President Biden said Queen Elizabeth II reminded him of his mother after having tea with the British monarch at Windsor Castle.
President Biden said Queen Elizabeth II reminded him of his mother
After attending a three-day Group of Seven summit in Carbis Bay in southwest England, Biden headed to Windsor Castle, where the queen has spent much of her time since the pandemic began.
After the meeting with Elizabeth, Biden, 78, told reporters that the 95-year-old monarch reminded him of his mother.
“I don’t think she’s insulted, but she reminded me of my mother, in her appearance and her generosity,” he said.
“She’s extremely kind. That’s not surprising, but we had a great chat,” he told reporters.
“She wanted to know which two leaders, the one I’m meeting with, Mr. Putin, and she wanted to know about Xi Jinping, and we had a long talk.”
It is very unusual to see conversations between the British monarch and world leaders.
In Britain, there is a convention that prime ministers do not discuss their meetings with the queen, who is always supposed to be politically neutral.
Then-Prime Minister David Cameron was mortified in 2014 when he was recorded telling former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg that the queen “purred” after he told her about the results of the Scottish independence referendum.
After the media picked up the footage, Cameron apologized on the BBC and said he was “extremely sorry and very embarrassed.”
