Joe Biden has spent a tremendous amount of time in office on vacation. According to a count from RNC Research, he's spent almost 40 percent of that time on vacation. Some talk about a leader getting a 3 a.m. phone call, and how they will handle an emergency at that time. But Biden has problems responding in public to emergencies even in the clear light of day, when he's on vacation.
We saw that both in the case of Afghanistan, where he didn't speak publicly the whole weekend as the country fell to the Taliban. We saw that again when it came to the Maui fire, when he said "no comment" with a smirk, refusing to give any reassurances to Americans who were suffering when he was on his vacation. He even refused to talk about his upcoming trip there next Monday. Priorities.
He was just back from another weeklong vacation in Rehoboth Beach. But Biden is on vacation again. He arrived in Lake Tahoe where he's expected to stay for a week, with a brief detour to visit Hawaii to review the disaster there. Notice the use of the short stairs in the video below, so he's less likely to trip with fewer steps.
Joe Biden and Jill, Ed.D., arrive in Nevada for his second weeklong vacation in the past month.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 19, 2023
Biden has spent 374 days — 39.7% of his presidency — on vacation. pic.twitter.com/QKhEBaJxMI
Biden is staying at the $18 million mansion of billionaire Tom Steyer.
Redfin describes the home as “one of Lake Tahoe’s finest lakefront properties and the pinnacle waterfront estate within the gated Glenbrook community.” It also features a “spectacular lakeside gazebo [that] rests between the park-like grounds and the calming shores of Glenbrook Bay.”
The White House released a statement saying, “The First Family is renting a private home for their stay in Lake Tahoe.” They identified the home as belonging to Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor and said, "The First Family is renting the home for fair market value.” They didn't say how much they would be paying and provided no proof of the claim.
It's sort of hilarious that he's always publicly attacking billionaires and demanding they pay their fair share. Yet, he has no problem staying in their homes, including for free, often bringing his extended family which he's doing again to Steyer's house. Along for the vacation are daughter Ashley, granddaughters Maisy and Naomi, as well as Naomi's husband Peter Neal. Town and Country reported in March that Naomi and Peter Neal have been living at the White House since August 2021. Hunter, his wife, and Hunter's son Beau are also along on the trip but they flew on a separate flight and arrived first.
Now, if they were trying to make it less obvious that Hunter was along on the vacation by going separately, looks like they blew that, since the word got out anyway. They can have a lot of uninterrupted time to "not talk" about all those business dealings that they never talk about, but that are now being investigated and exposed.
Biden has stayed at the homes of billionaires and the wealthy in the past and has not paid for some of those stays. He's stayed the past two Thanksgivings at the home of private-equity billionaire David Rubenstein. He's also vacationed at the home of donor Maria Allwin (whose family runs a hedge fund) last August on Kiawah Island, S.C., and he reportedly didn't pay for that. He and the extended family also stayed at the beachfront St. Croix home of Bill and Connie Neville for free in December and January, while a lot of the country was enduring the "bomb cyclone" cold weather.
But that says a lot about how he rolls, as Americans are suffering through "Bidenomics" that has made everything more expensive.
Some also raised questions about Biden staying with Steyer, given Biden's passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is all about climate change as Biden official John Podesta admitted.
Good stuff pic.twitter.com/ywbJcqtAw9
— Nick Ballas (@NicholasBallas) August 19, 2023
Former CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller perhaps had the best comment of the day.
Did Hunter consult on ‘fair market value?’
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) August 19, 2023
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