Trump to host state dinner for Macron on Tuesday
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump is celebrating nearly 250 years of Us-french relations by playing host to President Emmanuel Macron at a glitzy White House state dinner on Tuesday.
Months in the making, it’s the irst state visit and irst big soiree of the Trump era in Washington.
“It sounds like what they’re planning will be spectacular,” said Jeremy Bernard, who was White House social secretary in 2014, the last time the US feted a French president.
The White House has said little beyond the fact that dinner will be served, sticking to the tradition of trying to maintain an element of surprise for its guests.
In fact, Macron will break bread twice with Trump.
On Monday, the president and Melania Trump will dine privately with Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at Mount Vernon, the home of America’s irst president, George Washington, on the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia. The White House said the setting will serve as a reminder of France’s “unique status” as America’s irst ally.
Trump ended his irst year without receiving a foreign leader on a state visit, making him the irst president in nearly 100 years to do so and heightening the stakes for Tuesday.
Dinner tickets are typically highly sought after by Washington’s political and business elite. A few inklings of who’s in and who’s out already are known: Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, is in, as are House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-wis., and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Senate Republican Leader Mitch Mcconnell of Kentucky was invited, but his ofice said he is unable to attend.
In a break with tradition, Trump invited no Democratic members of Congress or journalists, said a White House oficial familiar with the arrangements but not authorized to discuss them publicly. But at least one Democrat will be in the crowd: the ofice of Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards conirmed his attendance.
Approximately 150 guests will take their seats in the State Dining Room on Tuesday, making for a more intimate affair than those held by President Barack Obama. Obama’s guest lists numbered into the hundreds, requiring that the event be held in a tented pavilion erected on the South Lawn because no room in the White House can accommodate that many people.