Trump hints he would kick Prince Harry out of US if he lied on visa application
Donald Trump has hinted that he would kick Prince Harry out of the US if it emerges that he lied on his visa application.
In a sit-down interview with Nigel Farage for GB News, due to air later on Tuesday, Mr Trump said that there will be no preferential treatment for the Duke of Sussex if he returns to the White House in November.
Prince Harry is currently embroiled in a legal battle over his US visa application after he admitting to past drug use in his highly controversial memoir Spare.
Conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation has argued that his admission that he took cocaine, cannabis and magic mushrooms in his memoir means that he should not have been allowed into the US under the country’s visa laws, which state that past drug use or criminal activity may make an applicant ineligible.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rejected a request by the think tank in June to expedite its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the release of immigration records of the Duke of Sussex, arguing that there is no “public interest in disclosure sufficient to override the subject’s privacy interests”.
In a preview of the GB News interview, Mr Farage asks Mr Trump if Prince Harry should have “special privileges” if authorities find he lied on his visa application.
Mr Trump responded: “No. We’ll have to see if they know something about the drugs, and if he lied they’ll have to take appropriate action.”
When pressed as to whether “appropriate action” may mean “not staying in America,” Mr Trump replied: “Oh I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me. You just have to tell me. You would have thought they would have known this a long time ago.”
He added that if he wins the presidential election in November then the Duke of Sussex “would be on his own”.
There is currently no evidence to suggest that Prince Harry provided false information on his visa application and lawyers for the US government have insisted that drug claims in Spare “are not proof” he actually took them.
In the memoir, Prince Harry wrote that cocaine “didn’t do anything for me” when he took “a line” at the age of 17.
The 39-year-old added: “Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.”
He also described how he got high on magic mushrooms in 2016, aged 31, while at a party in California.
“Beside the toilet was a round silver bin, the kind with a foot pedal to open the lid. I stared at the bin. It stared back. Then it became . . . a head,” he wrote.
“I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin. I laughed, turned away, took a p***. Now the loo became a head too. The bowl was its gaping maw, the hinges of the seat were its piercing silver eyes. It said, ‘Aaah’,” he continued.
Mr Trump previously told The Daily Express in February that he “wouldn’t protect” Prince Harry because he had “betrayed the Queen” when he left the Royal Family and moved to the US, where he now lives with his wife Meghan Markle and their two children Archie and Lilibet.
The GB News interview will air at 3pm ET (7pm GMT) on Tuesday 19 March.