The Lofgran and Weed families outside Buckingham Palace. CNN
Crowds are beginning to gather outside Buckingham Palace ahead of US President Donald Trump's arrival to meet the Queen.
For two American families, Trump's UK trip came as a surprise. "We were on holiday and just read he was coming, and thought, 'this is going to be interesting!'” Andrea Lofgran, from Arizona, told CNN.
“When we came around the corner and saw the American flag and the Union Jacks together coming down the Mall it sent chills up and down. It was really special," added Lofgran, who is visiting London with her daughter Lauren, nine, and their neighbors Dave and Julia Weed.
“It’s pretty impressive if you think of the Queen and how many presidents she has met. That’s what blows me away," she said.
The Queen has met every US president during her reign, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson. Her first presidential meeting was with Harry Truman in 1951, a year before she ascended to the throne.
"I'm excited to see Marine One and the helicopters," added Lauren.
Joseph Afrane, 55, from London, is used to setting up camp outside Buckingham Palace. The royal fan was in place bright and early. -- wearing a specially-made suit -- as he has been several times for big royal occasions.
"If Her Majesty is holding a very important national event, I will come down as early as half past seven,” he told CNN.
Afrane said he was “very, very excited" about the US President's state visit.
"I didn't know that she was nasty," Trump replied in an interview with "The Sun" newspaper. He then tweeted Sunday morning: "I never called Meghan Markle 'nasty.'"
And Trump waded into the Conservative Party's contest to find a new Prime Minister and Britain's paralyzing debate on leaving the European Union, in a way sure to outrage British critics.
Most presidents would go out of their way to avoid such sensitive topics at a moment of extreme political stress. In Trump's case they may deepen his already intense unpopularity in Britain ahead of his arrival for a three-day stay on Monday but enhance his global reputation as an unpredictable, disruptive influence.
Respecting diplomatic niceties has never been Trump's style, and his remarks underscored the intense challenge his visit poses to the "special relationship" between the US and Britain.
Trump's incendiary remarks were conveyed in a pair of bombshell interviews with the "Sun" tabloid and the "Sunday Times" -- papers owned by Rupert Murdoch, the proprietor of Fox News. They came as Britain prepares trademark pomp for Trump, who will be guest of honor at a state banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on Monday, designed to indulge his taste for adulation. First lady Melania Trump will accompany the president to the opulent ballroom.
The President has a habit of ignoring the political and diplomatic sensitivities of his hosts during trips abroad. In Japan just last week, for instance, where he was greeted with supreme flattery and royal ceremony, the President indicated he wasn't much bothered by North Korea's missile tests. His comments did not take into account the fact that such behavior is viewed with alarm and a grave security threat by the government in Tokyo.
Trump's comments ahead of his trip to Britain will also come as a new blow to beleaguered Theresa May, whose premiership has been destroyed by her failure to solve the political crisis provoked by Brexit.
May will trigger a Conservative Party leadership election Friday which will begin a search for her successor and likely produce a new prime minister by the end of the summer. Trump's Washington is clearly rooting for a more openly Euro-skeptic successor to May who could provide an ideological partner more closely aligned with the current White House.
UK has 'got to get it done'
In the Sunday Times interview, Trump suggested that May would have been better off had she adopted his barnstorming negotiating style in intricate exit talks with the EU.
"They've got to get it done," Trump told the paper. "They have got to get the deal closed."
Trump also posed a challenge for candidates battling to become Prime Minister, calling on them to embrace renegade Brexiteer Nigel Farage, whose new party's strong showing in EU elections is posing an existential threat to the Conservative Party.
"I like Nigel a lot. He has a lot to offer," Trump said. "He is a very smart person. They won't bring him in. Think how well they would do if they did. They just haven't figured that out yet."
Farage -- who Trump calls a friend -- is a populist, nationalist leader in the President's own image. Like Trump, he has been accused by critics of using the emotive issue of immigration to advance his own political profile and to create division.
Trump and his national security advisor, John Bolton, have been outspoken proponents of Brexit, given their disdain for international institutions like the EU and attempts to restore national sovereignty rather than multilateral cooperation as the building block of international relations.
The President promised to go all out for a trade deal between the US and the UK if Britain severs ties with the EU.
Trump also warmly praised Boris Johnson, the flamboyant former London mayor who is vying to become Prime Minister, in a remark that looked strongly like an endorsement and struck his critics as meddling in Britain's internal politics.
Johnson "would do a very good job -- he would be excellent," the paper quoted Trump as saying.
Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who wants to force a general election to oust the Conservatives, took exception to Trump's comments.
"President Trump's attempt to decide who'll be Britain's next PM is an entirely unacceptable interference in our democracy," Corbyn wrote on Twitter. "The next PM should be chosen not by the US president, nor by 100,000 unrepresentative Tory party members, but by the British people in a general election."
Trump weighs in on Markle
In an interview with "The Sun" published on Saturday, the interviewer mentioned Markle's 2016 comments that his politics were misogynistic and divisive. Trump responded by saying he had not been aware Markle was "nasty."
In another interview with the "Sunday Times," he also seemed keen to smooth over controversy, saying, "I am sure she will go excellently. She will be very good."
Markle is expected to miss the state banquet at Buckingham Palace because she is on maternity leave, but Trump will have tea with her new father-in-law, Prince Charles, during his visit.
There was no immediate reaction from the British government to Trump's remarks. But officials have learned to expect such flagrant interventions in UK politics from the President.
When he was in London last year, the President detonated a huge controversy by criticizing May's Brexit policies in another "Sun" interview. The comments led him into a rare apology to May from Trump, who seemed unusually chagrined over the interview.
There is also a sense that the President is playing to type and the shock value of his remarks is perhaps not what it was during the early years of his administration.
'Fascist like' remarks
Trump is not the first US President to weigh in on Brexit. President Barack Obama's comment before the 2016 referendum that Brexit Britain would go "to the back of the queue" regarding a trade deal with the US was criticized by opponents in the UK and the US. But it was an isolated incident that pales into comparison with Trump's frequent interventions into UK politics.
Trump's remarks will fuel what are expected to be intense protests in London during his three-day visit to the United Kingdom, which is laying on an intense security net in central London.
Khan wrote in a column in "The Observer" newspaper that it was "un-British to roll out the red carpet" for Trump since his behavior "flies in the face of the ideals America was founded on -- equality, liberty and religious freedom."
But Trump, who loves nothing more than to be the center of attention, could not capture the main headlines in Britain Sunday morning.
The Lofgran and Weed families outside Buckingham Palace. CNN
Crowds are beginning to gather outside Buckingham Palace ahead of US President Donald Trump's arrival to meet the Queen.
For two American families, Trump's UK trip came as a surprise. "We were on holiday and just read he was coming, and thought, 'this is going to be interesting!'” Andrea Lofgran, from Arizona, told CNN.
“When we came around the corner and saw the American flag and the Union Jacks together coming down the Mall it sent chills up and down. It was really special," added Lofgran, who is visiting London with her daughter Lauren, nine, and their neighbors Dave and Julia Weed.
“It’s pretty impressive if you think of the Queen and how many presidents she has met. That’s what blows me away," she said.
The Queen has met every US president during her reign, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson. Her first presidential meeting was with Harry Truman in 1951, a year before she ascended to the throne.
"I'm excited to see Marine One and the helicopters," added Lauren.
Joseph Afrane, 55, from London, is used to setting up camp outside Buckingham Palace. The royal fan was in place bright and early. -- wearing a specially-made suit -- as he has been several times for big royal occasions.
"If Her Majesty is holding a very important national event, I will come down as early as half past seven,” he told CNN.
Afrane said he was “very, very excited" about the US President's state visit.
LONDON — Britain and the U.S. may have a special relationship but President Donald Trump’s state visit will be a diplomatic balancing act for the U.K., where Trump is deeply unpopular.
Trump's trip comes as the U.K. is facing its most significant crisis since the Second World War.
It is currently in the midst of a long and messy divorce from the European Union, the economic and political bloc it has belonged to for more than 40 years.
May announced on May 24 that she will step down as prime minister and leader of her ruling Conservative party just days after the president's visit. Her party is now in the midst of a heated race to decide who will be its next leader — and the country's next prime minister.
In an interview Friday with the British tabloid The Sun, Trump said Boris Johnson — the divisive populist and ex-foreign secretary who is favorite to replace May — would make an "excellent" prime minister.
"I think Boris would do a very good job. I think he would be excellent," Trump said.
The president also referred to the American-born Duchess of Sussex as "nasty" over comments she made in 2016 threatening to move to Canada if Trump won the White House.
But he wished her well in her new life as a princess. "I am sure she will do excellently," he added.
The comments threatened to overshadow the build up to Trump's long-awaited state visit.
