President Biden began his second consecutive week of vacation Monday with nothing on his public schedule for the next seven days — despite claiming he would remain engaged in pushing policy and legislation during the final months of his term.
Biden, 81, arrived at his Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home Sunday after six nights with his family at the Santa Ynez, Calif., ranch of billionaire Democratic donor Joe Kiani — who earned at least $3 million in federal contracts since Biden took office.
The president will remain at the shore at least through Friday, according to a public schedule released by the White House.
Biden remained out of sight as his predecessor– and possible successor — Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the third anniversary of the Kabul airport suicide bombing that killed nearly 200 people, including 13 American service members, during Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The commander in chief’s public schedule for this week includes no events aside from presidential R&R. Similar trips have featured short walks to the beach with foldable chairs and trips to a local church, as well as bicycle rides and restaurant stops.
Biden was forced out of the presidential campaign July 21 by fellow Democrats concerned about his mental acuity — but rejected calls for his resignation by insisting that he was cognitively fit to serve the final half-year of his term.
“Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president,” Biden said in his July 24 Oval Office address that summarized his decision to forgo seeking a second term without acknowledging concerns about his health.
“That means I will continue to lower costs for hardworking families, grow our economy,” Biden said. “I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. And I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism and make it clear there is no place in America for political violence.”
But Biden’s schedule has been notably sparse since then — as Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, gains greater attention as Democrats’ substitute presidential candidate against Trump, the 78-year-old Republican nominee.
Last week, Biden departed Chicago with his extended family after speaking on the first night of the Democratic convention — where party loyalists sought to soften the blow of the mutiny that forced him to relinquish the nomination by chanting “Thank you, Joe!”
Biden is poised to leave office without giving a single one-on-one interview to a newspaper reporter — or fulfilling relatively easy pledges, such as visiting Africa.
White House observers widely assume that either exertion would be too much for the elderly leader to bear.
Although presidential physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor insists that Biden’s mental and physical health are “excellent,” the same doubts that forced him from the campaign prompted bipartisan calls for him to quit the presidency.
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in July after the president gave up the race.
“I doubt the president’s judgment about his health, his fitness to do the job, and whether he is the one making important decisions about our country, rather than unelected advisers,” agreed Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.). “Americans deserve to feel their president is fit enough to do the job.”
