WASHINGTON D.C. — President Donald Trump said at a White House state dinner on Tuesday that King Charles agrees with him that Iran should never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. The remarks came during an event honoring King Charles and Camilla, following bilateral talks between the two leaders earlier that day.

"We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we're never going to let that opponent ever, Charles agrees with me even more than I do, we're never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. "They know that, and they've known it right now, very powerfully."

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson addressed the monarch's position on the issue. "The king is naturally mindful of his government's longstanding and well-known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation," the spokesperson said. As head of state, King Charles remains above party politics and neutral.

The day's events began with a ceremonial welcome staged for King Charles and Camilla on the White House's south lawn. Trump also addressed the broader relationship between the two countries, saying, "Americans have had no closer friends than the British," and adding, "We hope it will always remain that way."

In his state dinner speech, the king said the purpose of his state visit was to put the "special" back into the relationship between the United Kingdom and the U.S., as Queen Elizabeth II had done almost 70 years earlier. He drew a parallel to the 1956 Suez crisis, when Queen Elizabeth II toured the U.S. to help repair relations after the United States refused to support Britain's campaign with France to regain control of the Suez Canal from Egypt.

Earlier in the visit, the king delivered an address to Congress on Capitol Hill, becoming only the second British monarch to do so after Elizabeth II in 1991. He made no direct mention of the Iran war, but referred to Trump's criticism of Nato, noted the importance of continued U.S. help for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and warned of the dangers of isolationism.

Before the king departed for the four-day state visit, Liberal Democrats Leader Ed Davey called for the trip to be canceled. "President Trump is one of the most unpredictable people we have seen on the world stage and I hope he does not embarrass our monarch," Davey said. On Wednesday, the king and Camilla will mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in New York by laying flowers at one of the memorial pools.