Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Alex | Email Max LONDON — President JOE BIDEN’s entire political career — indeed, much of his adult life — has been touched by personal loss. It’s given him a rare ability to talk about death with a reassuring authority at both funerals and memorials. But over the past 24 hours, Biden has kept a low profile while joining several hundred other world leaders at a funeral that was perhaps the most watched broadcast of all time. The president did not have a role to play in commemorating the life of Queen ELIZABETH II for the ceremonies at London’s Westminster Abbey. He remained, largely, off center stage. Such a role makes sense. The funeral was a royal affair, put together for the country's longest service monarch. There was no direct tie to the president of the United States. To that point, Biden is the first U.S. president to ever attend a British state funeral since World War II, said Boston University history professor ARIANNE CHERNOCK, whose specialty is modern British and European history. When Elizabeth’s father, King GEORGE VI, died in 1952, President HARRY TRUMAN sent Secretary of State DEAN ACHESON to attend the funeral. President LYNDON JOHNSON sent then-Supreme Court Chief Justice EARL WARREN to WINSTON CHURCHILL’s funeral in 1965. “The optics are significant, and the messaging can be quite important at these momentous funerals,” Chernock said. And yet, Biden recognizes “this is not his moment. This is the royal family's moment, and he is there to pay his respects and to show American support.” Biden was not the only American to come to England to offer his condolences. Others traveled across the pond in the last week to pay homage to the queen’s lengthy service. One of them was RACHEL NORDGREN, a 30-year-old financial marketer from Topeka, Kansas. She decided Thursday to fly to London, with the blessing of her husband and boss, and waited 10 hours in a queue to see the queen’s coffin at Westminster Hall. The line at times stretched for five miles. Even though her age makes the younger generation of royals — like Princes WILLIAM and HARRY — more accessible to her, Nordgren said she still feels a connection to the queen, who ascended to the throne when she was just 25. She said the queen’s life story was something that helped her through heartache when, at the age of 25, she lost her mother. “I remember in those early days of grief, just thinking, ‘You know, if Lizzie was my age and she could get up and run the country, I can get up and go to work today,’” she said. “So I think, kind of during that time, I just really developed a lot of respect for her and the amazing job that she did despite everything in her way.” When she finally reached the queen’s casket, Nordgren felt hit with emotion. “The solemnity and serenity of that Hall, and the coffin draped in the Royal Standard and topped with the Crown Jewels,” she said. “I curtsied, cried, and said ‘thank you’ to her in my heart.” Nordgren acknowledged the U.S. and the U.K. have a complicated relationship. “Still, this country is our heritage. It's kind of where the roots of America began, so we'll always have that in common,” she said. She was surrounded by her “queue-mates,” the new friends she made while waiting hours in line together. “The British Empire has a long, complicated and at times brutal history. There are a lot of flaws with the institution,” she said. But being in line, in the country celebrating the queen’s life “has kind of reiterated to me a human connection so many of us are feeling right now.” Biden, for his part, stayed far away from history and politics in the brief remarks that he did make when attending the queen’s funeral. He and the first lady paid their respects at Westminster Hall and then each signed the official condolence book at Lancaster House. After that, he did something he often does in grief-stricken moments: he drew on his own history of loss and suffering to offer up some words of wisdom and a dash of hope. “Our hearts go out to the royal family — King Charles and all the family. It's a loss that leaves a giant hole,” Biden said. “And sometimes you think you'll never overcome it. But as I've told the king, she's going to be with him every step of the way.” MESSAGE US — Are you MARTINA ANNA TKADLEC STRONG, Biden’s nominee to serve as Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates? We want to hear from you and we may publish your response tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.
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