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BUENOS AIRES — President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will attend a funeral service for the late President George H.W. Bush at Washington’s National Cathedral, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Saturday.
While the Trump and Bush families have had their differences — the former president’s son Jeb was one of the candidates dispatched by Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary — the death of the Bush family patriarch brought kind words from Trump, who in a late-night statement called him a “truly wonderful man.”
President Trump himself tweeted Saturday that he would not hold a previously-planned press conference until after the funeral out of respect for the late president and his family.
Sanders said the Trump administration is working to arrange a state funeral for Bush and that the president will declare Dec. 5 a national day of mourning in his honor.
Later Saturday, before his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G-20 summit here, Trump said he had spoken by phone with Jeb Bush and former President George W. Bush, another of the deceased president's sons.
"I expressed deepest sympathies," Trump told reporters. "He led a full life and a very exemplary life."
He did not attend a funeral for former first lady Barbara Bush earlier this year.