President Joe Biden has bookended this week with major speeches, but in between, he spent three full days without being seen in public, leaving plenty of room for his embattled son to soak up attention.
Biden held a campaign speech Monday in South Carolina and is scheduled to speak Friday on “Bidenomics” in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He held no public events Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, a three-day stretch during which Hunter Biden showed up to, and then abruptly left, a congressional hearing before heading to California to be arraigned on tax charges the next day.
That means the press had plenty of time to cover Hunter Biden’s doings, even if some wondered what his father was up to.
“Who decided that the American people are best served by seeing less of the president?” one reporter asked during Wednesday’s White House news briefing.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointed to private meetings Joe Biden has held with staff members and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with his speeches, to reiterate that his schedule is busy.
“The president did a three-day swing; he went to four states. He’s been out there,” she said. “He’s been able to talk directly to the American people, and we think that’s really important.”
But Hunter Biden has also been out there, stirring controversy in a major way with the Capitol Hill surprise that led a pair of House committees to advance resolutions holding him in contempt of Congress.
News cameras then spent much of Thursday trained at the outside of the California courtroom where Hunter was set to appear.
Jean-Pierre took questions about Hunter throughout the week as well, mostly referring back to the fact that he’s not part of the president’s team.
“Hunter, as you all know, is a private citizen,” she said Wednesday. “He’s not a member of this White House. He makes his own decisions, like he did today about how to respond to Congress. And so any additional questions about this process, I’d refer you to Hunter’s representatives.”
Republicans have focused on Hunter Biden, and his connections to his father, for as long as Joe Biden has been president. But many Democrats are not convinced that the public is overly concerned.
“The president and his advisers are picking their spots,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “He made a very well-publicized speech in Philadelphia last week, which got lots of national attention. I think he should continue to pick his spots.”
Bannon doesn’t think Joe Biden’s midweek absence will shine the spotlight on his son either. He says the Iowa showdown between GOP presidential candidates Nikki Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), along with the courtroom antics of former President Donald Trump, are the events gaining extra oxygen.
“If Biden becomes too visible, he comes dangerously close to distracting voters from the Trump trial in New York,” Bannon said. “Why interrupt that?”
The Republican National Committee is working to make Joe Biden’s absence itself into an issue.
“Biden’s schedule has looked more like a retiree than a commander-in-chief since he returned from his multiple Christmas vacations — not that it was ever particularly grueling,” RNC spokesman Jake Schneider wrote in a Thursday email blast. “Much of Biden’s past three weeks, however, has simply been spent doing nothing.”
Charging that Joe Biden has not held a sit-down interview with a news journalist in 89 days and has held a public event just twice in the past 20 days, the RNC argues that it’s time for a change.
“Americans will send Biden on a forced retirement in November,” Schneider wrote.
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Of course, that will hinge on voters’ perception of Joe Biden’s availability and the frequency of his public statements. Conservatives derided his “basement” campaign in 2020 only to see him beat Trump, and Joe Biden worked to stay out of the spotlight during a relatively successful midterm cycle as well.
“Joe Biden spent a delightful time with his family during the Christmas holidays, which is what most Americans were doing,” Bannon said. “And on the basement Biden thing: The Biden basement was the headquarters of a decisive victory over Donald Trump in 2020.”
