The two men – the American President and the British King – waited decades for their dream job and exuded a sense of normality and unity when they finally ascended their thrones. Both prefer to leave the boss palaces behind for their respective retreats. And they share a passion for addressing environmental threats.
The men, 80-year-old President Biden and 74-year-old King Charles III, are also united by their challenges. Both face an increasingly dubious public vis-à-vis their institutions. And both wrestle with skepticism about whether they are the right people to lead the increasingly diverse groups they oversee.
“As older men at the peak of their careers, they need to redefine what it means to be older,” said Arianne Chernock, a history professor at Boston University and a connoisseur of modern Britain, adding, “You need to find new things. “ Opportunities to connect with a younger multicultural generation.”
That commonality served as the backdrop to Monday’s meeting between the President and the King at Windsor Castle, near London, where the two discussed clean energy investments and efforts to tackle climate change in developing countries. They are issues Charles has warned about since the 1970s and that Mr. Biden has made a key focus of his presidency.
Charles gathered leaders in Glasgow in 2021 to grapple with climate change, warning them that “time is up”. Mr. Biden has called the Tax, Energy and Health Act he signed into law last year “the biggest step forward in climate change ever”.
Sally Bedell Smith, who has written numerous biographies of the British royal family, said these points of mutual interest could be useful. “I guess Biden would have great respect for what Charles did and said on this subject,” she noted.
Both are also using the issue to engage more broadly with the public and, in the case of Mr. Biden, to mobilize voters.
Mr. Biden has struggled with low approval ratings for most of his presidency. A recent Portal poll showed he received 41 percent approval, a slight increase from the lowest point of his presidency but an indicator that voters remain unconvinced, particularly by his economic record.
Charles’ approval ratings have improved since he became king. In a recent survey by the market research company YouGov, it was rated positively by 55 percent of those surveyed. But that makes him only the fourth most popular member of the royal family, behind his son and heir, Prince William; his sister, Princess Anne; and his daughter-in-law Catherine, Princess of Wales.
Mr. Biden and Charles spent decades under the relentless gaze of the public and found rest in the familiar.
Mr. Biden flees the White House most weekends to one of his homes in the beach town of Rehoboth Beach, Del. The king is not said to be particularly fond of Buckingham Palace. He and Queen Camilla stay at the cozier Clarence House when in London and spend the weekends at Highgrove, his Gloucestershire country retreat.
They share a common bond in battle. Mr Biden, who has suffered from a stutter since childhood, said he was inspired by the film The King’s Speech, which portrayed the efforts of Charles’ grandfather, King George VI, to overcome similar speech problems.
Charles and the President have also come under scrutiny for their complex relationships with their younger sons. Mr Biden’s opponents have used Hunter Biden’s plea for two tax offenses to attack the President. The King’s relationship with Prince Harry has been in the spotlight since Harry and his wife Meghan retired from royal duties in 2020.
“You have to do your job as a father in an often public and glaring light,” said Ms Chernock, the history professor.
The President and the King tend to deviate from their prepared messages. Mr. Biden recently branded Xi Jinping, China’s supreme leader, as a “dictator,” even as his Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to the country to try to soothe strained ties with Beijing.
While royals are expected to stay away from politics, the king’s political views have occasionally gotten him into trouble. After Charles attended the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, a London newspaper published excerpts from a diary in which the king had written about Chinese soldiers being stabbed and described the Chinese officials at the ceremony as “appalling wax figures”.
But the two men also differ in important respects.
The President is talkative and outgoing, while the King is more thoughtful and reserved. In his younger years, Charles was awkward and shy, and seemed unfit for public life. After decades of touring royals and receiving queues, he’s adept at the art of small talk, though he’s not the natural happy-go-lucky guy like Mr. Biden.
Charles’ intellectual pursuits can sometimes seem unconventional. A voracious reader and self-taught, Charles has researched subjects such as architecture, organic farming and conservation. He once proudly revealed that his Aston Martin sports car ran on a biofuel made from excess white wine and cheese scraps.
By contrast, Mr. Biden has a 1967 Corvette that runs on gas and often seeks to connect with the working class by reminiscing about his days commuting to Washington on the Amtrak.
The king is expected to adhere to the traditions of the British monarchy, which Mr Biden has resisted on a number of occasions. Mr Biden twice declined to bow to the king’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on his mother’s advice. “Don’t bow to her,” she told him, according to his memoir Promises to Keep. (There is no obligation to bow to the monarch — although many people follow this tradition as a courtesy.)
During Mr Biden’s four visits to the UK since taking office as President, there has often been an underlying tension.
In March, Mr Biden made a brief stop in Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement before traveling to the Republic of Ireland for a much more relaxed tour of his ancestral roots. (As the London newspapers grumbled, Mr. Biden also has English roots.)
Mr Biden did not attend Charles’s coronation in May, sending his wife Jill and their granddaughter Finnegan. Calling the king to express his regrets and congratulations, Charles invited the president to visit Britain, setting the stage for Monday’s meeting, which American officials are calling a “mini-state visit.”
Even the logistics of this trip were not without static electricity. According to an official familiar with the planning, the White House first questioned the need for a stop at 10 Downing Street with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as the two men would meet at the NATO summit in Lithuania a day later. For Mr. Sunak, however, a handshake with the President outside his residence has political value, and the White House ultimately agreed with him. After an approximately 45 minute meeting at 10 Downing on Monday, Mr Biden
The White House also gave in to the King’s request to receive Mr Biden at Windsor Castle, west of London, rather than the more conveniently located Buckingham Palace. The palace is currently undergoing a multi-year renovation and the official told the New York Times that the king did not want Mr Biden to see a construction site.
When asked if Mr. Biden missed the coronation, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, dismissed any notion that there were tensions between the United States and Britain. (Historians point out that Dwight D. Eisenhower did not attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953.)
“It is important that the President goes there and meets not only with the King but also with the Prime Minister,” Ms Jean-Pierre said. “This is what you will see: continuation of the partnership with the UK.”
Those who have been monitoring the relationship between the White House and the royal family said the similarities between Charles and Mr. Biden were likely to ensure a cordial encounter.
“They’ve both been to this rodeo many times,” said Ms. Bedell Smith.