I'm John Batchel with my good colleague Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs.

Noble State is his new book.

It's about the merits of constitutional monarchy, and we just saw one in action. You didn't

notice it right away because it went so smoothly. The President of the United States, who is both

head of state and head of government, made a remark that was patently absurd and false and hurtful.

He implied, no, he stated that the British troops were shy.

That's the old-fashioned word. I'll use it. Shy in Afghanistan.

And he didn't control the remark at all.

The king heard this, eventually heard it formally, and conveyed to the President of the United States that it was an unacceptable

remark. Within moments, the President of the United States took it back and reversed himself. Gregory, no better

illustration of your book could possibly exist. Well, in fact, the reality was that the government

of the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Stama was not in a position to exert any pressure on

President Trump. And so it fell to exert any pressure on President Trump.

And so it fell to the head of state of the United Kingdom,

King Charles, to make that contact directly with President Trump, as you described.

What was worse, though, was that President Trump didn't just make that allegation

about the British troops in Afghanistan.

He made the comment about all allied troops in Afghanistan being essentially not taking a full role in the fighting.

Well, so a lot of the European states took umbrage at that. Some of them,

in fact, did not perform well in Afghanistan because of their disorganization rather than,

if you like a lack of commitment. Some of the smaller states there, like Estonia, performed

extremely courageously. But Canada, Australia, New Zealand, put in troops who were constantly at the front line

...