Since taking office four months ago, Biden has spent more weekends away from the White House than he has stayed there, almost three times as many.
Counting this Memorial Day weekend, Biden has been in Wilmington nine weekends and passed five weekends at the presidential retreat, Camp David, in rural Maryland. The numbers far exceed any modern president’s weekends off-campus at this point in his tenure. “He thinks of (the White House) more like a Monday-through-Friday kind of place,” said one of several people familiar with Biden’s thinking who spoke to CNN for this story and were granted anonymity in order to preserve relationships. This person said the people’s house was akin to presidential corporate housing. “Really, really high-end corporate housing.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recently voiced the criticism of some Republicans that Biden lacks stamina. “At no time, having known Joe Biden for quite some time, does he have the energy of Donald Trump,” McCarthy said on Fox News this month. “Donald Trump didn’t need to sleep five hours a night, and he would be engaged.” Biden’s supporters dismiss that comparison, saying Trump’s activity was hardly preferable to Biden’s steadiness. Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., a longtime Biden confidant, said Biden in meetings “just crosses his arms, puts his chin in his hand and then just listens.”