Breakfast is barely under way and President Donald Trump has already discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, the Royal Family – and now he is on to the dangers of a furtive South American foe.
This enemy is not hiding out in Venezuela but cowering in a jungle in Peru. However, the authorities in Lima need have no fears of invasion. There is no chance of Delta Force snatch squads and F-35 jets swooping in low over Machu Picchu and the Amazon to seize this adversary and bring him to the US for trial, as the US has just done with Nicolas Maduro.
In fact, Mr Trump wants to keep this baddie as far away as possible. For the enemy in question is the fer-de-lance pit viper, one of the most venomous creatures in South America. And one nearly killed Mr Trump’s former doctor during a trek in the jungle not so long ago.
‘This thing is so poisonous that when people get bitten, they just shout “viper!” – and then they lie down and they die,’ he says gravely. ‘They die!’ James Jones, the White House doctor, survived and has written a book about it. ‘He had the serum and he got the Secret Service guys to inject him,’ says the President as he shouts across to an aide: ‘We’re not going to Peru any time soon, right?’
It’s a sunny Saturday morning at Trump International Golf Club at West Palm Beach, Florida, and the President is preparing for an important golf match. It is always a hard-fought, four-way game with his caddie RJ Nakashian, a golf professional, club professional John Nieporte and his old friend and White House peace envoy, Steve Witkoff. They are all seated at Mr Trump’s regular table in the Grill Room, along with Christopher Ruddy, the owner of the Newsmax media empire, plus a visitor from Britain – me. And we are talking world affairs, royalty – and now snakes.
The one thing we are not talking about is Venezuela. US forces are currently about to deploy to Caracas, still waiting for the right weather and the green light from their Commander-in-Chief, but President Trump is not giving away the tiniest clue of what he is about to unleash 1,300 miles to the south. It is the weekend and he may be about to play golf, but he is certainly not switching off – as his predecessor Joe Biden famously used to do.
Robert Hardman with Donald Trump before the President heads out for a round of golf
One of a bundle of phones carried by Mr Trump’s executive assistant, Natalie Harp, suddenly chirrups into life. She hands it to the President, who immediately takes a call at the breakfast table. It’s his State Department envoy for Africa, Massad Boulos. ‘Hey, what’s happening in the Congo?’ he asks breezily, has a short chat and then continues with his ham and eggs and sips his Diet Coke. Our talk switches to the subject of Somalia (it’s safe to say he is not a fan) and then overnight Saudi air strikes on Yemen. ‘I guess that’s another war we’ll have to deal with,’ sighs the President, mentally putting it on his to-do list of conflicts in need of resolution. ‘We’ll call it number nine.’
In the last two weeks, the entire world has been trying to guess what the most powerful man in the world is about to do next. Will he bomb Iran or Colombia or invade Greenland or Panama? I do not know. However, what I can say, from where I am sitting, is that President Trump is not, as his critics try to paint him, either out of touch or running out of steam. And where I am sitting is right next to him.
Given the ridicule he used to heap on ‘Sleepy’ Biden, it is not surprising his detractors might like to return the compliment. I can only report that the leader of the Free World is in exuberant form and fully refreshed after the Christmas break.
I am certainly not here because of my rapier-like foreign policy analysis. I have come to West Palm Beach to seek the President’s reflections on Queen Elizabeth II for my forthcoming biography of the late monarch. He has agreed to share some thoughts. With a country to run, a golf match to play, an (as yet secret) invasion to arrange, not to mention Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky arriving for talks tomorrow and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving the day after that, Mr Trump has quite enough on his plate. I am under no illusion: the fact he has also made room for me is entirely down to his great affection and respect for the British monarchy.
It has all been fairly last-minute. Having recently published Charles III, my bestselling biography of the King, and having previously interviewed presidents George W Bush (for Queen Of Our Times, the 2022 Sunday Times Biography of the Year) and Bill Clinton (while he was sailing on board the Royal Yacht with the Queen), I had hoped that I might grab a few minutes of Mr Trump’s time to hear his reflections for my new centenary study of Elizabeth II.
There is a statue of the President, called ‘The Defiance Monument’, outside the golf club
He was not only the last state visitor of her record-breaking reign but the first US President in history to make two state visits to the UK. He is half-British – his mother was born on the Isle of Lewis – and he is an ardent Anglophile. His speech at September’s Windsor Castle banquet was proof of that. In it, he saluted the legacy of the British Empire and described the UK’s ‘legal, intellectual, cultural and political traditions’ as ‘among the highest achievements of mankind’.
