President Joe Biden brushed off his decision not to attend King Charles III’s coronation on Saturday during a softball interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle by saying, “I told him I couldn’t be there because I have this going on.
” .’
The 80-year-old Biden said he had told the king he would be in the UK for the NATO conference in the summer. “He is a good acquaintance and we have worked together on environmental issues,” the president said of King Charles III.
The president sent his wife to represent the US at the celebrations in London. No US president has ever attended a British coronation. First Lady Jill Biden’s first stop was a meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty.
During the day the MSNBC interviewhis first since meeting with PBS Newshour in February, Biden was asked why voters should choose the octogenarian.
“I have gained a lot of wisdom. And know more than the vast majority of people – I have more experience than anyone who has ever applied for the office. And I think I’ve proven myself to be both honorable and effective,” he boasted.
During his interview with MSNBC, President Joe Biden described King Charles III as a “well acquainted”
The president sent his wife to represent the US at the celebrations in London. No US president has ever attended a British coronation
First Lady Jill Biden pictured with Princess Kate and the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska
Biden’s likely opponent in 2024, ex-President Donald Trump, previously expressed his disgust that the president did not make the trip across the puddle.
“Sure, he should be here as our representative of our country. I was very surprised, I think it’s very disrespectful for him not to be here,” the former Apprentice host said. GB News.
Trump then accused Biden of not being physically well enough to make the trip to the UK. “He has a lot of things to do, a lot of strange things have happened,” the twice-deposed president added.
Biden visited Northern Ireland and Ireland last month to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Peace Pact.
The coronation ceremony will take place at Westminster Abbey on Saturday and will be attended by foreign heads of state and dignitaries.
The first lady, 71, also visited a local school with Murty on Friday afternoon, after which she met with US embassy staff and King Charles at a reception at Buckingham Palace.
“Have fun tomorrow, I’ll be thinking of you all,” she told the kids at the school, where students greeted her with gold paper crowns and shared a tea party lunch.
During the last coronation of a British monarch, when Charles’ late mother Queen Elizabeth was crowned in 1953, US President Dwight Eisenhower sent a delegation of envoys to represent him.
The White House said last month that Biden had told Charles he wanted to meet him in Britain in the future.
The president and Charles are hardly strangers. Since Biden took office, and during the Queen’s funeral last year, they have chatted at global climate events.
They also spoke in April when Biden called to say he would send the first lady to the coronation, and the president expressed interest in meeting the king in the United Kingdom at a future date, the White House said at the time.
Biden was the 13th and last American leader to meet the Queen.
They saw each other when he visited England with his wife in 2021 to take part in a Group of Seven world leadership summit. At the time, the Queen also invited the Bidens to have tea with her at Windsor Castle.
Joe and Hunter Biden land in New York on February 4
Meanwhile, during his MSNBC interview, Biden defended his scandal-stricken son Hunter, 53, amid investigations into alleged tax violations and lying about a gun license, insisting, “My son has done nothing wrong.”
“I trust him, I have faith in him,” he said.
“And it affects my presidency by making me feel proud of him.”
Hunter Biden met with U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss at Justice Department headquarters in Washington DC last week as a sign that the federal investigation into him over tax and gun charges is drawing to a close.
Weiss and his federal prosecutors are weighing four charges against Hunter — three related to tax crimes and the fourth a felony related to the purchase of a gun, according to the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are stepping up their investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances and what some of them are calling the “Biden crime family.”
This week Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, 89, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said they had heard from a whistleblower.
They described being told of a bribery scheme from the time Biden served as vice president.
“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document containing very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current president of the United States,” Grassley said.
Grassley later said in an interview that he did not know if the whistleblower’s claims were true.
He told Newsmax, “It’s a very serious allegation.
I wish I could say I knew it was true or false.”