President Donald Trump’s trip across the Potomac River was his first visit to Arlington National Cemetery since he was roundly denounced on Nov. 11. | Yuri Gripas, Pool/Getty Images White House Trump makes first trip to Arlington National Cemetery since Veterans Day criticism

President Donald Trump on Saturday made an unannounced trip to Arlington National Cemetery to pay his respects to deceased veterans.

Trump's rainy-day outing coincided with “National Wreaths Across America Day,” an annual event dedicated to organizing wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington and other cemeteries across the country.


The president wore his trademark long overcoat and brandished a black umbrella at the grave site just one month after he was criticized for declining to visit the historic military graveyard on Veterans Day and for not paying his respects at a French cemetery for American troops near Paris because of rainy weather.

Briefly addressing reporters during the visit, the president hailed a ruling by a federal judge on Friday evening invalidating Obamacare as "a great victory," according to a pool report.

Trump’s trip across the Potomac River on Saturday was his first visit to Arlington since he was roundly denounced on Nov. 11 for breaking with past commanders in chief, who made the presidential pilgrimage as part of an unofficial Veterans Day tradition.

Trump said later that week in an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News that he regretted not making time to visit the Virginia cemetery.

“I should have done that, I was extremely busy on calls for the country, we did a lot of calling as you know,” Trump said.

On an overseas visit to Paris last month to mark the centennial of the Armistice that ended World War I alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders, Trump canceled a planned Nov. 10 visitation to the Aisne-Marne memorial and cemetery about 60 miles outside the city, where 2,289 veterans are buried. A monument at the nearby Belleau Wood honors the Marines who fought there in a pivotal battle in 1918.

The White House nixed the trip due to rainy weather, as the president’s Marine One helicopter cannot fly in rain or fog. White House chief of staff John Kelly and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford made the visit in Trump’s place.

Trump did deliver remarks the next day under drizzly conditions at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial outside of Paris, where the remains of 1,541 American World War I veterans are buried.

At Arlington on Saturday, Trump weighed in on the explosive ruling by a federal judge in Texas on Friday evening invalidating the entirety of former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, calling the decision “a big, big victory by a highly respected judge."

The Supreme Court has twice voted to uphold the constitutionality of the ACA, but if the justices side against the landmark law in an appeal of Friday’s judgment, Trump said he would meet with congressional Democrats to reform America’s health care system for the better.

“We’ll sit down with the Democrats, if the Supreme Court upholds, we’ll be sitting down with the Democrats and we will get great health care for our people, that’s a repeal and replace, handled a little bit differently,” Trump said.

Trump on Friday gloated over the ruling on Twitter.

“As I predicted all along, Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster! Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions. Mitch and Nancy, get it done!” Trump wrote online, referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

In another post, the president wrote: “Wow, but not surprisingly, ObamaCare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas. Great news for America!”

Earlier Saturday, Trump tweeted several times — first announcing the departure of his scandal-plagued Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, then attacking the “dishonest” media for not providing him more favorable coverage, mocking the shuttering of the conservative media outlet The Weekly Standard, and finally taking aim at former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page over a trove of text messages traded between the two ex-bureau employees that were unearthed last week by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.

According to a report by the DOJ inspector general, the missing texts were not attributable to malicious intent on behalf of Strzok and Page, but rather a technology failure by the FBI’s tool meant to sweep up text messages.