What Britain wants from King Charles’ trip to Trumpland

(Dan Bloom and Esther Webber – Politico) When King Charles III lands in the U.S. on Monday, his aides will be carrying a heavy ring binder lined with thick, textured paper. Among reams of timings, briefings and biographies will likely be a condensed list of key objectives, the result of months of planning with the British government, expanded upon in the margins with handwritten scribbles from the monarch’s red felt-tip pen. It will not have been easy to write. Trump had already strained his relationship with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to the limit with volleys against the prime minister’s stances on the Iran war, immigration and oil and gas drilling; some U.K. politicians called for Charles not to go at all. Now, his visit will take place amid heightened security tensions after a shooting at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Charles will likely touch on the shooting in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, according to a royal aide not authorized to speak publicly. The king has poured work into it personally. While reports have suggested the speech will last 20 minutes, two other people familiar with the planning said they expected it to run to about half an hour — far exceeding the 12-minute speech his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, gave during a U.S. visit in 1991. “You can say a lot in 30 minutes in Congress,” said one of the two people cited above. – What Britain wants from King Charles’ trip to Trumpland – POLITICO