President Biden will spend the upcoming weekend in Delaware, the White House announced Thursday, as he seeks some rest and relaxation after a vacation in St. Croix and a four-day workweek.
The White House released Mr. Biden’s schedule revealing that he will leave Washington on Friday afternoon and head to his home in New Castle.
The trip home comes after he spent a week with his family basking in the Caribbean sun in St. Croix, staying at a beachfront villa with sweeping views of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Mr. Biden was widely criticized for the trip, which occurred as travel chaos, power outages caused by frigid temperatures, and resulting in several deaths. At least 32 people died in Northern New York, near Buffalo, amid four feet of snow.
He returned Monday and had no public appearances on Tuesday. He traveled to Kentucky on Wednesday to talk about his infrastructure law and had two public appearances at the White House on Thursday to discuss his proposals to curb illegal immigration and during a Cabinet meeting.
On Friday, Mr. Biden will deliver remarks commemorating the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Since the start of his presidency, Mr. Biden has made roughly 60 trips to Delaware spanning about 190 days, according to data from Mark Knoller, a former CBS News White House correspondent who serves as an unofficial presidential statistician.
The Delaware trips, which require taxpayer dollars to fund the cost of using either Air Force One or Marine One, as well as security fees for the Secret Service, have cost taxpayers at least $11 million, Fox News reported in November.
As of November, Mr. Biden made 101 flights between the White House or Joint Base Andrews to Delaware, with 71 flights using Marine One and 30 flights using Air Force One, according to Mr. Knoller.
According to a 2016 public document, the cost of a one-hour flight on Air Force One is $180,118. That includes fuel, flight consumables, as well as repairs, and maintenance.
Mr. Biden’s time away from the White House in 2022 surpassed President Trump, who was frequently criticized for spending weekends at his personal homes. After two years into his administration, Mr. Trump had spent 135 days at either his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida or his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Mr. Trump also spent 23 days at Camp David.
White House officials have defended the getaways, saying that new technologies and communications enable presidents to fulfill the office’s demands wherever they travel.
“The presidency is a nonstop job that chief executives can do from anywhere in the world,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in August when Mr. Biden was vacationing in South Carolina.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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