“I don’t know what the details are yet, but I’m going,” Biden said in Ohio, where he was traveling to break ground on a computer chip factory. Earlier on Friday, Britain’s new King Charles III said during a televised address that services for his late mother would be held later this month. “In just over a week we will come together as a nation, as a Commonwealth and indeed as a global community, to lay my beloved mother to rest,” Charles said in his speech, his first as king. Biden told reporters in Ohio that he had not yet spoken to Charles since the Queen’s death. “I know him. I haven’t talked to him. I haven’t called him yet,” Biden said. On Friday, White House aides had begun initial preparations for Biden to travel to London to attend the Queen’s funeral. They had planned to announce his presence only after the palace revealed the arrangements, according to people familiar with the matter. The President will likely be accompanied by an official delegation. Biden remembered the queen on Thursday as a “great lady” who “defined an era.” “We are so glad to have met her,” Biden told staff at the British embassy in Washington after signing a book of condolences. American flags at the White House, other federal buildings, military installations and embassies abroad remained at half-mast on Friday after Biden ordered them to be lowered “until the day of confinement.” In a statement released jointly with his wife, first lady Jill Biden, the President called the Queen “a constant presence and a source of comfort and pride for generations of Britons, including many who have never known their country without her.” As a young senator, Biden met the Queen in 1982. They met again last year when she made the trip to the Group of 7 summit in Cornwall. Later, he hosted the Bidens at Windsor Castle for tea, where he asked the President about Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia, two autocrats who have stoked tensions through military aggression. Biden then described their interaction. “I don’t think she would be offended, but she reminded me of my mother, her look and just the generosity,” Biden said. “She’s extremely kind, that’s no surprise, but we had a great conversation.” The White House declined to expand on Biden’s plans to attend the queen’s funeral, which is expected in the coming weeks. “There’s a process, there’s a protocol here, a formal protocol by which the leaders are invited, so we’re not going to preempt that protocol,” spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One on Friday. Pressed again, she reiterated that the White House would follow protocol, but added that the queen’s loss “will be felt by people around the world,” calling her a “constant presence.” “Our nations and peoples have a strong bond and I think I speak for the country when I say our thoughts are with the people of the United Kingdom,” said Jean-Pierre. The last time a British monarch died, the US president did not attend the funeral. President Harry S. Truman sent his Secretary of State Dean Acheson to attend George VI’s funeral in 1952. For recent high-profile funerals, official US delegations have included both current and former US presidents. When Pope John Paul II died, President George W. Bush attended along with his father, President George H.W. Bush, and former President Bill Clinton. President Barack Obama included George W. Bush, Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter in the official delegation at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Bush traveled with him to South Africa on Air Force One, along with Hillary Clinton. The former presidents do not expect to receive individual funeral invitations from Buckingham Palace, according to two people familiar with the protocol, with the expectation that the US will receive a formal invitation through the White House. This means that Biden will ultimately decide who will join his official entourage at the funeral services in the UK. No decisions will be made until a formal invitation is made from the palace, a White House official said, although preliminary discussions are already underway. The question is how former President Donald Trump fits into the picture. While he remembered the queen this week as a “tall and beautiful lady,” Trump was often either deliberately absent — or deliberately excluded — from meetings of the so-called Presidents’ Club. Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will be the final test of how she should handle this delicate matter of diplomacy.
