White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had a response that cut right to the bone when a rightwing newspaper’s reporter suggested that President Joe Biden is using his time off to orchestrate corrupt business deals.
“In light of President Biden’s first year coming to a close,” asked Steven Nelson of the New York Post, “the data indicates that he spent a quarter of his days at least partially in Delaware. In light of that, will the White House be reconsidering the decision not to release visitor log information from his Delaware residences?”
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“The president goes to Delaware because it’s his home,” Psaki responded. “It’s also where his son and his former wife are buried. And it’s a place that is obviously close to his heart.”
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Psaki was referring to Biden’s first wife Neilia, who died in a car accident with their daughter Naomi 1972. Joe and Naomi Biden’s son Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.
“A lot of presidents go visit their home when they are president,” she reminded Nelson, before saying that the administration has been releasing White House visitor logs.
Psaki: The President goes to Delaware because it’s his home. It’s also where his son and former wife are buried and it’s a place that obviously close to his heart. A lot of Presidents go visit their home when they are President pic.twitter.com/rvy1JvUkrJ
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 18, 2022
Conservative media has been talking about Biden spending time in Delaware for almost the entire year, implying that Biden is not doing his job. The talking point has evolved to now imply that Biden is taking shady business deals at his residence in Delaware, even though there’s no evidence of that.
The New York Post ran an article about the number cited by Nelson yesterday. It said that Biden has “spent at least part of 101 days of his first year in office in Delaware,” which means that if he took off on a Friday and came back to the White House early on Monday, they would count that as four days in Delaware, or the majority of a week.
Federal courts have already found that visitors records from presidents’ private residences do not need to be made public due to constitutional privacy concerns, and Donald Trump did not disclose such information from his private residences.
Trump took 328 days off during his one term, almost as many as Barack Obama did during his two terms. George W. Bush took 1020 days off in his two terms.
Last year, when asked about releasing logs of visitors to Biden’s private residency, Psaki said, “I can confirm we are not going to be providing information about the comings and goings of the president’s grandchildren or people visiting him in Delaware.”