ROME: President Donald Trump will be among more than 50 heads of state and other dignitaries attending Saturday\u2019s funeral for Pope Francis, where he\u2019ll personally pay his respects to the Roman Catholic leader who pointedly disagreed with him on a variety of issues.
\nTrump told reporters he was going to the funeral \u201cout of respect\u201d for the pontiff, who died Monday after suffering a stroke at the age of 88.
\nThe president and first lady Melania Trump arrived in Rome late Friday for the service at St. Peter\u2019s Basilica in Vatican City on Saturday morning. Francis will be laid to rest during a private burial at St. Mary Major Basilica outside the Vatican\u2019s walls.
\nFrancis sharply disagreed with Trump\u2019s approach on issues including immigration, the treatment of migrants and climate change. The Argentine pontiff and the American president sparred early in their relationship over immigration. In 2016, Francis, alluding to then-candidate Trump and his campaign slogan of \u201cBuild the wall,\u201d called anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants \u201d not Christian.\u201d Trump said the comment was \u201cdisgraceful.\u201d
\nBut after Francis\u2019 death, the Republican president praised him as a \u201cgood man\u201d who \u201cworked hard\u201d and \u201cloved the world.\u201d Trump also directed that US flags be flown at half-staff in Francis\u2019 honor.
\nTrump had said on a couple of occasions before leaving Washington that he would have \u201ca lot\u201d of meetings with counterparts on the sidelines of the funeral. But he seemed to back away from that as he flew to Rome.
\n\u201cFrankly, it\u2019s a little disrespectful to have meetings when you\u2019re at the funeral of a pope,\u201d the president told reporters accompanying him aboard Air Force One. Nonetheless, Trump said: \u201cI\u2019ll be talking to people. I\u2019ll be seeing a lot of people.\u201d
\nThe leaders of France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Hungary and Argentina are among those expected to attend.
\nOne person Trump didn\u2019t expect to interact with is former President Joe Biden, who planned to attend the funeral with his wife, Jill. Trump said he wasn\u2019t aware his Democratic predecessor would be at the funeral. Asked if they\u2019d meet, Trump said: \u201cIt\u2019s not high on my list. It\u2019s really not.\u201d
\nThe pope\u2019s funeral will not be one of those occasions that bring together the current and former US presidents. Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush are not attending, their offices said. A spokesperson for former President Bill Clinton did not respond to an inquiry about his plans.
\nTrump didn\u2019t elaborate when asked if he\u2019d just be meeting leaders in passing or holding more in-depth talks. He suggested he might have meetings at Villa Taverna, the US ambassador\u2019s residence, where he spent the night.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a little tough because we don\u2019t have much time,\u201d Trump said, noting his late arrival in Rome. He was scheduled to head back to the United States immediately after the funeral.
\n\u201cI think that we\u2019re going to try and see a couple of people that are important in what we\u2019re doing,\u201d said Trump, who is trying to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and negotiate trade agreements with multiple countries.
\nHe posted on Truth Social shortly after arriving in Rome that Ukraine and Russia should meet for \u201cvery high level talks\u201d on ending the bloody three-year war sparked by Russia\u2019s invasion. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier Friday, and Trump said both sides were \u201cvery close to a deal.\u201d
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Rome on Saturday to attend the funeral, his press office confirmed, joining first lady Olena Zelenska. Putin is not attending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROME: President Donald Trump will be among more than 50 heads of state and other dignitaries attending Saturday\u2019s funeral for Pope Francis, where he\u2019ll personally pay his respects to the Roman Catholic leader who pointedly disagreed with him on a variety of issues. Trump told reporters he was going to the funeral \u201cout of respect\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80170,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80155\/revisions\/80170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}