Fact Check: Trump Did NOT Call For Prince Harry 'To Leave The U.S.'

Fact Check

  • by: Uliana Malashenko
Fact Check: Trump Did NOT Call For Prince Harry 'To Leave The U.S.' Exaggeration

Did Donald Trump demand on March 19, 2024, that Prince Harry leave the United States? No, that's not true: In an interview posted online that day, the GOP presidential nominee said only that his administration would take "appropriate action" if shown findings that the prince had "lied" in his U.S. visa application about drug use. Trump switched to a different topic when asked about what specific action he thinks should be taken in Prince Harry's case.

The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on March 20, 2024. It opened:

TRUMP CALLS FOR PRINCE HARRY TO

LEAVE THE U.S... READ BELOW!

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of the writing of this fact check:

Screen Shot 2024-03-22 at 3.00.44 PM.png

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Mar 22 19:00:44 2024 UTC)

The first comment under the post, published by the author of the initial entry, redirected to an article (archived here) on the website called The Raging Patriot.

That article, in turn, cited a post on X (archived here), formerly known as Twitter, with a video fragment of an interview with Trump uploaded on the internet on March 19, 2024.

But neither that fragment nor a longer version of the interview showed him saying anything that could be interpreted as an explicit demand to expel Prince Harry, who lives in California, from the United States.

At the 27:04 mark in the longer version of the conversation (archived here) on YouTube, the audience hears the following exchange between Trump and Nigel Farage, a British broadcaster and former politician:

FARAGE: If he's lied on his visa form, he doesn't, doesn't the truth need to come out ... Should, should he get special privileges that nobody else ...

TRUMP: No. And we'll have to see if they know something about the drugs and if he lied enough to take appropriate action.

FARAGE: Appropriate action?

TRUMP: Yeah.

FARAGE: ... which might mean? (inaudible)

TRUMP: Oh, I don't know. You'll have to tell me. You'll just have to tell me. You would, you would have thought they would have known this a long time ago. But I thought they were very disrespectful to the family, to the royal family. I'm a big fan of the concept of the royal family ...

As the transcript above demonstrates, this fragment of the interview contained a discussion of a hypothetical scenario, with rather general statements preceded by the "if" part.

Furthermore, Trump did not elaborate on defining what an "appropriate action" would be, and switched to a different topic.

Prince Harry's visa records came into the spotlight in mid-summer 2023 when a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, demanded (archived here) the release of these documents. It speculated that the prince's admission in his memoir "Spare" about past recreational drug use could constitute grounds for denial of his application.

On March 7, 2024, a federal judge ordered (archived here) the Department of Homeland Security to submit the related records to confidential review in court so a decision could be made on whether or not any of the documents concerning Prince Harry's admission to the United States should be released in any form.

Officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, relocated to California in March 2020 after stepping back from their royal duties.

Other Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Prince Harry can be found here.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Uliana Malashenko

Uliana Malashenko is a New York-based freelance writer and fact checker.

Read more about or contact Uliana Malashenko

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization EFCSN Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


WhatsApp Tipline

Have a tip or a question? Chat with our friendly robots on WhatsApp!

Add our number +1 (404) 655-4223, follow this link or scan the image below with your phone:

@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion