Donald Trump said being the first US president to enjoy a second British state visit was “one of the highest honours of my life”, as he wined and dined with royalty at Windsor Castle.

Wednesday evening’s state banquet came after a day full of pomp and pageantry for Mr Trump, who was treated to a carriage procession, military parade, and plenty more lavish treatment.

Trump’s state banquet as it happened

Suited and booted for the banquet to bring the day to a close, sat between the King and Princess of Wales, the president thanked the monarch and Queen for their “extraordinary graciousness”.

Mr Trump said it was a “singular privilege” to be the first American president to be granted a second state banquet, adding: “This is truly one of the highest honours of my life, such respect for you and such respect for your country.”

He suggested it might be the last time it happens, adding “I hope it is actually” to laughter.

Mr Trump’s speech at the banquet followed one from the King, who referenced trade, Ukraine, and environmentalism.

The monarch said the UK and US “fought together to defeat the forces of tyranny” during the First and Second World War, and added: “Today, as tyranny once again threatens Europe, we and our allies stand together in support of Ukraine to deter aggression and secure peace.”

He mentioned trade between the two countries early in the speech, saying: “Today, our alliance spans every field of endeavour and shows vast potential for growth.

“The United Kingdom was your partner in the first trade deal of your administration, Mr President, bringing jobs and growth to both our countries.

“And no doubt we can go even further as we build this new era of our partnership.”

The King also referenced the environment and said that “in striving for a better world, we also have a precious opportunity to safeguard and to restore the wonders and beauty of nature for the generations who follow us”.

And in more lighthearted comments, the monarch said that “I cannot help but wonder what our forefathers from 1776 would make of our friendship” to audible laughter from the president.

Red Arrows, tech giants and French menu

The dinner capped off Mr Trump’s first day of his state visit to the UK, with the US president joining King Charles to watch a military parade – replete with a Red Arrows flyover – held at Windsor Castle.

More from Sky News:
Trump’s visit in pictures
Who’s who at state banquet

He and first lady Melania Trump also paid tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II at St George’s Chapel, where they laid a wreath at her tomb.

The banquet had 160 attendees, including the Prince and Princess of Wales, Sir Keir Starmer, and a long list of American technology CEOs – including Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.

The Silicon Valley executives are in the country as the UK and US announce a landmark technology deal worth billions of pounds.

Sir Keir, meanwhile, has his focus set on talks with Mr Trump at his Chequers country retreat on Thursday.

Photos from Windsor Castle ahead of the banquet showed a lavish arrangement – with a menu in French as has been tradition since the Norman conquests of the 11th century.

Has the royal Truman Show for Trump been worth the enormous effort?

Dominic Waghorn

International affairs editor

@DominicWaghorn

Trump state visit II has so far been like The Truman Show.

A lavish production and spectacle revolving around just one man, while outside the set of Windsor Castle, beyond the big walls put up to fence it in, the world goes on.

The question is – has it been worth all the enormous effort and expense?

Click here to read more

UK-US bond ‘unbreakable’, says Trump

On the relationship between the UK and US, Mr Trump said that “seen from American eyes, the word special does not begin to do it justice,” before adding: “We’re like two notes in one chord or two verses of the same prose.

“Each beautiful on its own, but really meant to be played together. The bond of kinship and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless and eternal.

“It’s irreplaceable and unbreakable.”

He then made a reference to former US president Joe Biden, saying: “We had a very sick country one year ago, and today I believe we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.”

Mr Trump also told the King he had raised “a remarkable son” in Prince William before saying: “Melania and I are delighted to visit again with Prince William and to see Her Royal Highness Princess Catherine so radiant and so healthy, so beautiful.”

In years to come, it may become known simply as Chequers ’25.

But today’s summit between Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump, at the prime minister’s country retreat, has the potential to be a landmark moment in UK-US history.

There’s plenty of scope for it to go horribly wrong, of course: over Jeffrey Epstein, Sir Keir’s pledge to recognise Palestine, the president’s lukewarm support for Ukraine, the Chagos Islands sell-off, or free speech.

Trump state visit live – read the latest

But on the other hand, it could be a triumph for the so-called “special relationship” – as well as relations between these two unlikely allies – with deals on trade and tariffs and an improbably blossoming bromance.

Either way, this Chequers summit – on the president’s historic second state visit to the UK – could turn out to be one of the most notable one-to-one meetings between PM and president in 20th and 21st century history.

Sir Keir and Mr Trump have already met several times, most recently at The Donald’s golf courses in Scotland in late July and, before that, memorably at the White House in February.

It was then that the PM theatrically pulled King Charles’s invitation for this week’s visit out of his inside pocket in a spectacular stunt surely masterminded by the “Prince of Darkness”, spin doctor-turned-ambassador (until last week, anyway) Peter Mandelson.

