President Donald Trump will be traveling London this week for a state visit with King Charles III and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The trip has already drawn criticism given Trump’s increasingly authoritarian governance of the United States, and one UK news station is adjusting its programming to ensure the American president’s affinity for lies and misinformation isn’t overlooked in the pageantry.
Channel 4, the publicly owned broadcaster founded in 1982, announced on Monday that it will greet Trump’s visit with a televised special chronicling the many lies told by the president during the first months of his second administration. Trump v The Truth will air on September 17 and, according to a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter, the special will likely be “the longest uninterrupted reel of untruths, falsehoods and distortions ever broadcast on television.”
The special will catalogue over 100 of Trump’s lies and falsehoods, with “brief text-based fact-checks, offering viewers the truth behind the tweets, speeches and soundbites.”
Channel 4 Chief Content Officer Ian Katz told The Hollywood Reporter that he hopes the special programming “will remind viewers how disorientating and dangerous the world becomes when the most powerful man on earth shows little regard for the truth. And if President Trump cares to watch along after the state banquet, he may even clear up a few misconceptions.”
This is not Trump’s first visit with the British monarchy. Trump met with Queen Elizabeth II in 2019, during his first term, in a state visit that was marked by widespread protests in London, and a visibly frosty reception from the queen. While the queen reportedly found Trump to be “very rude,” the visit provided Trump with a level of public legitimacy on the international stage — which he hopes to burnish this week despite ever increasing turmoil at home.
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will travel to the United Kingdom on Tuesday, and on Wednesday the president and his wife will be greeted by the prince and princess of Wales, William and Kate, at Windsor Castle before meeting King Charles and Queen Camilla for an inspection of the Guard of Honour at the historic royal residence. Trump is also expected to lay a wreath at the tomb of Elizabeth II, and attend a state banquet in the evening.
On Thursday, the president is scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a bilateral summit. The pair are expected to sign off on a series of economic and tech deals during the visit, including plans to develop a dozen nuclear power plants and nuclear powered data centers.
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The visit comes just weeks after Trump met with Starmer in Scotland at one of his golf clubs. Trump inaugurated a new golf club on the same, taxpayer-funded trip. As European leaders wary of Trump’s erratic economic whipsawing over the last few months attempt to butter up the American president, the masses should expect an excess of pomp and circumstance for this state visit that only the British monarchy could provide.
From Rolling Stone US
