King Charles III addressed a joint session of Congress on Tuesday in his first speech as king, defending the U.S.-U.K. alliance, condemning the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, and calling on the West to hold the line on Ukraine.
FULL SPEECH: King Charles III Delivers Remarks to Congress – 04/28/26 pic.twitter.com/B4cm4duuzp
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) April 28, 2026
“I would like to thank the American people for welcoming us to the United States to mark this semiquincentennial year of the Declaration of Independence,” Charles said. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence framed the speech.
He wasted no time getting to present-day issues. Speaking days after the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, he called out “the incident not far from this great building that sought to harm the leadership of your nation and to foment wider fear and discord.” He did not mince words when addressing the attack:
King Charles III reacts to White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting: “Such acts of violence will never succeed.” pic.twitter.com/dTI9F9fUor
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 28, 2026
The line drew a strong response in the chamber. He pressed further, affirming that “whatever our differences, whatever disagreements we may have, we stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy.”
He turned to history. Charles noted he is the 19th British sovereign to follow American affairs with “daily attention,” and that the two nations’ ties stretch back more than four centuries, not 250 years. He traced the shared democratic inheritance through English common law, Magna Carta, and the Declaration of Rights of 1689, pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has found Magna Carta cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases.
Read More: Trump Has King Charles for a Visit, Discovers Something Guaranteed to Upset the ‘No Kings’ People
He acknowledged the founding-era friction directly: “The very principle on which your Congress was founded — no taxation without representation — was at once a fundamental disagreement between us, and at the same time, a shared democratic value which you inherited from us.” Then: “Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it.”
He invoked President Trump’s words from last autumn’s state visit to Britain:
King Charles III: “We can discern that our nations are in fact instinctively like-minded…the bond of kinship of and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless and eternal. It is irreplaceable and unbreakable.” pic.twitter.com/O1jguKUAnz
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 28, 2026
Charles turned directly to NATO and the war in Ukraine. With this year marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, he drew a straight line from that moment of alliance to the current war in Eastern Europe:
King Charles III: ” When NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time…in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century… that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine…” pic.twitter.com/VM5ztJta1s
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 28, 2026
The U.K. has committed to its largest sustained increase in defense spending since the Cold War. Britain and the U.S. are building F-35s together. The two countries, along with Australia, have launched what Charles called “the most ambitious submarine program in history” through AUKUS. Thousands of U.S. personnel are stationed in the U.K.; British personnel serve across 30 American states.
On economics, Charles cited $430 billion in annual trade and $1.7 trillion in mutual investment, and pointed to new agreements in nuclear fusion, quantum computing, AI, and drug discovery as the next frontier of shared prosperity.
He closed where he started, with the 250th anniversary:
King Charles III: “To the United States of America on your 250th birthday, let our two countries rededicate ourselves to each other in the selfless service of our peoples and of all the peoples of the world. God bless the United States and God bless the United Kingdom.” pic.twitter.com/YhicV75ml9
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 28, 2026
He urged the two countries to “rededicate” themselves to one another. The alliance is not a given, Charles argued; it is something that has to be chosen, and in a world he called “more volatile and more dangerous” than the one Queen Elizabeth addressed from the same chamber in 1991, that choice matters more than ever.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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