CNN
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President Joe Biden returns this week to St. Croix, one of his beloved vacation spots and first lady Jill Biden, seeking one last opportunity to rest before what is expected to be a controversial race in 2023 and a re-election.
As Biden relaxes in a familiar place – the first couple visited the US Virgin Islands for more than a dozen years, vacationing there about ten times since the mid-2000s – work on his way intensifies in freezing Washington, DC. Advisers are already preparing for the president’s annual State of the Union address, usually delivered in late January or early February, seeing the speech as an opportunity to outline issues and themes Biden could embrace on the campaign trail.
The first couple arrived in St. Croix on Tuesday, along with family members, a close-knit gathering of the clan who several people familiar with recent conversations told CNN have now pledged to support another race for White House. by Biden. Senior administration officials once viewed this week’s tropical getaway as a pivotal moment that would play a major role in deciding his political future, and – although the president still plans to mull over with his family the benefits and downsides of running for re-election – people who have discussed the matter with him lately say the decision is basically made.
Hints that Biden was expected in St. Croix were everywhere in the run-up to his arrival: the giant C-17 transport planes sitting among the puddle jumpers at the airport; temporary security checkpoints among the bougainvillea along the quiet coastal road; an unusually high number of visitors from Washington.
Even for a popular tourist destination accustomed to a wave of winter travellers, this week’s presidential visit has maxed out the island’s resources. Rental cars were all taken and hotels were at capacity, according to locals.
After the Bidens skipped the U.S. Virgin Islands tradition for the past two years, this trip may have the same vibes as one of their most recent vacations. In the early hours of 2019, when Biden was last considering a presidential bid, the couple were pictured taking a selfie at Point Udall in St. Croix on New Year’s Day, catching the first sunrise from the new year at the most easterly point under America. Flag, as the popular tourist site is known.
A decision had been made. Several months later, Biden would announce his candidacy for president.
In 2014, Joe and Jill Biden enjoyed their time on the island so much that they visited St. Croix twice – once to ring in the new year and again for a weekend getaway in March. rapid which was not that of the official of the vice-president of the time. program.
In 2015, the couple went there again the week after Christmas, after deciding they would not run for the White House.
In 2016, Bidens spent the last days of his vice presidency relaxing in Sainte-Croix, before Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House.
Biden’s loyalty to American territory has been the most publicized of any American politician in recent history. A sitting US president has not visited St. Croix since Harry S. Truman in 1948. Truman arrived by yacht – the USS Williamsburg – and was lodged at an estate owned by the Jeep manufacturer.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton traveled to St. Thomas, another of the US Virgin Islands, for his winter vacation, renting a catamaran with his family and snorkeling with his daughter Chelsea.
In a 2020 statement, Governor Albert Bryan Jr. said of Biden, “We consider him the president of our hometown. When asked why the Bidens chose St. Croix as their island getaway, Vanessa Valdivia, the first lady’s press secretary, told CNN, “Over the years, the president and the first dame frequently traveled somewhere warmer the week after Christmas, going to the American Virgin Island on several occasions.
Throughout his presidency, Biden hopped weekends when he could in Washington, D.C., in favor of his longtime family home in Wilmington, Delaware, where residence staff and upstairs rooms are no exception. thing.
St. Croix, for the first couple, provided that kind of intense intimacy, as well as the warmth and the beach that the Bidens prefer.
During their visits in the years after Biden as vice president, when his security apparatus waned and normalcy returned to their daily routine, the first couple could be spotted on occasion. around the island with virtually no entourage, driving along flower-lined roads in a rented Toyota sedan.
The house they were renting was modest – just a few bedrooms – and was available at other times of the year to other tourists on vacation rental sites.
Yet on Tuesday, law enforcement was busy in the same area preparing for Biden’s visit, including setting up floodlights and setting up white tents to serve as checkpoints along the route.
