A White House official said Monday night that first lady Michelle Obama will attend Nancy Reagan’s funeral, but said nothing about President Obama attending, implying that the president would not be going.
On Tuesday, the White House said the president will skip Reagan’s funeral in order to attend South By SouthWest in Texas, where he is slated to be the keynote speaker.
The first lady will travel to California for the funeral Friday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. Reagan will lie in repose Wednesday and Thursday before being buried Friday next to her husband, Ronald Reagan, who died in June 2004.
The 94-year-old former first lady died at her home in Los Angeles from congestive heart failure. Reagan has requested that donations be made to the library in lieu of flowers.
President Obama kicked up a firestorm of criticism in mid-February for deciding against attending the funeral for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and sending Vice President Joe Biden in his stead.
The president and first lady paid their respects to Scalia when the conservative stalwart lay in repose at the Supreme Court great hall the Friday before the Saturday funeral.
President Obama Monday morning lauded the former first lady’s devotion to her husband and said the country will miss her deeply.
“I think it’s been well-documented the extraordinary love that she had for her husband, and the extraordinary comfort and strength she provided him during really hard times,” the president said.
“As somebody who is lucky enough to have an extraordinary partner in my life as well, I know how much she meant not just to President Reagan but to the country as a whole. He was lucky to have her. … She will be missed.”