So, I had my fingers crossed for a few words as I tried one avenue after another over several months. Finally, at a few days’ notice, I learned that there might be scope for a short, informal chat – in person – just after Christmas and jumped on a plane. Which is why I am in the Grill Room of this quiet, marble-lined golf club early on a Saturday morning chatting to the 45th and 47th President.
Despite his initial shock that I am not a golfer – ‘You don’t play golf? But you’re English?’ – I end up being offered breakfast. To my great surprise, that leads on to a couple of dinners, drinks and even a spot of music plus a tour of Mar-a-Lago, his ‘winter White House’. In the course of one of the more dramatic weeks of recent geo-political history, this non-golfing author will actually end up spending much of the weekend in the company of the most powerful man on earth.
Which is why I have come to realise that those fixating on the minutiae of Trumpery misunderstand a man who does not struggle to juggle multiple thoughts at the same time. He relishes it. My admission inside the cordon was in order to hear the President’s reflections on the Royal Family and those will be in my book a few months from now.
However, having written at length on Elizabeth II and her court, I think it is worth offering a few broad observations on another court and another head of state; on the ‘Camelot’ of the most consequential, controversial and scrutinised figure on the planet today.
While writing my book, Palace veterans had told me that the late Queen had been struck by Mr Trump’s energy and his old-school courtesy (all that stuff about him ‘walking in front’ of her at Windsor when they met in 2018 was baloney; the guest always walks in front). I can see that now.
In person, he is taller than I expected and looks younger than his 79 years. He is beadily alert, intuitive and not run by his minders, unlike his predecessor (who I saw up close a few times and always sensed nursing-home vibes). Mr Trump is instinctively warm not cold. He doesn’t know me from Adam but after a few minutes of chat, he says: ‘Do you want something to eat?’ I am offered breakfast seated on his right. Plates of ham, eggs, sausage and bacon arrive courtesy of his trusted restaurant manager, Rosie, plus coffee for us guests – and Diet Coke for the President. I notice that he is constantly attuned to what’s going on around him. Spotting a recently appointed ambassador heading for the fairway, he shouts: ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in Europe?’
This morning, he is fully kitted out for golf, down to his Make America Great Again baseball cap (a white one for golf, not the usual red). He leads the conversation entirely but he is an engaging raconteur. When he goes off on a tangent – and one snake soon leads on to another – he doesn’t digress down a sidetrack and then forget where he was going, but comes back full circle to the point he was making in the first place (the cost of doctors, in this particular instance).
Hardman and a portrait of Mr Trump in his younger days at the Mar-a-Lago club, where Robert is invited to dine
‘Good cover, and a good man,’ says Mr Trump when given Hardman’s book on King Charles
He also asks a lot of questions. You hear from his critics that he lives constantly in transmit mode but he likes to soak up information; he asks for everyone’s opinions – be it the White House envoy, the golf caddie or the writer from London. His breakfast goes stone cold as he talks, but he bats away attempts to take it off for reheating.
After the best part of an hour, the golf course beckons and he rises. I give him a copy of my book on Charles III (it’s called ‘The Making Of A King’ in the US). ‘Good cover,’ he says. ‘And a good man.’ He strides off to the first tee, the scene made all the more surreal by the fact that it is about to be ‘family day’ here at Trump International Golf Club. Generators are humming outside as a line of inflatable bouncy castles rises up next to the President of the United States on the same manicured, palm-lined golf course where a deranged fantasist from North Carolina tried to assassinate him in 2024.
I imagine that I have now had my allotted time in the presidential orbit and that will be that. Quite the reverse. Later, a friend takes me to dinner a couple of miles down the road at Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach club where the Trumps live in a private wing. The name means ‘sea-to-lake’ and it sits on a 17-acre estate.
The house is palatial in every sense of the word, a genuine American stately home. It was built exactly 100 years ago by the richest woman in America, Marjorie Merriweather Post, a cereal and frozen food heiress. The interior has echoes of an Italian palazzo and Versailles; the gleaming ceiling of the Grand Salon used America’s entire supply of gold leaf when it was decorated in 1926.
Before her death in 1973, Mrs Post wanted to leave Mar-a-Lago to the American people as a warm weather residence for all future presidents. She proposed that it would be a ‘winter White House’, just as Lord Lee of Fareham gave Chequers to the British people so that every prime minister could have a country house in which to recharge their batteries. Unfortunately, when it was time for a decision, the occupant of the Oval Office was Jimmy Carter. He felt that Mar-a-Lago was too grand for him and so turned down the free offer. The unwanted house went back on the market and was snapped up for a knock-down $7million by a young property developer called Donald Trump.