The first couple are “beach people,” said a family friend who knows their vacation preferences. Others who know them well said they like nothing more to relax than planting an umbrella on the beach, throwing a towel on the sand and closing their eyes in the hot sun.
Their neighbors in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, are now accustomed to being checked by Secret Service agents during walks on the beach, the telltale signal that the president and/or first lady have descended from their seaside vacation residence. from the ocean to the beach for respite closer to the waves.
The first lady, in particular, finds peace in her books and enjoys the sun. This spring, Jill Biden’s staff — during a solo, whirlwind and three-country visit to Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica — made sure to schedule private time for the first lady by the pool. in a complex located outside of Panama City, so that she can enjoy herself like dozens of other vacationers, a stone’s throw from the water’s edge.
“They both prefer warm and sunny and humid to wet and snowy and cold,” said another close acquaintance of the Bidens.
For the first couple, real respite also involves intimacy, not just sun and heat. Sainte-Croix fits the checklist. Locals spotted the couple during their years at the grocery store, going mostly unnoticed as they picked up holiday groceries at the Seaside Market and Deli. Joe Biden has played rounds of golf at the Buccaneer Resort, a par-70 course described as “challenging, but very playable” on the property’s website.
They attended mass at Holy Cross Catholic Church at the White Steeple in the island’s main town, Christiansted.
Washington’s break follows a busy vacation period. Jill Biden — so burdened with dozens of White House celebrations, photo lines, family visits and general hospitality duties that she had laryngitis for several days — is in her second week off from her teaching duties at Northern Virginia Community College.
For Joe Biden, the issue of escape is not just a question of rest and recovery.
Barring unforeseen events or a sudden change of heart, Biden’s team is setting the stage for a re-election announcement in the coming months, ending lingering speculation about whether the 80-year-old president will seek another term.
CNN reported that Jill Biden is “all the way” into the 2024 campaign despite previous concerns about the profound implications of what a second run could mean for her family and husband. As a White House official told CNN, she has “no worries” about Joe Biden’s timing and stamina.
“It is, ultimately, a family decision,” Joe Biden said at a press conference last month. “I think everyone wants me to show up, but we’ll discuss it.”
Besides the rigors of launching the last political campaign of his career, Biden will face a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives determined to thwart many of his legislative ambitions. Republican leaders have also pledged to investigate Biden’s administration and his family.
With his legislative outlook dimmed, Biden plans to travel extensively in the new year to promote the achievements of his first two years in office. It will be an intense time that could ultimately include a rematch with his 2020 opponent Trump – and one that will require the full support of his 45-year-old wife, as well as the support of his extended family.
If there is a moment to talk about hesitations, whether theirs or those of his offspring, it would be during these holidays.
Wayne Nichols, who leads Alexander Hamilton’s visits to St. Croix as the founding father, recalled a meeting he had in 2019 with Biden, who he became involved with as the then-not-all candidate quite presidential walked alone at the east end. from the island.
At the time, Biden was also reflecting on a discouraging campaign. After passing on an offer in 2016 following the death of his son, he was encouraged by his family to issue a challenge to Trump.
Nichols said he stopped Biden to ask if he would run.
“My question for him was, ‘Well, are you going to run?’ He goes, ‘Well, I’m running now.’ And I thought, well, technically, you’re walking,” Nichols recalled this week, wondering if he might cross paths with Biden again.
Nichols met Joe Biden a second time that week in 2019, while walking around the island – Joe Biden in front, Jill Biden walking a few steps behind – when someone from the group told Jill Biden that his husband should run for President.
“‘When you get up there, let him know that,'” Nichols replied.
As the Bidens make similar deliberations this year, they won’t be driving around in a rental Toyota and their stops on the island will go less unnoticed.
“I feel like that’s the place,” Nichols said of Biden often choosing St. Croix as a place to find calm for a consequential decision on the future. “Relaxing by the water with the good weather. They get to talk about it. And I believe he’ll show up again, only because I don’t know if he thinks there’s an alternative.
