The Associated Press reports:
The White House announced Saturday morning that the Trumps would attend a state funeral for the former president at Washington’s National Cathedral.
No surprise. It would be shocking if a sitting president failed to show up at the funeral for a past president. December 5 will be set aside as a day of national mourning, the White House said.
Donald Trump didn’t exactly have a close relationship with George H.W. Bush the way both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did. Far from it. Indeed, in 2015, Trump tweeted “The last thing we need is another Bush in the White House. Would be the same old thing (remember ‘read my lips, no more taxes’). GREATNESS!”
He also had rude things to say about George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, whom he beat in the presidential primaries. The attitude was mutual.
In a book titled The Last Republicans, Bush Sr., called Trump a "blowhard," while Bush Jr. said: "This guy doesn't know what it means to be president."
And Barbara Bush, Bush Sr.’s wife who died in April, had also sharply criticized Trump:
In the course of a CNN interview, for example, she proclaimed that “[Trump] doesn’t give many answers to how he would solve problems. He sort of makes faces and says insulting things … He’s said terrible things about women, terrible things about the military. I don’t understand why people are for him, for that reason. I’m a woman … I’m not crazy about what he says about women.”
Trump did not attend the former first lady’s funeral “out of respect” for the family. It was one of the only decent decisions the man has made since he moved into the White House, undertaken because he knew he would be an unwanted presence there. It should be noted, however, that other sitting presidents have also not attended the funerals for former first ladies.