President Joe Biden will not join world leaders in King Charles III’s coronation, but may send Jill Biden or Kamala Harris to London to show his support
- The coronation of King Charles III will take place in Westminster Abbey on May 6
- President Joe Biden is not expected to attend the ceremony
- A source said the White House would likely send Jill Biden or Kamala Harris
President Joe Biden is not expected to attend the coronation of King Charles III, according to a source familiar with the schedule, but will instead send First Lady Jill or Vice President Kamala Harris.
Guests, including world leaders, have already received an email from Buckingham Palace to save the date of the May ceremony.
But the US president will not be there.
It means it’s the second time Biden has avoided meeting Charles. He is expected to visit Northern Ireland next month, just days before the new British monarch arrives to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of violence.
Seeing no disapproval, British officials have been privately saying for months that no US president has ever attended a British coronation.
According to a source, President Joe Biden is not expected to attend King Charles III’s coronation in May. He probably sends First Lady Jill or Vice President Kamala Harris
Charles became king after the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, in September, but will be crowned on May 6 in a ceremony with 1,000 years of tradition at Westminster Abbey
“We think the representative will be the first lady or the vice president,” said a source familiar with the arrangements.
“For the Queen, that was the Governor of California and the Chief of Staff of the United States Army.”
The Daily Telegraph newspaper, which first reported the news, added that Dame Karen Pierce, the British ambassador to the US, and Buckingham Palace officials had held “cordial and diplomatic” talks with the White House about the delegation.
A White House official said only that a delegation will be announced in the coming weeks.
Charles became king after the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II last September.
He will be crowned in Westminster Abbey on May 6.
The ceremony reflects a thousand years of tradition and the service will be led by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
However, Charles revised some aspects, cutting the length from three hours to one hour and cutting the guest list from over 8,000, for his mother, to 2,000.
The White House says it will make a decision on its delegation in the coming weeks. Obviously, it will likely be led by either First Lady Jill Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris
The coronation of Elizabeth II took place on June 2, 1953. The American delegation consisted of Earl Warren, the Governor of California, and George C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
Biden and the first lady attended the Queen’s funeral in September last year
He also revamped the guest list to allow members of other royals and heads of state to attend, rather than holding the ceremony between a monarch and his British subjects.
The event will be attended by several heads of state, including those of France, Spain, Ireland, Japan and Monaco.
Biden’s absence could be used by critics to suggest that his sympathies lie not with Charles and the United Kingdom, but with Ireland, out of anti-British sentiment.
He will be visiting Northern Ireland and Ireland next month where he has distant relatives.
And he’s made a lot of his Irish heritage, occasionally toying with the idea that it would make him anti-British.
When a reporter from the BBC tried to ask him a question in 2020, he replied: ‘The BBC? I’m Irish.’