20 Years Ago, 3 U.S. Presidents Traveled Together to Mourn a Pope. Not This Time.

Twenty years ago this month, President George W. Bush landed in Rome to pay his respects to a deceased pope, John Paul II. He was the first sitting president to attend a papal funeral. But he was not alone: He had asked his predecessor, Bill Clinton, to ride along on Air Force One, along with Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush.

Together, the three presidents sped to St. Peter’s Basilica. Kneeling, they prayed side by side before the pope’s body.

It was a remarkable display of American bipartisan unity, the kind of kinship among political rivals that feels unimaginable today.

And things played out differently when President Donald Trump landed in Rome on Friday night to attend Pope Francis’ funeral.

He was accompanied by his wife, Melania, and a clutch of senior aides. But his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, and his wife, Jill, flew in on their own.

Considering that Trump had recently stripped Biden of his security clearances and regularly denounces him, it is understandable that they did not share a ride to Rome. When former President Jimmy Carter died in December, Trump said he had passed away “a happy man” in the knowledge that “he wasn’t the worst. President Joe Biden was.”

Biden has often talked about his Roman Catholic upbringing. He saw Francis briefly at a summit meeting in Italy in June, weeks before the disastrous debate with Trump that led to his decision to drop out of the presidential race. Biden had talked about returning to Rome to get the pope’s blessing just before leaving the White House, but he canceled the trip because of the Los Angeles wildfires in January.

Asked on Air Force One on the flight to Rome on Friday evening whether he planned to talk with Biden at the funeral, Trump sounded surprised that his predecessor was attending. “It’s not high on my list,” he said. “It’s really not.”

The contrast with the 2005 papal funeral was stark. Bush was eager to ensure that Clinton was part of the full presidential party. Not only did the two men attend the funeral together, Clinton sat in on the highly classified presidential daily brief on the flight over.

But the joined-at-the-hip act ended in the evening. Bush went to sleep early, around the time Clinton was just heading out. One night during the visit, Clinton was dining in a private room at a small, highly rated Italian restaurant when he realized that many of the White House reporters who had covered him as president were eating at a big table in the main dining room.

Naturally, he called us in to join him for dessert and espresso, and told stories until the early hours.

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