He carried out major renovations and then opened it as a club in 1995 with a membership capped at 500. These days, it costs $2million just to join (with annual fees on top) and there is a waiting list. The irony is that Mrs Post’s dream of her home becoming a ‘winter White House’ has come true, but – thanks to Carter’s hair-shirted asceticism – only for one President.
I arrive to see US patrol boats cruise around in both the ‘mar’ and the ‘lago’, while Secret Service drones hover overhead. Every guest and car must be searched but no one complains. It goes with being at the centre of the universe. The main restaurant area is the Patio, a huge semi-circular terrace with awnings and mosaics overlooking the pool and one round table roped off.
The music switches to the President’s campaign theme, YMCA, as he walks in and the other guests stand up and applaud. Tonight, he is dining with son Eric and daughter-in-law Lara. The First Lady, Melania, sometimes dines here too but not every night, which seems understandable. Mr Trump’s table is in the middle of the Patio where everyone can see. That, though, is where the President likes to be. He is holding court in the truest sense.
Washington DC is a place of faction and hardball, and it’s also rather cold right now. Here Mr Trump is among his own in the sunshine, which is reflected in his mood. They always used to say the same of the late Queen – a different person when she was at Balmoral. Most of those here tonight are Republican supporters and some are appointees. The President likes to see who is coming and going, waving at familiar faces. As we leave, he says hello again and briefly introduces me to his small party. The next night, I find myself actually part of it.
The President has had a busy day with President Zelensky and he is now decompressing over a seafood starter back at his golf club. ‘People don’t come here for the golf – they come for the shrimp. They’re the best,’ he says, urging his table companions to try a few. He is not wrong. I feel rather sorry for the hefty half-dozen Secret Service officers standing around the table, like well-dressed meerkats, who have to watch me tucking in.
We are only here at the golf club for a first course, though, and because the Sunday night buffet is an institution at the golf club. We can’t be long because there is to be a concert back at Mar-a-Lago shortly. Our eclectic little group includes White House homeland security chief Stephen Miller and his wife Katie. Once again, Newsmax boss Mr Ruddy is here and has brought two guests, Louis and Deborah Prevost. Chicago-born Louis, a delightful ex-US Navy Trump supporter, has risen to prominence in recent months because his little brother is now the Pope.
The Mar-a-Lago club in Florida was opened by Donald Trump in 1995
Mr Trump’s coat of arms adorns the marble floor at Mar-a-Lago
Over shrimp and crab claws, our talk veers from Popes (obviously) to the Middle East to the royals to golf. Mr Trump, I see, is engraved on the board as the club champion for 2025, 2024, and a few other years besides during its 26-year history. ‘I happen to be quite a good golfer,’ he tells this golfing ignoramus, adding that his overall tally of championships at all his clubs stands at 35.
The President checks his watch and rises. Concert time. I know that the cardinal rule is never to miss the motorcade so, while Mr Trump says his goodbyes and his mighty rocket-proof chariot ‘the Beast’ rumbles into life, the rest of us make a dash for a minibus at the back of the convoy for the short trip back to Mar-a-Lago. There, the stage is set for a pop concert by a local band on the poolside lawn where hundreds of members and their guests clap and cheer as the President leads us in.
After that, it’s drinks and then the second half of dinner at his table back up on the Patio where Mr Trump urges us to try the meatballs (they are as good as the shrimp). He is an attentive host. Again, he leads the conversation – from Greenland to religious education to Elvis. On world affairs, his views are as expected. On cultural and personal subjects, he is a more sensitive soul than his public persona. There is never a pause in the conversation.
Having ordered ice cream for the table, he stands up and apologises. After a day of peace talks with President Zelensky (in the dining room just behind us) and an evening looking after his guests – over two dinners, drinks and a concert – our host has to take his leave for one further appointment. ‘I have a call with Xi [Jinping]. We talk most weeks,’ he explains and retires to speak to the President of China.
As he leaves, I realise that, in the course of the weekend, we have talked about almost every major domestic and international issue. He has talked a good deal about the British monarchy, too. However, I have not heard the President of the United States mention British politics or name a single British politician. Not one. Scholars of soft power, take note.
Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Inside Story by Robert Hardman is published by Macmillan on April 9 and by Pegasus, in the US, on April 21.