Trump is widely disliked in the U.K. He has a positive opinion rating of only 21 percent, according to YouGov, compared to 72 percent for former President Barack Obama.
But he told The Sun Friday that “I don’t imagine any U.S. president was ever closer to your great land.”
"Now I think I am really — I hope — I am really loved in the U.K.," he added. "I certainly love the U.K."
On Tuesday, the day after Trump’s arrival, thousands of people are expected to hit the streets of the capital to protest, like they did during his last visit in July.
It was a similar story for President George W. Bush, whose state visit came eight months after the invasion of Iraq.
Demonstrators protest against President Donald Trump's visit to the U.K. in July 2018.Yves Herman / Reuters file
Yet it’s precisely because of the U.K.'s Brexit mess that it needs this visit now more than ever.
With no Brexit deal in sight, and future trade ties with Europe now up in the air, a trade deal with the U.S. has become increasingly important.
“The cleaner the Brexit, the easier it is for the U.S. to strike a free trade deal with the U.K.,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, the head of the U.S. and Americas program at the Chatham House think tank.
“That plays into the hands of those who are pushing for a hard Brexit,” from the E.U. with no agreement setting out a framework for future relations.
On his last visit to the U.K., Trump didn’t hold back.
He blasted May over Brexit and warned that her plan could scuttle an American trade deal with the U.K. because Britain would remain too close with the E.U.
In his interview Friday Trump again criticized May's handling of Brexit, saying she "didn't give the European Union anything to lose" in negotiations.
“Any foreign intervention into something as sensitive as Brexit is tricky and likely to put people in a bad political position. People here will be very nervous on the extent to which they engage with it,” said Vinjamuri.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama met Britain's Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, at Buckingham Palace, in May 2011 during their state visit.Reuters file
There are few precedents when it comes to presidential state visits. This is only the third for a U.S. president since the queen assumed the throne in 1952, with Bush receiving the honor in 2003 and Obama in 2011. The queen only hosts one or two state visits a year.
This trip will stand in stark contrast to Obama’s visit in particular.
Obama and his wife Michelle were welcomed by the queen, as well as the glamour couple of the time, Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, who had married only a month earlier. Their Buckingham Palace banquet was filled with glitz and glamour and included former prime ministers as well as the mayor of London, and even actor Tom Hanks.
Ahead of Trump's arrival, however, some of the U.K.’s most senior politicians have said that the visit is a mistake and that they won’t attend the Queen’s uber-formal state dinner at Buckingham Palace.
Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to join the white tie event and said that May "should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric."
Corbyn, however, has been criticized for inviting members of Hamas and Hezbollah to an event in Parliament in 2009 and for calling the groups “friends.” Both groups are classified by the U.K. and U.S. as terrorist groups and have repeatedly called for the destruction of the State of Israel.
But he’s not the only political leader refusing to meet with the president.
Vince Cable, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, also turned down a seat at the dinner with Trump.
And Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the U.K. was wrong to "roll out the red carpet" for Trump. In an article for The Observer newspaper on Sunday, Khan also likened the president's rhetoric to that of the "fascists of the 20th century."
Despite the objections to Trump's visit and the difficulty for U.K. politicians to head off any explosive comments the president may make, experts say that the close relationship between the two countries is bigger than their leaders.
“The government has made big attempt to say to people that however much you may find Trump objectionable you must distinguish the man from the office,” said the former Ambassador to the U.S. Christopher Meyer.
"This is a state visit, this is an honor for the whole of the U.S."
Rachel Elbaum
Rachel Elbaum is a London-based editor, producer and writer.
The average temperature in northern England was around 18C - still higher than the average temperature for June of 17C - with cloudy skies and patchy rain.
The temperature also reached 26C in High Beach, Essex, and 25.9C at the Iver water works in Buckinghamshire, according to the Met Office.
It said conditions could get even hotter in East Anglia on Sunday, with temperatures of 28C or 29C expected, but warn it could also bring a risk of thunder.
The national weather service said conditions elsewhere will turn cloudier and breezier, with outbreaks of rain across Northern Ireland, spreading to Scotland, north-west England and west Wales by Sunday.
Rain showers are expected to spread eastwards with a risk of isolated thundery showers in the east and south east, accompanying the hot weather, it added.
Pet owners have been urged to ensure their animals do not overheat.
The British Veterinary Association warned that dogs are particularly vulnerable to heatstroke and breathing difficulties as they are unable to cool down quickly through sweating.
It also advised putting sunscreen on cats' ears which it said can burn easily.
