00:00Well, in line with protocol, he did not bow, but President Joe Biden did wear those iconic aviator sunglasses today when he and First Lady Joe Biden met Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle before sitting down for tea with Her Majesty.
00:12Biden surveyed the red-suited, bearskin-hatted guardsmen after listening to the star-spangled banner.
00:18Here's how he described his meeting with the Queen.
00:19She's extremely gracious. It's not surprising. But we had a great talk. She wanted to know what the two leaders that I want to meet with, Mr. Putin, and she wanted to know about Xi Jinping, and we had a long talk.
00:40And she was very generous, very—I don't think she'd be insulted, but my mother. She reminded me of my mother in terms of the look of her and, you know, just the generosity.
00:53And I said, you know, ma'am, this is, you know, it's a long time. She said, oh, no. I said, I wish we could stay longer. Maybe we could hold the cars up a minute.
01:01So, anyway, she was very gracious.
01:03What is that—what is the castle like? Americans never go there. What is that?
01:06By the way, she said—she said, I said, this is—we could fit the White House in the courtyard.
01:12And she said, what's it like in the White House? I said, well, it's magnificent, but it's a lot of people.
01:18She said, I know. She said, here—she said, on this end we're going. It's private. The public can go on the other end.
01:26So, anyway, she was very gracious. Did you invite her to the White House?
01:29Yes.
01:31All right. CNN White House correspondent Kate Bennett and royal historian Ed Owens join us.
01:35What an exciting day for the Bidens. Kate, Biden as authentic as ever in all of those interactions.
01:42I know. I said awkward a little bit because he's been comparing the queen to his mother, which is lovely.
01:48But—
01:48I think that's a compliment.
01:49I do. I do, too.
01:50And there's an emotional enthusiasm about the Bidens that I think we're still maybe getting comfortable with on a larger basis as our president and our first lady.
02:00But I don't think we'll hear from the palace a readout as extensive or as personal or intimate as that one was.
02:06I think that's pretty much all we're going to get.
02:08The tea with the queen is a very—for the British side, for her side, it's a very intimate experience.
02:13It's allowing people into Windsor.
02:15It's sitting down.
02:16It's having a one-on-one.
02:17And those pleasantries are exchanged.
02:19And usually the palace is pretty tight-lipped about it.
02:22Yeah, Ed, we saw Biden there in the aviator sunglasses addressing the queen.
02:27You know, I think it just sort of caps off what has been kind of a Euro love fest for President Biden.
02:33I talked to a senior European official who was just about giddy about the whole trip.
02:39What's your sense of how Biden handled all of this?
02:43I think he's gone down very well.
02:45They're looking very cool, as you note, in the aviator sunglasses.
02:48I think it's been a really important three days.
02:50This has been President Biden, if you like, reinvigorating those bonds with the Western democracies that have been so key over the last sort of 70, 80 years.
03:00As you say, it's something of a sort of Euro love fest.
03:02The British doing the pomp and circumstance as well as they do, really putting on a show to sort of bring this really interesting weekend to a close.
03:11And, Kate, the protocol seemed a little different this time around from when Biden's predecessor met the queen.
03:17So many recall the infamous video of Trump accidentally walking in front of the queen.
03:23Biden surveyed the guard alone.
03:26It's interesting, as John Bolton was leaving the set here, he was offering his take on why that's the case.
03:31Do we know why this is, why Joe Biden did this today?
03:34There's no official word yet on why President Biden was the only one walking.
03:38You know, some people speculate it's because Prince Philip passed away and he still enjoyed doing that.
03:43And this is homage to sort of the empty chair, so to speak.
03:47But or perhaps the queen wanted to stay and have President Biden have that moment to himself.
03:52Yeah.
03:52I mean, I think protocol is always a little bit different.
03:55You know, President Trump, you're not supposed to have your back to the queen.
03:58And that's what happened there during that walk.
04:01But, yeah, certainly this felt a little more.
04:03Now, we have to remember, too, they met in person the other day at the G7 at this cocktail reception.
04:08That was a very sort of soft power diplomacy moment for the royal family using their influence and also, you know, their all their senior royal officials.
04:18So they'd already met a couple of days ago.
04:20So this is sort of a formality.
04:22But but, yeah, it was it was interesting.
04:24And the aviators, hey, listen, I don't think it's a big deal.
04:26He wears them all the time.
04:27He took them off after the anthem and to walk around and see the troops.
04:31Yeah.
04:31A little top gun in the UK, Ed.
04:34Biden says the queen specifically asked him about his upcoming meetings with Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping.
04:40So there was subsubstance to these discussions.
04:43I think there always is with Queen Elizabeth II.
04:46She's extremely politically savvy and smart.
04:48She's been on the throne for almost 70 years.
04:50You know, she's seen lots of politicians come and go, but she keeps abreast of current affairs.
