Former President Barack Obama “really loved” Queen Elizabeth II, according to his former aide Ben Rhodes.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Rhodes explained that said the Queen reminded Obama of his grandmother who raised him — Madelyn Dunham. She died due to cancer at the age of 86 in 2008.
Rhodes said Obama saw a dichotomy in the queen: A “woman who’s met everybody,” but also a “tough, pragmatic, but plain-spoken woman.” The latter is what caused Obama to view “the person who he loved as much as anybody in the world in the queen.”
President Obama “really loved the Queen,” former Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes tells @camanpour: “She reminded him of his grandmother who raised him” pic.twitter.com/khqgWCj7dW
— CNN International (@cnni) July 3, 2018
Obama and his wife Michelle Obama first met Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in 2009, his first year in the White House. The visit caused a stir in the United Kingdom when Michelle Obama put her hand on the queen’s back. More recently, the couple visited the queen at Windsor Castle for her 90th birthday in 2016.
President Trump is set to meet the Queen Elizabeth during his long-planned initial visit to England later this month.