And over the years, there have been some remarkable and historic meetings and relationships, good and bad, between UK prime ministers and American presidents.

From Churchill and Roosevelt to Eden and Eisenhower, from Macmillan and JFK to Wilson and Johnson, from Thatcher and Reagan, to Blair and Bush, and from Cameron and Obama… to Starmer and Trump, perhaps?

A brief history of relationships between PMs and presidents

Throughout UK-US history, there have been many examples of a good relationship and close bond between a Labour prime minister and a Republican president. And vice versa.

Also, it has not always been rosy between prime ministers and presidents of the two sister parties. There have been big fallings out: over Suez, Vietnam and the Caribbean island of Grenada.

Leading up to this Chequers summit, the omens have not been good.

First, the PM was forced to sack his vital link between Downing Street and the Oval Office, Lord Mandelson, over his friendship with Epstein.

Second, the president arrived in the UK to a barrage of criticism from London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, who accused him of doing more than anyone else to encourage the intolerant far right across the globe.

And third, in a video-link to the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march in London last weekend, one-time Trump ally Elon Musk called for a dissolution of parliament and a change of government and appeared to encourage violent protest.

Churchill and FDR

Back in the mid-20th century, the godfather of the “special relationship” was wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, though it was 1946 before he first coined the phrase in a speech in the US, in which he also spoke of the “iron curtain”.

It was in 1941 that Churchill held one of the most significant meetings with a US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, at a Washington conference to plot the defeat of Germany after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour.

Churchill arrived in Washington in December after a rough 10-day voyage on a Royal Navy battleship and stayed three weeks, spending Christmas in the White House and on Boxing Day becoming the first UK PM to address Congress.

The close bond between Churchill and Roosevelt was described as a friendship that saved the world. It was even claimed one reason the pair got on famously was that they were both renowned cigar smokers.

Churchill and Truman

After the war ended, Churchill’s “special relationship” speech, describing the alliance between the UK and US, was delivered at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri in March 1946.

The speech was introduced by President Harry Truman, a Democrat, with whom Churchill had attended the Potsdam Conference in 1945 to negotiate the terms of ending the war.

These two were also close friends and would write handwritten letters to each other and address one another as Harry and Winston. Mr Truman was also the only US president to visit Churchill at Chartwell, his family home.

Eden and Eisenhower

But the transatlantic cosiness came to an abrupt end in the 1950s, when Churchill’s Conservative successor Anthony Eden fell out badly with the Republican president Dwight Eisenhower over the Suez Crisis.

Mr Eden did visit Mr Eisenhower in Washington in January 1956, and the official record of the meeting describes the discussion as focussing on “policy differences and Cold War problems”.

Macmillan and JFK

But in the early 1960s, a Conservative prime minister and a Democrat president with seemingly nothing in common, the stuffy and diffident Harold Macmillan, and the charismatic John F Kennedy, repaired the damage.

They were credited with rescuing the special relationship after the rupture of the Suez Crisis, at a time of high tensions around the world: the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, and the threat of nuclear weapons.

The two leaders exchanged handwritten notes, as well as Christmas and birthday cards. The Macmillans visited the Kennedys twice at the White House, in 1961 and 1962 – the second described in the US as a “momentous” meeting on the Cuban crisis.

The relationship was abruptly cut short in 1963 by “Supermac’s” demise prompted by the Profumo scandal, and JFK’s assassination in Dallas. But after her husband’s death, Jacqueline Kennedy was said to have had a father-daughter relationship with Macmillan, who was said to have been enchanted with her.

Wilson and LBJ

After JFK, the so-called “special relationship” cooled once again – and under a Labour prime minister and Democrat president – when Harold Wilson rejected pressure from Lyndon B Johnson to send British troops to Vietnam.

Mr Wilson became prime minister in 1964, just two months after LBJ sent US troops. His first overseas trip was to the White House, in December 1964, and the PM returned to tell his cabinet: “Lyndon Johnson is begging me even to send a bagpipe band to Vietnam.”

Thatcher and Reagan

And even though Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were ideological soulmates, Thatcher was furious when she wasn’t consulted before the Americans invaded Grenada in 1983 to topple a Marxist regime.

Even worse, according to Mrs Thatcher allies, a year earlier, Reagan had stayed neutral during the Falklands war. Reagan said he couldn’t understand why two US allies were arguing over “that little ice-cold bunch of land down there”.

But their relationship didn’t just survive, it flourished, including at one memorable visit to the presidential retreat at Camp David in 1984, where President Reagan famously drove Mrs T around in a golf buggy.

They would also memorably dance together at White House balls.

Blair and Bush

Camp David was also where in 2001 the Republican president George W Bush and Labour’s Sir Tony Blair embarked on the defining mission of his premiership: the Iraq War. It was to prove to be an historic encounter.

