Donald Trump has doubled down on his insistence he did not call Meghan Markle “nasty”, even though he believed she had said unpleasant things about him.

Ahead of his visit to Britain, the president was interviewed by The Sun and asked about remarks the former actress had made about him when he was campaigning for the White House.

The Duchess of Sussex, had said Mr Trump was “misogynistic” and “divisive” and suggested she might move to Canada if he won.

“I didn’t know that. What can I say? I didn’t know that she was nasty,” Mr Trump said, when asked about her comments.

Before leaving for the state visit to Britain, the president tweeted that he had not said the wife of Prince Harry was nasty. “Made up by the fake news media, and they got caught cold,” he tweeted.

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The Sun subsequently posting a recoding and transcript of the interview.

In another interview with Piers Morgan for ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Mr Trump has sought to clarify the comments.

Conducted in the Churchill War Rooms museum in London, the presenter asked the president directly if he thought the duchess was “nasty” or not.

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Mr Trump said: “They said some of the things that she said and It’s actually on tape. And I said: ‘Well, I didn’t know she was nasty’. I wasn’t referring to she’s nasty. I said she was nasty about me. And essentially I didn’t know she was nasty about me.”

He added: “You know what? She’s doing a good job, I hope she enjoys her life...I think she’s very nice.

“She was nasty to me. And that’s okay for her to be nasty, it’s not good for me to be nasty to her and I wasn’t.”

Mr Trump said he had spoken to Prince Harry during the visit and that the issue of his wife’s nastiness or otherwise, did not come up.