In January 2026, King Charles III “reasserted British rule” over the U.S., saying the U.K. would follow the U.S. in “advocating a muscular return to colonialism.”
In January 2026, a claim that Britain’s King Charles III reasserted British rule over “the colonies formerly known as the United States of America” spread online. According to one popular post (archived), the king said:
In recent days, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller have been advocating a muscular return to colonialism. I couldn’t agree more with those chaps. We lost the colonies because our King went insane. But now the shoe’s on the other bloody foot, isn’t it?
The alleged quote is a historical reference to Britain’s former colonial rule of the American colonies, which ended when the U.S. officially became an independent nation in 1783.
The claim appeared following the United States’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, 2026, leading President Donald Trump to declare oversight over Venezuela. The Trump administration also resurfaced a longstanding goal for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, the Arctic Danish territory rich in minerals as well as oil and gas reserves, in early January 2026.
Snopes readers emailed us to ask about the claim involving Charles. We found no evidence he made any public statements about reasserting British rule over the U.S.
Rather, the rumor originated with The Borowitz Report — a site that describes its output as satirical in nature. Its author, Andy Borowitz, wrote on its About page: “I’ve been writing satirical news since I was eighteen. This represents either commitment to a genre or arrested development.”
The New Yorker featured The Borowitz Report as a column for 25 years. Borowitz announced in 2023 that the magazine dropped his column for financial reasons. He then returned to publishing his satirical stories on his own website and social media pages.
If a major world leader had actually made such an announcement, reputable news media outlets would have reported it. A Google search of the quote, “In recent days, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller have been advocating a muscular return to colonialism. I couldn’t agree more with those chaps,” returned results related only to the satirical story in question.
(Google.com)
Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims stemming from The Borowitz Report in the past, including the assertion that Trump said an MRI scan on his brain “found nothing” and a rumor that billionaire George Soros filed for bankruptcy after funding “No Kings” protests.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
Taija PerryCook
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