Fears Donald Trump will ‘target’ Harry and Meghan

With the swearing in of the new President, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could find themselves being “targeted”, according to a new report.

You know how it never rains but it pours? Well consider one particular street in chi chi Montecito all but flooded right now. And I don’t mean well-that’s-a-lot-of-water but the sort of Biblical deluge that Noah saw out the window and set about getting himself a nice dry ark.

Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, two by two, could really do with someone sailing along to save them right now.

In the three short weeks of 2025 we’ve had so far, the mockers put on the Duchess’s relaunch as a domestic deity and the release of With Love, Meghan delayed due to the rampaging fires that have devastated LA; the couple have been labelled “disaster tourists” for turning up and looking very concerned, peering at the charred remains of someone’s home; and then, to really put the cherry on the crap cake, had Vanity Fair publish a lengthy exposé about them only slightly shorter than the supposed Good Book and full of reputational smiting.

See? Ark time.

And then came more rain…

On Monday 4500km away, Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 47th US President. Oh all the various foes, nemeses and interlocutors that the Sussexes have accrued over the years, one of the most random might be the man who just got handed the nuclear codes.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle haven’t had the best start to the year. Picture: Angela Weiss / AFP

Donald Trump’s presidency isn’t expected to help improve the couple’s luck. Picture: Jim Watson / AFP

MORE: ‘Betrayed Queen’: Meghan, Harry threat over Trump

There is no love lost between the Sussexes and the President given they are sensible enough not to support the only president in US history who has probably demanded someone install an omelette bar in the back of the situation room.

Now there are claims that the duke and duchess face the possibility of being “targeted” by Mr Trump during his second term.

Last week, the Sussexes put out a statement powerfully condemning Meta’s decision to scrap human fact checkers as Mark Zuckerberg continues his lurch towards the MAGA-verse and that bro-ish makeover of his that is really giving recently-separated-dad vibes.

The Duke and Duchess’s Meta comments have gotten the American right hot under their Brooks Brothers collars, thus putting the Sussexes in conservative Washington’s crosshairs.

Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation, a highly influential Washington think tank, came out swinging, telling The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes that he will “personally urge Donald Trump to deport Prince Harry” if it is shown that the fifth in line to the throne lied on his immigration application.

Meghan and Harry were criticised after meeting victims of the Los Angeles fires. Picture: CBS

A little context here: The Heritage Foundation is the group who came up with the ultra- conservative Project 2025, which is essentially a blueprint to deport anyone who can who can properly pronounce “huevos rancheros” and is dead set on the idea of sex only happening between a man and a woman on Sunday with the lights off in the missionary position. (The wearing of socks is advised.) Mr Trump has already nominated eight people with ties to the Heritage Foundation to his administration.

Gardiner et al have waged a legal battle for years to have Harry’s visa paperwork made public after he revealed in Spare that he had taken drugs. While the Biden administration opposed the Heritage Foundation’s moves, Trump 2.0 could be a whole new ball game.

It is against this backdrop that Harry and Meghan, rather than stay quiet and do nothing, instead chose to earn the ire of the freshly ascendant American right with their highly laudable Meta critique.

There are fears the newly installed President could target the couple after some of their recent moves. Picture: Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images via AFP

The fallout could be game-changing and life-altering.

Gardiner has told the Beast that the Duke and Duchess’s “poorly timed (Meta) intervention” would intensify “public interest in their political activities” and increase pressure for Harry’s visa paperwork to be made public.

Others are similarly raising the alarm about the way the political winds are blowing for the Sussexes.

Speaking to Newsweek, UK-based PR expert Nick Ede has said: “Unfortunately there could be a repercussion from (their Meta statement), especially with Mr Trump, you know, poking this ginormous bear and not expecting something back from it.

“Trump will see this as a battle he wants to win and potentially will target them in whatever way he does it.”

Between the fires, Netflix and Vanity Fair, Meghan has had a bit on. Picture: Etienne Laurent / AFP

The biggest question of all - could or would Mr Trump deport Harry? (Meghan is a US citizen.)

At a political conference last year, he warned that the Duke of Sussex would “be on his own” if he was re-elected and that he would not “protect” him. Then in a TV interview Mr Trump hinted that Harry could face possible expulsion, saying of the visa situation, “if he lied, they’ll have to take appropriate action.”

“Harry could be in deep s**t,” one US-based journalist told the Telegraph prior to the election. “His life could get very unpleasant should Trump decide he wants to follow through with this.”

“The powers of the president are very formidable,” a renowned American lecturer on US constitutional history told the paper, saying he was “sure Trump will utilise them”.

(Nor is it as if Mr Trump is a closet Suits fan either, having said of the Duchess in 2020, “I’m not a fan of hers”.)

The biggest question of all - could or would Trump deport Harry?

As if, thanks to the fires and Netflix and Vanity Fair, they don’t already have enough on their already overflowing, spiralling plates.

Just to really mix metaphors, it’s right about now that an ark sounds like a very good idea indeed, especially one moored off in international waters and far away from the lily white hands of pointscoring conservatives high on their return to power and the fumes from Mr Trump’s McDonald’s wrappers.

Harry and Meghan have started this administration Saying Something at a time when saying something could come with very real world consequences. The Sussexes might not exactly be gun TV producers or successful podcasters or be able to keep staff or can get King Charles on the phone, but brave? Hell yes.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as Fears Donald Trump will ‘target’ Harry and Meghan