READ IN FULL: Trump’s speech welcoming King Charles III on state visit

This is a transcript of President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday as he welcomed King Charles III and Queen Camilla to the United States on their state visit in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. Charles will address Congress later Tuesday. Scroll to the bottom of the story for a slideshow from the event.

Thank you very much, everybody. What a beautiful British day this is, and it really is.

Your Majesties, members of the British delegation, friends, service members, and distinguished guests, welcome to the beautiful White House. Great honor to have you. Melania and I will never forget the spectacular honor Your Majesties showed us during our extraordinary visit to Windsor Castle last September. Now it is our tremendous privilege to host you, and you’re going to have a wonderful short stay, but stay nevertheless. Then you’re going over to Congress, and you’re going to make a speech that’s going to make everybody very envious of that beautiful accent of yours. Very elegant. He’s a very elegant man.

Here in the shadows of monuments to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, honoring the British king might seem an ironic beginning to our celebration of 250 years of American independence, but in fact, no tribute could be more appropriate.

Long before Americans had a nation or a constitution, we first had a culture, a character, and a creed. Before we ever proclaimed our independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts: moral courage, and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea. For nearly two centuries before the revolution, this land was settled and forged by men, women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain’s distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride, and that’s what it is: glory, destiny, and pride.

The American patriots who pledged their lives to independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true.

In recent years, we’ve often heard it said that America is merely an idea, but the cause of freedom did not simply appear as an intellectual invention of 1776. The American founding was the culmination of hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood, and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that no man should be denied either justice or right. American patriots today can sing, “My country ’tis of thee / Sweet land of liberty,” only because our colonial ancestors first sang “God save the King.”

We see today a living symbol of this centuries-old bond just a few dozen feet to the left where I stand — there her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, an incredible woman who I had the privilege of getting to know. Queen Elizabeth II, a very, very special woman who is very greatly missed on both sides of that mighty Atlantic, long ago, planted a young tree. It was a very young and beautiful tree, and look at it now. It’s tripled in size and tripled in strength, very much as our nations have, even more than tripled. Like our nation itself, it was laid with British hands, but grew in American soil. Today it stands tall and proud, reaching ever higher, and this morning, it reminds us that the mightiest of trees, like the greatest of nations, must be anchored by the strongest and deepest of roots.

In the centuries since we won our independence, Americans have had no closer friends than the British. We share that same root, we speak the same language, we hold the same values, and together, our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white, and blue.

My wonderful mother, Mary McLeod. Mary McLeod was born in Stornoway, Scotland, the Hebrides, and that’s what they call very serious Scotland. There’s no question about it. Some places, they say, ‘Well, it wasn’t really Scotland.’ The Hebrides, that’s real serious Scotland. That’s where they had their greatest of warriors, their greatest of warriors. She came to America at 19, met my incredible father. We loved him so much. We all loved him. We loved her, we loved him, Fred, and they were married for 63 years. And excuse me, if you don’t mind, that’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling. Sorry, just not going to work out that way. We’ll do well, but we’re not going to do that well. Sixty-three years and my mother, I just see it so clearly. She loved, I told the king that she loved the royal family, and she loved the queen. And any time the queen was involved at a ceremony or anything, my mother would be glued to the television, and she’d say, “Look, Donald, look how beautiful that is.” She really did love the family, but I also remember her saying, very clearly, “Charles, look, young Charles. He’s so cute.” My mother had a crush on Charles. Can you believe it? Amazing. How I wonder what she’s thinking right now?

But beneath those beautiful flags, eight decades ago, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt famously met on a ship in the North Atlantic to outline a vision for the free world after World War II. That understanding of our nation’s unique bond and role in history is the essence of our special relationship, and we hope it will always remain that way. The ship where the two great leaders met was called the Prince of Wales, the very title that His Majesty the King held longer than any other individual in British history, and he held it with great pride and respect.

It said that when Prime Minister Churchill first met this future king, many decades ago, he was so impressed. He made the statement, “He is so young to think so much and so well,” and the bust of your great prime minister rests proudly again in the Oval Office. Very proud to bring it back. We brought it back.

Throughout His Majesty’s life, the world has witnessed that same thoughtfulness which first struck Britain’s greatest prime minister. His Majesty’s intellect, passion, and devotion have been long, really a long blessing, a blessing to the British people, but not only to his own country, but to the cherished bond between the United States and the United Kingdom. And I am very certain that it will continue that way long into the future.

In a few hours, His Majesty will stand in the heart of the United States Capitol as the very first British king ever to address a joint session of the United States Congress. So he’s going to be addressing Congress, and I’m going to be watching. I was thinking of going, but they said, ‘I don’t know, that might be a step too far.’ I would love to go. It’s not supposed to be protocol, but I would love to be with you.

But there, the direct descendant of King George III will speak to the direct successor of the very body that gathered in Independence Hall on July 4, 1776. If John Adams and George Washington or the king’s fifth-great-grandfather could see that sight, they might be absolutely shocked, but probably only for a moment. Surely they would be delighted that the wounds of war healed into the most cherished friendship. Think of that, very, very long ago, difficult war, and yet those wounds did indeed heal into the most cherished of friendships, most cherished. They would be moved beyond words to know that the soldiers who once called each other redcoats and Yankees became the Tommies and the GIs who together saved the free world as brothers in arms and brothers in eternity, and nobody fought better together than us.

If they could see us today, our ancestors would surely be filled with awe and pride that the Anglo-American revolution in human freedom was never, ever extinguished, but carried forward across centuries, across oceans, and across history, until it became a fire that lit the entire world.

So today, we look back on 250 years. Let us remember what has made our countries the two most exceptional nations the world has ever known, and together, let us go forward with even stronger resolve to carry on our sacred devotion to liberty and to the traditions of excellence that have been our shared gift of all mankind.

Your Majesties, thank you once again for making this important visit. We are so honored.

May God forever bless the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and Northern Ireland, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much, everybody, thank you.