Ron DeSantis: Harry and Meghan annoy some Americans

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle can annoy some Americans, Florida governor Ron DeSantis has suggested.

Mr DeSantis, who is expected to run for president in 2024, said he admired the late Queen, but was far less enthusiastic about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

"I really respected the Queen. I think she was really elegant," he told Piers Morgan in an interview on TalkTV. "And I think her stoicism was really good."

He drew a contrast with the "younger generations" of Royals, saying it was a "little more mixed".

"I mean that's just the reality," he said.

Mr DeSantis, 44, added that he had no specific view on Prince Harry and his American wife, Meghan.

But pushed by Morgan over whether the couple were "annoying", Mr DeSantis replied: "I think for some they are".

He added: "I mean look, I'm not involved in that... But I think for some Americans they can be."

It marked Mr DeSantis' first wide-ranging broadcast interview amid frenzied speculation he will challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

The rising Republican star also boasted that his recent memoir had knocked Prince Harry's tell-all book, Spare, off the top of the charts.

"I'll tell you though my book beat [his]," he told Piers Morgan in an interview on TalkTV.

"His book had come out earlier, number one, and then when I became number one, I was higher than Prince Harry," Mr DeSantis said.

Elsewhere in the interview, Mr DeSantis expressed his admiration for Sir Winston Churchill and said personal conduct in a leader mattered, in a veiled swipe at Mr Trump.

The Florida governor also walked back his characterisation of Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute”, following criticism from senior Republicans.

Mr DeSantis told Morgan his earlier comments referenced ongoing fighting in the eastern Donbas region, as well as Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea.

"There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there. So, that’s some difficult fighting, and that’s what I was referring to, and so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it," he said.

Ukraine’s borders are internationally recognised, including by the United Nations.