-and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea. For nearly two centuries before the Revolution, this land was settled and forged by men and women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here, on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain’s distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride-and that’s what it is: glory, destiny, and pride. The American patriots who pledged their lives to independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true. In recent years, we’ve often heard it said that America is merely an idea. But the cause of freedom did not simply appear as an intellectual invention of 1776. The American founding was the culmination of hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood, and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic. Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that no man should be denied either justice or right. American patriots today can sing My Country, ‘Tis of Thee, sweet land of liberty, only because our colonial ancestors first sang God Save the King. … In the centuries since we won our independence, Americans have had no closer friends than the British. We share that same root. We speak the same language. We hold the same values. And together, our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white, and blue.

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