WASHINGTON — Air Force One is very comfortable if you’re the most privileged frequent flyer, with a comfortable bedroom and a spacious office.
Still, most American presidents will try to avoid making two consecutive tours to Europe, with about 60 hours at home in between. Yet that’s what President Joe Biden is trying to accomplish this week — for reasons few in the White House are eager to discuss.
Biden left the United States for D-Day celebrations in France on June 5, stayed the weekend for a state dinner in Paris and returned to his home in Delaware late Sunday. He left Washington again early Wednesday to fly to Italy’s southeastern coast for the annual meeting of the Group of 7, the traditional summit of leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
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When Biden looks back on those two round trips – about a day and a half of flying in total – he may only remember what happened in between: the sentencing of his only living son, Hunter Bidenon charges of lying to obtain a gun permit.
But the two tours beg the question: Why didn’t he just stay in Europe for a few days, play a round of golf, visit some American troops, and perhaps talk to a foreign leader or two? He is 81, after all, and some of his assistants, who are half his age, complained about lost sleep cycles.
The White House explanation for four transatlantic crossings in nine days was simply that Biden had commitments in Washington. But by presidential standards, his public agenda looked light: a lunch with Vice President Kamala Harris and a speech to a gun safety group. Hunter Biden’s trial also hung over the schedule, although it was impossible to know when these trips were scheduled, that the case would go to the jury and a verdict would be delivered in the three days between the D-Day trip and the G7 meeting. As it turns out, Biden headed back to Delaware on Tuesday afternoon to be with his son before leaving again in the morning.
But privately, some aides said election year optics had to be taken into account. There was no compelling reason to stay in Europe, and a few bad days “might not look good,” one of Biden’s advisers admitted, though the aide quickly added that Biden never really had a bad day. In any case, no one wanted images of the president on what his political opponents could cast as a European holiday, at least while he is running for re-election. A long weekend in Rehoboth, the Delaware town where he and his wife Jill have a beach house, can be one thing; a few days in France or Italy look very different.
The presidency is, of course, the ultimate work-from-anywhere job. There is direct communication (a White House van, packed with antennas, travels in every motorcade) and a staff of hundreds of people ready to respond to any event, whether it is sending a thank-you note or launching a retaliatory attack.
The intolerance of seeing presidents abroad, except for work, has a long history. Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed camping on Campobello Island in Canada, although as president he kept visits short. When Harry Truman went to Potsdam, Germany, to negotiate with Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill about what post-World War II Europe would look like, he stayed there for more than two weeks. There were days off from negotiations, but not for long, and the nearest major city, Berlin, was a bombed wreck. And there was a reminder of the risks of leaving town: Churchill’s party lost to Labor at the conference, and he was removed from office while the conference was still in progress.
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