Biden eyes 1st summer getaway as president

By Darlene Superville and Aamer Madhani

WILMINGTON, Del. — After more than six months of work combating the coronavirus, negotiating a bipartisan infrastructure bill and repairing the U.S. image abroad, President Joe Biden should be heading out on vacation and a traditional August break from Washington.

But with legislative work on the infrastructure bill keeping the Senate in session for a second straight weekend, and likely through this week, Biden hasn’t gone far — just home to Wilmington, Delaware, as he has done most weekends since taking office.

“Every president is always working no matter where they are,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, explaining that presidents can’t ever really tune out.

Biden will spend some of this week at the White

House before he decamps again, either for Delaware — he owns homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach — or Camp David, the official presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, Psaki said.

The modern president is never completely free from work, tethered by secure telephone lines and other technology with a coterie of top aides and advisers always close by.

Like his predecessors, Biden travels with a large entourage of aides, Secret Service agents and journalists.

While the work is 24/7, presidents can — and very often do — change their surroundings when the August heat and humidity rise and Washington empties out.

George W. Bush often spent August clearing brush in the 100-degree heat that baked his central Texas ranch. Barack Obama worked on his golf game on Martha’s Vineyard.