The United Kingdom is "desperate" to appease President Donald Trump, "shamelessly" giving him a made up ceremony and indulging in his "king fantasy" during his second state visit to Britain on Wednesday, according to media reports.
"Trump demands spectacle, and Britain provides it. He wants to be king, and, for a day, Britain is letting him," Tom Sykes, European Editor At Large for the Daily Beast wrote. "It made up the entire ceremony from scratch from the elements of other royal spectacles."
Trump attended an impressive military ceremony with multiple marching bands, horse-drawn carriages and plenty of royal pomp and circumstance during his second state visit to the United Kingdom. Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate, greeted him and walked them to King Charles III and Queen Camilla amid a 41-gun salute.
"No foreign leader has ever been greeted with the degree of ceremonial extravagance, as Britain rolled out a show of pomp unmatched since the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II," Sykes wrote.
The pageantry was on full display, and Trump has made clear in the past — he loves it.
"And in doing this flagrant fakery, the U.K. has revealed something deeply unflattering about itself—in the scramble to keep America close, it will debase itself and its values completely," Sykes wrote.
The U.K. has taken a great effort "to engage with a president who has returned to office less interested than ever in maintaining the post-World War II order, and possibly divert him on key issues affecting the two nations," the New York Times reports.
The ceremony Wednesday is a closed event at Windsor Castle.
The president is reportedly being shielded by the public and protests happening in London and across the country in response to the Jeffrey Epstein case, the war in Gaza, tariffs, immigration and other international concerns, CNN reports.