Trump expresses regret for not visiting Arlington on Veterans Day

President Trump is expressing regret about his decision not to visit Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day. 

“I should have done that,” Trump said during an interview set to air on “Fox News Sunday.”

While Trump rarely makes a public show of regret, he has recently faced criticism over his leadership of the U.S. armed forces. 

{mosads}The president had no public events scheduled on Monday upon his return to Washington, when Veterans Day was observed as a federal holiday. 

“I was extremely busy on calls for the country, we did a lot of calling as you know,” he told Fox News’s Chris Wallace. 

Trump was in Paris on Sunday for Veterans Day to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, where he delivered remarks at a U.S. cemetery. Trump faced major blowback for skipping a visit to a military cemetery the previous day, a decision he blamed on poor weather.

Presidents typically attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington cemetery. That ceremony was held this year on Sunday, when the Trump was in France. 

“In retrospect I should have and I did last year and I will virtually every year,” Trump responded when asked why he did not go to the cemetery. “But we had come in very late at night and I had just left, literally, the American cemetery in Paris and I really probably assumed that was fine.”

The president has recently come under fire over his decision to send active-duty soldiers to the U.S. southern border in response to a caravan of Central American migrants, a move critics say injected partisan politics into military affairs. 

He has also been criticized for his failure to visit U.S. service members serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or other places where they are fighting overseas. 

The president has defended his record as pro-military, saying he has boosted Pentagon spending and helped enact reforms for veterans’ health care.