Kamal Ghorui
US President Donald Trump has reportedly discovered that he is a distant cousin of King Charles, with a recent newspaper investigation tracing a shared royal family line back through Scottish ancestry.Sharing the newspaper excerpt on his Truth Social, Trump said that he always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace.“Wow, that’s nice. I’ve always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace!!! I’ll talk to the King and Queen about this in a few minutes!!! President DJT,” he wrote.The revelation came ahead of the US President hosting the King and Queen at the White House on Tuesday, in a state visit meant to reinforce the long-standing alliance between Britain and the United States.Trump and King Charles were greeted by First Lady Melania Trump and Queen Camilla on the South Lawn, where hundreds of guests watched as cannons boomed and the U.S. national anthem played beneath an overcast April sky. “What a beautiful British day this is,” Trump told the gathering, drawing amusement from British guests.The visit comes as both sides seek to project unity despite deep divisions over the Iran war. The four-day trip is designed to highlight the “special relationship” between the two countries, built over 250 years since American independence.Trump also praised the King during the visit, calling him “a very elegant man” and joking that his mother “had a crush on Charles”. According to the newspaper report, the family connection links Trump and Charles through a long line of Scottish and noble ancestry, making the two men distant cousins.In the accompanying family tree, the report traced Trump’s ancestry through names including King James I of Scotland, Princess Mary Stewart, Hon Elizabeth Hamilton, John Stuart, Matthew Earl of Lennox, Lady Helen Stuart, and later generations leading down to Donald J Trump and President Donald J Trump. The article said the connection was uncovered by tracing multiple land records, church records and Scottish peerage documents, and noted that the link places Trump and Charles as ninth cousins once removed.The paper said President Trump had previously used the line, “We are related,” when speaking about King Charles, and noted that the discovery gave fresh colour to an already unusual diplomatic meeting. It also reported that Trump described the idea of the connection as “great” and said it made the King seem like “a very elegant man”.The visit was framed as a display of royal pomp and political messaging, with the monarchy and the White House using the occasion to underline continuity in the transatlantic relationship. The report added that the ancestry claim has already added an extra layer of intrigue to Trump’s state visit, especially given the theatrical pageantry of the royal welcome.
