2 years ago
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday said “our hearts and thoughts go to the family members of the queen” and the United Kingdom, upon hearing the news in the press briefing room of Queen Elizabeth's death.
“Our hearts and our thoughts go to the family members of the queen, goes to the people of the United Kingdom,” Jean-Pierre said during the press briefing. “Our relationship with the people of the United Kingdom, and this is something that the president has said to himself, has grown stronger and stronger. And it is our, the United Kingdom is one of our closest allies.”
The queen, who died on Thursday after becoming the first British monarch to reign for 70 years, held the crown for nearly 30 percent of U.S. history. She ascended to the throne in 1952, leading the monarchy throughout 14 U.S. presidencies and played a key role in aiding the U.K.’s relationship with the United States.
Her first visit with U.S. top leadership was with President Harry S. Truman, who welcomed her to Washington as princess, along with Prince Philip in 1951, and ending with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden’s visit to Cornwall in 2021.
During her visit with Truman, she said that “free men everywhere look towards the United States with affection and with hope.”
Her first visit to Washington as queen was in 1957, upon receiving an invitation from President Dwight Eisenhower. They wrote each other letters for years and developed a friendship. The queen even sent him her recipe for scones.
Lyndon B. Johnson is the one U.S. president who did not meet the queen — for reasons that are still not clear. The two corresponded from 1964 to 1967, including letters with congratulations on births, birthday wishes and also a condolence message after Winston Churchill died.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy attended a banquet at Buckingham Palace with the queen and prince. Kennedy and the queen exchanged letters until his death in 1963, and she created a memorial and scholarship fund in his honor.
President Richard Nixon and first lady Patricia Nixon met with the queen and then-British Prime Minister Edward Heath at Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence in 1970. In 1976, the queen and prince attended a state dinner at the White House with President Gerald Ford and first lady Betty Ford. The queen danced with Ford at the White House ball.
President Jimmy Carter visited with the queen at Buckingham Palace in 1977, and she met President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan multiple times. The queen reportedly had a good relationship with the Reagans and shared a love of horseback riding with the president.
She granted Reagan honorary knighthood in 1989 for the U.S. assistance to the U.K. in the Falkland War. The gesture is the highest distinction the nation awards to foreigners.
The queen visited the White House in 1991, when she met with President George H.W. Bush. Bush then took the queen to her first baseball game, the Baltimore Orioles vs. Oakland Athletics. When Bush died in 2018, the queen sent Prince Charles as a representative of the Royal Family to his funeral, and she released a statement calling him a “great friend and ally of the United Kingdom.”
President Bill Clinton, first lady Hillary Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, met with the queen at Buckingham Place in 2000. And in 2007, the queen attended the State Dinner at the White House with President George W. Bush.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michele Obama attended the state banquet in Buckingham Place in 2011. In their first visit with the queen, the Obamas gifted her an iPod that was loaded with photos and videos of her 2007 trip to the United States.
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump met with the queen at Buckingham Palace. He has called her an “incredible woman.”
Her last visit with a U.S. president was in June of 2021, when she met with Joe and Jill Biden in Cornwall. The White House has not yet said if the president will travel for her service.
English (US)