9:57 am: UPDATE – It has been confirmed to Yeas & Nays this morning that the two have worked out their scheduling and will meet during Reagan’s visit. Per the White House Press Office, Michelle Obama will welcome the former first lady for lunch Wednesday at the White House.
This will be the Michelle’s first official White House lunch with any prior first lady.
(Earlier story below)
Former first lady Nancy Reagan is due to arrive in Washington for the unveiling of a statue of her husband, President Ronald Reagan, on Wednesday night in the Capitol, but this will not be her only stop here this month — meeting Michelle Obama is on her agenda.
The White House Press Office dispelled rumors Monday that the two first ladies were set to meet for dinner tonight, but informed us that a meeting is in the works.
“We have been trying to sort out both their schedules for something this month, but I can guarantee it’s not happening [today],” Obama’s press secretary Katie McCormick Lelyveld told us.
This comes among the recent release of her interview in next month’s Vanity Fair, where she states that President Barack Obama should have invited her to attend the announcement ceremony at the White House to celebrate his reversal of George W. Bush’s stem cell research policy .
“I would have gone, and you know I don’t like to travel,” she tells the mag. Perhaps this is the current first lady’s attempt to make amends with the former one.
The ceremony in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall for the 7-foot statue — which replaces another former influential man in California politics, Thomas Starr King — is set to have congressional leaders Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on hand.
Noticeably absent, however, will be the man who shares his actor-turned-California-governor title, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although previously set to attend, his press office told us he has “to stay at home and focus on the budget.”
