Adding to a growing wave of derision, a UK minister of defense expressed his critique of Trump's decision to avoid a key commemorative event on Saturday due to the rain.
Tobias Ellwood, the UK Government Minister at the Ministry of Defense, tweeted that "rain did not prevent our brave heroes from doing their job," according to the BBC.
— Tobias Ellwood (@Tobias_Ellwood) November 10, 2018
Trump, alongside some 70 other world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron — who all attended the rainy event without complaint — was in France to honor the centenary of Armistice Day, the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, in which an estimated 10 million soldiers and some 8 million citizens perished.
A handful of White House staffers attended the rainy Saturday ceremony as stand-ins for the US president, whose campaign team earlier suggested that the weather had caused the presidential helicopter to be grounded while also citing security concerns in what they complained would be a hastily-arranged motorcade to cover the two-hour one-way trip by automobile.
Trump also passed up Macron's Paris Peace Forum, which began Sunday afternoon, according to reports.
Trump's eye-opening cancellation of the important Saturday event, as well as his excuses, have drawn increasingly widespread and scathing criticism from around the world, according to the BBC.
Many Americans, including former diplomat Nicholas Burns, also noted that it is a leader's duty to honor the soldiers of their nation.
— Nicholas Burns (@RNicholasBurns) November 10, 2018
On Sunday, November 11, as many as 70 world leaders — including Trump — gathered at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in the center of Paris to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in World War I, officially brought to an end by the Treaty of Versailles on November 11, 1919.
