Biden joins public outcry over Guard’s treatment
WASHINGTON >> President Joe Bide non Friday telephoned the chief of the National Guard Bureau to express dismay after troops deployed to protect his inauguration were ordered a day earlier to rest in an unheated garage after being booted from the Capitol, administration officials said.
Photographs of dozens of guard members resting in parking spaces created a public relations debacle in the first days of Biden’s term, with some governors demanding that troops from their states be sent home.
In a telephone call with Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Biden asked what he could do about the situation, the officials said. The two men also talked about Biden’s personal connection to the Guard; Biden’s son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, served as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard.
Officials said that the White House might also arrange a call with state officials to thank them for their state’s contributions to the deployment of more than 25,000 National Guard personnel to the nation’s capital to provide security ahead of and during the inauguration on Wednesday.
Early Friday morning, the D.C. National Guard said that the soldiers had been moved back to the Capitol from the parking garage. Guard officials said that the troops had been temporarily moved out of the Capitol on Thursday afternoon at the request of Capitol Police because of increased foot traffic as Congress came back into session.
But photographs of the troops resting on the floor of the parking garage, paired with reports that they had access to scant toilet facilities and were breathing in car exhaust fumes, prompted a public uproar. The scene contrasted sharply with photographs taken of Guard soldiers sleeping on the floor or on cots inside the Capitol immediately before Biden’s inauguration, which led to an outpouring of support for the soldiers.
The number of Guard soldiers mobilized to provide security for the inauguration rose sharply following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, reaching 15,000 by Jan. 12 and ultimately surpassing 20,000 by Jan. 20. A spokesman for the National Guard Bureau said on Thursday that the D.C. Guard was responsible for their lodging.
A joint statement from the National Guard Bureau and the Capitol Police released Friday afternoon did not explain why soldiers were sent to a parking garage but suggested it would not happen again.