The war was the turning point of Sir Tony’s decade in Number 10. He was branded a liar over claims about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction”, he was vilified by the Labour left, and it was the beginning of the end for him.

And to add to the suspicion among Sir Tony’s critics that he was Mr Bush’s poodle, in 2006 at a G8 summit in St Petersburg – that wouldn’t happen now – a rogue microphone picked up the president calling, “Yo, Blair! How are you doing?”

Cameron and Obama

Some years later, the Tory prime minister sometimes called the “heir to Blair”, David Cameron, bonded over burgers with the Democrat president Barack Obama, serving a BBQ lunch to military families in the Downing Street garden. They also played golf at the exclusive Grove resort in 2016.

They seemed unlikely allies: Obama, the first African-American president, and Cameron, the 19th old Etonian prime minister. It was claimed they had a “transatlantic bromance” in office. “Yes, he sometimes calls me bro,” Lord Cameron admitted.

But not everything went well.

The Tory PM persuaded Mr Obama to help the Remain campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum, when he claimed the UK would be “at the back of the queue” on trade deals with the US, if it left the EU. It backfired, of course.

Now it’s Sir Keir Starmer’s turn to tread a delicate and potentially hazardous political tightrope as he entertains the latest – and most unconventional – US president.

The greatest dangers for Sir Keir will be a news conference in the afternoon, in the gardens, if the weather permits.

Good luck, as they say, with that.

Before then, there’s the potential for what the Americans call a “pool spray”, one of those impromptu, rambling and unpredictable Q&As we’ve seen so many times in the Oval Office.

For Sir Keir, what could possibly go wrong?

Chequers ’25 could be memorable and notable, like so many previous meetings between a PM and a president. But not necessarily for the right reasons for this UK prime minister.

A charging document from prosecutors has revealed new details about Charlie Kirk’s suspected shooter, including incriminating messages he allegedly sent to his roommate.

The details came after Tyler Robinson, 22, appeared in court via video link from prison, having been charged with aggravated murder, weapon, and obstruction of justice offences.

He was arrested following a two-day manhunt after right-wing influencer Kirk, 31, was killed at one of his rallies at Utah Valley University (UVU) last Wednesday.

Here are some of the key details included in Robinson’s charging document:

What was in the texts between Robinson and his roommate?

Investigators and prosecutors, including the Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer James Cox, have said Robinson was in a relationship with his roommate, a biological male in the process of transitioning.

The document reveals some of the exchanges between the pair, which prosecutors say were provided to the police by the roommate, despite Robinson allegedly demanding that they deleted them.

On the day of the shooting, Robinson allegedly sent the roommate a text which read: “Drop what you are doing, look under my keyboard.”

Prosecutors say the roommate looked under his keyboard and found a note that stated: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”

Robinson added he was hoping to be home soon and apologised for “involving” the roommate, adding he had “hoped to keep this secret till [sic] I died of old age”.

When his roommate asked if he was the “one who did it”, Robinson allegedly replied: “I am, I’m sorry.”

Robinson is said to have written in another text: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

He supposedly wrote that he had planned the shooting for “a bit over a week” and later instructed the roommate to “delete this exchange”.

Read more:
What the engravings on the bullets may refer to
Maps and videos show what happened moments before shooting
The string of bloody political violence in the MAGA era

Children present while bullet ‘passed closely’ by questioner

The shooting happened during Kirk’s “prove me wrong” series, which saw the father of two visit campuses and debate contentious subjects; in this case, he was discussing mass shootings.

The prosecutors say the bullet which struck Kirk’s neck “passed closely to several other individuals”, including the person questioning him as part of the event.

One of the seven counts against Robinson is for “violent offence committed in the presence of a child”, as prosecutors say there were children near the stage when Kirk was shot. The charge states that there was a child younger than 14 years old present.

Campus police officer started investigating immediately after shooting

The document details how one UVU police officer quickly uncovered the position where Kirk is believed to have taken the shot from.

It says the officer was watching the crowd from an elevated vantage point when the shot was fired, and that he began to scan the area for threats as soon as he heard it go off.

The officer assumed the shot came from a rifle based on its sound, and started looking for sniper positions.

He noted the roof area where the shot could have been taken from. He rushed there and confirmed a clear shooting corridor between the position and Kirk’s seat.

“He also noticed markings in the gravel rooftop consistent with a sniper having lain on the roof – impressions in the gravel potentially left by the elbows, knees, and feet of a person in a prone shooting position,” the document states.

Prosecutors say the discovery led the authorities to review footage covering the roof, which later helped them identify the suspect.

Targets with bullet holes found at suspect’s home

Police said they found several targets with bullet holes when they searched Robinson’s home, along with a shell casing with etchings in it.

The etchings, prosecutors said, were like the ones found on the shells in the rifle near UVU.

The words and symbols on those shells featured references to fascism, video games and internet memes.