04:55She's very interested in what's going on both in the UK, but also in the U.S. and in Europe.
05:00Very interested, I'm sure, to see what comes of the forthcoming meetings with the Chinese president, but also Vladimir Putin.
05:08She'll be interested to see how things develop, given that the U.S. is trying to sort of transform the global order at the moment and stand up to both individuals.
05:20And I kind of wonder if we buried the lead a little bit here.
05:23I mean, President Biden did invite the queen to the White House.
05:28That is pretty significant.
05:29Ed, do you think that could happen?
05:31Do you think she would say yes?
05:32It's unlikely because the sort of modern protocol is that the queen will never again actually leave the U.K. to travel abroad.
05:41The main concern is that she might travel abroad for an international trip and unfortunately not then come back because she'd die abroad.
05:49So there's protocol it takes now that the queen doesn't travel, but that's not to say that one of her representatives may be her heir.
05:57Prince Charles doesn't travel out to the USA on her behalf and meet President Biden at the White House.
06:04That would be fascinating.
06:05Kate, we need a quick fact check on something.
06:06When President Biden met with Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, he gave him an American-made bike that cost thousands of dollars.
06:14And there are reports that in return, Biden got a Wikipedia printout of Frederick Douglass.
06:18What is going on?
06:19Is any of that true?
06:20Okay, so somewhat true.
06:21And let's remember, presidential gifts are important.
06:24The Resolute Desk came from Queen Victoria to Rutherford B. Hayes.
06:28But no, the bike was expensive, true.
06:31But the photograph was not from Wikipedia.
06:33They got a print of it from the actual photographer who took a picture of this Frederick Douglass mural.
06:39So although it was a print in a frame, it wasn't off of Wikipedia.
06:42Now, keep in mind, the threshold for gifts to be received by an American president is, as of 2020, $415.
06:50So what Johnson could have been doing is giving a gift that came in under that so it didn't have to go to the archives so that he could hang it in the White House.
06:59So there's a little wiggle room for why that gift may have been in the hundreds of dollars and not the thousands.
07:05I'm actually surprised to hear him say, the Queen has never been in the White House?
07:09This would be her first invite if she were to take him up on it, too?
07:13That's very interesting, yes.
07:14I mean, the Queen has not traveled in a very, very long time.
07:18Most of the royal family have gone in her stead.
07:20But having said that, I don't think anyone from the royal family has been to the White House in quite some time.
07:26Huh. Okay.
07:27All right.
07:27So what do you think about how do you evaluate what this meeting was like, how meaningful it was?
07:34I mean, after all, this, too, is a meeting involving the Queen not long after the death of her husband of 73 years.
07:43Right.
07:43Well, I think if any president was well-suited to go after this tragic event for the Queen, it's President Biden.
07:51He obviously is very good at expressing empathy and very sensitive to people when they have gone through something.
07:57And that's not to say that they talked about it extensively.
08:00But I think the way in which he approached the Queen was probably very much how he approaches other people when they have these kinds of issues.
08:07And I think he exudes a warmth.
08:09I mean, what he just said about the Queen reminding him of his mother, that's classic Joe Biden.
08:13And I think the Queen appreciates that.
08:15You look at the pictures from the summit and the pictures that they took out in Cornwall when they were all sitting there.
08:20And she said, are we supposed to be enjoying ourselves?
08:22It just had a much lighter tone.
08:24And I think she welcomed it.
08:26Yes, very much so.
08:26Yeah.
08:27And it seems like she enjoyed it.
08:29I mean, it seemed like we saw quite a few exhibits of her humor and candor from cutting the cake with a sword to that moment, the class photo of saying, are we supposed to be enjoying this?
08:40You know, and everyone kind of, you know, breaking a little laughter, too.
08:43And even in this picture here, just before the president, you know, took to that podium with Dr. Joe Biden, it looks like he was almost curtsying.
08:52Is that what you saw?
08:53Well, I think Joe sometimes is, President Biden is very sort of spontaneous.
08:59So sometimes I think he sort of is caught up in the moment.
09:01So I'm not quite sure that was a curtsy, but it was probably something that he did sort of spontaneously.
09:07Right.
09:07Right.
09:08Okay.
09:08Now, customarily, there might be a gift that the president would give to the Queen.
09:13What might that be?
09:15What do you suppose it was this go-round?
09:16Well, I have sources that have told me that President Biden's team got in touch with Tiffany rather late, but they were able to create this special silver box for Her Majesty.
09:28And what they had asked to have been done on the box was a sketch of Windsor Castle on the top with a very personal inscription on the inside from President Biden.
09:40But what I thought was very, very nice and very personal was that around the sides of the box were to be flowers, each one from the Commonwealth, which, of course, is something that someone else did a couple of years ago.
09:52But I think it has a lot different meaning this go-round.
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