GOP legal communications director Gates McGavick claimed on X that President Joe Biden has “spent 400+ days on vacation during his presidency and his aides think he needs to ‘rest more.'”
[Note: Biden was sworn into office on January 21, 2021, nearly three years ago, or, 1095 days ago.]
With his claim about Biden’s vacation days, McGavick pointed to the Axios article ‘Biden is reluctant to accept his ‘old age,’ aides say.’ While the article reports that Biden’s “reluctance to acknowledge his physical limitations at age 81 is causing some tension on his team,” it also paints the POTUS as a hard worker.
Biden has spent 400+ days on vacation during his presidency and his aides think he needs to “rest more” https://t.co/IvURqB8ZOQ
— Gates McGavick (@GatesMcgavick) December 19, 2023
In the article, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said of Biden: “Since he first ran for Senate, President Biden has always been a hard worker who is eager to do more than any schedule could accommodate,” and that it’s common for aides and First Ladies to voice concern about a president’s work schedule. (Note: Nancy Reagan hired an astrologer to help guide the President’s schedule).
Comparing Biden’s presidential vacation time to Trump’s can be difficult as Donald Trump adamantly argued that the time he spent at his private properties in Palm Beach, Florida (Mar-a-Lago), Bedminster, New Jersey, and Sterling, Virginia, did not count as vacation days. When Trump stayed at his Bedminster golf club for 17 days in 2017 and when he stayed there for 10 days in 2018, his staff referred to the stays as “working vacations.”
Note: When Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, he said: “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” and “I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.”
The Axios article that McGavick amplifies on X concludes with a self-depreciating joke that Biden delivered at a fundraising event in September: “I’ve never been more optimistic about our country’s future in the 800 years I’ve served.”
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