Trump family members are expected to attend Friday’s funeral, as will First Lady Melania Trump. The White House expects “several dozen” guests for the service, which is expected to be held in the East Room, another White House source told CNN.
A White House official confirmed to CNN that the cost of the White House service would be paid privately by the president.
Robert Trump died Saturday at the age of 71 in a hospital in New York. Details about his illness have not been released, but a person familiar with the matter told CNN that he had been ill for several months.
Robert Trump was born in 1948 and was one of four siblings to the president, including the late Fred Trump, jr. He had served as an executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
It is a rare event that the East Room is used for funeral events, outside of a ceremony for a deceased president. However, there is a president. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison used the East Room for funerals for the wife and daughter of his Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Tracy. The two women were killed in a fire.
And in 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt held a state funeral in the East House for his longtime political adviser and closest friend Louis Howe.
Abraham Lincoln’s body was found in the East House in 1865. Three years earlier, the funeral of Lincoln’s 11-year-old son Willie was also held in the East House. In 1963, John F. Kennedy was elected to the East Room. The first presidents to have funeral services in the East Room of the White House were William Harrison in 1841, and Zachary Taylor in 1850.
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
.
