Former president Donald Trump blasted President Joe Biden for not attending King Charles III’s upcoming coronation, despite the fact that no US president has ever attended one.
“Certainly, he should be here as our representative of our country,” Trump told British outlet GB News in an interview on May 3. “I was very surprised, I think it’s very disrespectful for him not to be here.”
Trump also appeared to reference Biden’s age affecting his ability to travel, telling GB News, “I don’t think he can do it physically.”
Biden took 18 international trips during his first two years in office, according to the Pew Research Center. So far in 2023, he has traveled to Mexico, Poland, Canada, and Ireland, and took a surprise trip to Ukraine.
Biden’s absence at the coronation keeps with historical precedent. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent four representatives to Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, according to The New York Times. President Franklin D. Roosevelt skipped King George VI’s in 1937 and sent a delegation led by General John J. Pershing, a World War I commander, Boston University history professor Arianne Chernock wrote for The Conversation. President William Howard Taft sent mining engineer John Hays Hammond in his stead to King George V’s coronation in 1911, The New York Times reported.
While both the president and the first lady traveled to the UK to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in September, only Jill Biden will attend the coronation on behalf of the United States, leading a delegation that has yet to be announced.
According to a White House readout of a phone call between Biden and Charles in April, the president “congratulated the King on his upcoming Coronation” and “conveyed his desire to meet with the King in the United Kingdom at a future date.”