President Joe Biden is out of town again as debt ceiling talks enter their final days.
Biden returned from a trip to Japan last Sunday and spent just four full days in Washington before departing for Camp David on Friday afternoon. He’ll also spend part of this weekend in Delaware as the debt ceiling “X-date” approaches.
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“The president will be wherever he needs to be to secure a reasonable, bipartisan deal to prevent the economic catastrophe that Republicans are threatening, this manufactured crisis,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about Biden’s travel plans. “He’ll do that wherever he needs to be.”
The White House has been criticized for Biden’s high number of vacation days before and often responds by saying that Biden is the president and can fill the duties of the office from anywhere. But the debt ceiling could be reached as soon as Thursday, and the Biden administration has been calling the problem a crisis for weeks.
“On the debt ceiling, you used words like ‘catastrophic’ and ‘devastating’ today,” a reporter said in Wednesday’s press briefing. “But the president, again, is going to Camp David this weekend and then going to Delaware. If this situation is so dire, then why is the president—”
Jean-Pierre cut off the inquiry, saying, “I already answered that question.”
Biden’s physical absence from Washington and his low-key approach to the debt ceiling when in town have been worrying Democrats, who fear that Republicans are winning the messaging battle.
“They need to use the power of the presidency. I don’t buy this argument that [public silence] helps the negotiation,” Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Steven Horsford (D-NV) told Politico last week.
Biden hasn’t been completely silent, speaking to reporters during a Sunday press conference in Japan and then making shorter remarks on Monday and Thursday.
“[House] Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy and I have a very different view of who should bear the burden of additional efforts to get our fiscal house in order,” Biden said. “I don’t believe the whole burden should fall on the backs of middle-class and working-class Americans.”
The president has also said that raising taxes should be part of the debt ceiling debate and even accused some Republicans of using default as an election strategy.
Aside from the president himself, Jean-Pierre frequently shares the administration’s stance on the debt limit with the media, and deputy press secretary Andrew Bates sent out email blasts attacking Republicans for wanting to “trigger a recession and kill 8 million jobs if they can’t get their way.”
Leaders from both political parties have alternated between pointing fingers at each other and promising a debt limit deal will get done, which could signal that winning the blame game is important to them.
On that measure as well, the GOP may have a narrow lead.
Some 47% of respondents in a Fox News poll believe Biden would be more at fault if debt limit negotiation failures devolve into default, while 44% pointed the finger at Republicans, with 8% saying both would be to blame. During the Obama administration, a similar poll found that the majority of people blamed Republicans for the 2011 debt standoff.
Biden is far from the only prominent Washingtonian to skip town this weekend.
With Memorial Day set for Monday, lawmakers are heading home with an expectation that they’ll be called back in early next week.
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But McCarthy, who has made more frequent press appearances throughout the negotiations, made it known he won’t be going anywhere.
“I’m staying in DC to fight for an agreement that’s worthy of the American people — for as long as it takes,” he tweeted. “I will continue the fight to curb inflation, stop reckless spending, make our economy stronger, and end our dependence on China.”
