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President Trump claims that he was early for a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II and she made him wait.

Donald Trump has rejected reports that he was late to meet the Queen as "fake disgusting news", explaining that it was actually the Queen who made him wait.

This seems like it ought to be very easily verifiable, as their initial meeting was attended by the media.

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    The amusing part of this isn't the timings. It's the fact that he apparently thinks Marie-Claire and Teen Vogue qualify as news sources to argue with.
    – Graham
    Commented Aug 3, 2018 at 18:05
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    I've seen several patronising/ad hominem comments about Teen Vogue and Marie Claire. They seem to be misdirected. Teen Vogue, Marie Claire. I am not defending all of their articles, but don't be dismissive.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Commented Aug 4, 2018 at 1:01
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    @Oddthinking how come you deleted those comments, but not Graham's?
    – Golden Cuy
    Commented Aug 4, 2018 at 1:28
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    @Andrew: I count 3 such comments. One was Graham's above. I'm tempted to delete. One is on tim's answer - it wasn't deleted, but was moved to chat with other comments. One was in Tim's original answer, wondering if these magazines counted as media; I strengthened the answer during an edit by removing this wavering.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Commented Aug 4, 2018 at 2:14
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    news18.com/news/buzz/…
    – Mawg
    Commented Aug 5, 2018 at 10:39

2 Answers 2

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The linked Daily Telegraph article about Trump's rejection links to the original claim in Teen Vogue, which says the following:

Trump did not keep the Queen waiting. He was due at 5pm and the motorcade drove into the Quadrangle at 4.59pm.

Teen Vogue in turn linked to marieclaire.com as source, which says:

Her Majesty waited (in public and on live TV, no less) for more than 10 minutes. It's unclear whether the Queen was just early for the meet up or the Trumps were actually late

Marieclaire.com or Teen Vogue's headlines[*] do indeed seem to be imprecise or incorrect, as they don't actually reflect the facts in the respective articles.

Snopes calls the claim "dubious":

Depending upon how one reckons, the Trumps were either just about exactly on time or late by a few seconds in arriving for their meeting with the Queen.

The BBC concludes:

The president arrived and met the Queen on time, according to the official schedule. However, he didn't arrive 15 minutes early at Windsor.

tl;dr: The Queen did wait, but Trump was not late. Some minor online publications used imprecise or just false headlines when reporting on this.

[*] "The Queen Did Not Look Amused to Be Left Waiting for Trump" and "President Donald Trump Was Reportedly Late to Meet With Queen Elizabeth II"

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Commented Aug 4, 2018 at 0:48
  • Marie Claire isn't a "minor online publication." It's an international (mostly women's) fashion print magazine that's been around since 1937. Teen Vouge is, as the name suggests, a teen-focused version of Vouge, which is also an international women's fashion print magazine, which has been around since 1892.
    – reirab
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 0:38
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It seems not. The day after the meeting, CNN - not exactly a news source friendly to Trump - posted an article about the meeting. There is no mention of Trump being late or otherwise breaking protocol rules.

Additionally, Snopes has a lengthy write up that states that much of the criticism of Trump's actions during his meeting with the Queen was based on cherry-picked information. They explain that the assertion that he was late might be seen as breaking informal protocol, but that there was no breach of formal or obligatory protocol.

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