Funviralpark On Tuesday, President Biden traveled to the U.S. Virgin Islands, a place very familiar to him, to enjoy downtime, warm weather, and welcome in the New Year with his family.
The president and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, flew from Washington on Tuesday to St. Croix, one of the three islands that make up the US territory in the Caribbean. St. John and St. Thomas are his two other islands. The Bidens were joined by daughter Ashley and her husband Howard Klein, and grandchildren Natalie and Hunter.
St. Croix has been a tropical summer resort from at least 2009, when Biden was vice president, to 2017.
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“I’ve missed him all these years,” Beth Moth Mahal, a retired lawyer who has lived on the island for nearly 30 years, said in a telephone interview.
Biden spent his 2020 and 2021 vacations at home in Delaware, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week’s visit to St. Croix will be the president’s first visit to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“We are very honored,” Rep. Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat representing the Virgin Islands in Congress, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“Before, when he and his family came, of course, the sighting of President Biden was almost legendary.
The fact that Mr. Biden is considered one of the most powerful people in the world changes all sightings. As such, he now travels with a much larger footprint than when he was Vice President. This includes U.S. Secret Service agents, White House staff, and a large contingent of journalists covering the trip.
Biden and his wife have enjoyed spending the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day in warm weather, and Jill Biden likes the beach, the people said.
“We always look forward to him coming. We really understand that this is a relaxing place for him and Jill and the rest of the family he brought. So we let him go.” Just let him relax,” said Donna Christensen, who was Plaskett’s predecessor in Congress.
“He usually says, ‘In my next life, I’ll be living in St. Croix,'” she said in a phone interview.
Both Plaskett and Christensen expressed hope that paying attention to where Biden will spend his year-end holidays will amplify the challenges facing the U.S. Virgin Islands and other U.S. territories. of governments have to deal with aging infrastructure.
Biden was due to return to Washington on January 2nd. That comes a day before the president’s Democrats hand over control of the House to Republicans following the November midterm elections, potentially complicating Biden’s legislative agenda for the rest of his two years. his tenure.
Democrats will continue to control the Senate of Congress, which sits on Jan. 3.
