White House pushes back against criticism after Trump cancels visit to US military cemetery in France

Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of World War I, and while most Americans spent the weekend honoring our nation’s veterans here at home, President Donald Trump headed to France to pay his respects to fallen servicemen and -women buried at a U.S. cemetery in Paris. But the president’s trip didn’t go according to plan — and when the president’s Saturday visit to the burial site was abruptly canceled due to bad weather, it didn’t take long for his critics to come out swinging.

While former White House staffers and even a grandson of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill criticized Trump for letting rain get in the way of his plans, the decision to cancel the visit had nothing to do with the president’s comfort. The White House told Fox News Sunday that the president planned to travel to the event on Marine One, but the Marine Corps and the White House Military Office grounded the helicopter, and the 2.5-hour trip by car would have reportedly “disrupted traffic in Paris and nearby suburbs for hours.”

“President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. She later told NBC News: “We can’t shut the city down for four hours for him to go there and back.”

Trump sends his “best Marines”

The president planned to make the 60-mile flight from where he was staying, at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in northern France on Saturday to “lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence,” according to Fox. The trip’s cancellation was announced by the White House in a statement on Saturday.

“The President and First Lady’s trip to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial has been canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather,” the statement read.

According to a Trump administration official, “there was no backup plan to travel by car,” and the logistics of the trip by car would have caused massive disruptions.

The president sent “the two best [M]arines that he knows,” in his place, according to Sanders: his chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford. Other White House staffers attended the event, as well.

The left is never happy

Still, the president’s absence from the event drew heavy criticism from many on the left who alleged that Trump cares more about his own comfort than the nation’s veterans. Nicholas Soames, a grandson of Churchill who also serves in the British Parliament, called Trump “pathetic” and “inadequate” in a tweet, and David Frum, who was once a speechwriter for former President George W. Bush, said on Twitter that the president’s decision was “incredible.”

“It’s incredible that a president would travel to France for this significant anniversary — and then remain in his hotel room watching TV rather than pay in person his respects to the Americans who gave their lives in France for the victory gained 100 years ago tomorrow,” Frum wrote on Twitter.

But Trump wasn’t staying in a hotel, and he wasn’t absent from many other events in France over the weekend, including a lunch and meeting with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and an Armistice Day event that was also attended by more than 80 other world leaders.

“Exactly 100 years ago today, on November 11, 1918, World War I came to an end,” Trump said at the event. “Thank God.”

The president went on to urge Americans to remember the “grizzly horrors” of the Great War in his Sunday talk, and lauded the alliances forged between the U.S. and France during the war.

“The American and French patriots of World War I embody the timeless virtues of our two republics: honor and courage, strength and valor, love and loyalty, grace and glory,” Trump said. “It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended, and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago.”