Was Joe Biden shamed into going to Hawaii?: The president has been criticized for not immediately rushing to Hawaii as the wildfires range there. How fair is the criticism of the president?
Joe Biden’s New Crisis
Two things presidents of both parties are frequently criticized for are spending too much time on vacation and not correctly handling natural disasters.
Both are currently happening in the case of President Joe Biden.
During the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, opponents of the presidents frequently tallied how much time they spent golfing, and also how much time they spent vacationing. With Trump, there was the added dimension that he frequently visited Trump-owned properties, which put public money in the pockets of the Trump Organization.
For the most part, these criticisms tend to be unfair. Everyone, even presidents, is needing and deserving of some leisure time. And besides, the president is never really on vacation. The job requires them to be doing work, even if they’re at Camp David, a private vacation home, or on the golf course.
Obama once had a “golf summit” with then-House Speaker John Boehner, and presidents have been cultivating political allies on the golf course for decades, something that has been the subject of multiple books, including Don Van Natta, Jr.’s “First Off the Tee,” Peter Landau’s “Presidential Lies: The Illustrated History of White House Golf,” and Rick Reilly’s “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.”
Biden, unlike the last few presidents, is not much of a golfer; his first round as president, in the spring of 2021, was his first time on the course since 2018. But he has been criticized of late for the time he’s been spending on vacation in Delaware, including on the beach, especially as wildfires have raged on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The death toll in the disaster has reached over 100, the deadliest fires in the United States in decades.
Per The Hill, Biden has announced plans to travel to Maui next week.
“In Maui, the President and First Lady will be welcomed by state and local leaders to see firsthand the impacts of the wildfires and the devastating loss of life and land that has occurred on the island, as well as discuss the next steps in the recovery effort,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
It is typical for presidents to visit the site of natural disasters in their aftermath, as opposed to right in the middle of the disaster. That was the case, for instance, when then-President Trump visited Puerto Rico in 2017, after Hurricane Maria.
The gold standard of presidential inattention to a tragedy was Hurricane Katrina in the summer of 2005 when President Bush was ripped for his and this administration’s poor performance. But that was less about Bush’s failure to personally visit the devastation soon enough, but rather the slow response in getting help to those affected.
In this case, Joe Biden has both signed a major disaster declaration and deployed 500 federal personnel to Hawaii, per The Hill.
Joe Biden was criticized for appearing to say “no comment” when asked in Delaware about the rising death toll in Hawaii. But that turned out to be an attempt at lip-reading from a Daily Mail reporter working as a White House pool reporter that day, rather than a clear direct quote.
There has also been some grumbling about how the billions the administration has sent in military aid to Ukraine are somehow responsible for the Hawaii fires, but it’s not clear what one has to do with the other.
The military equipment headed to Ukraine wouldn’t be of any use in fighting fires, nor is there any indication that there’s not enough money in the federal budget to aid Hawaii. It’s not an either/or, and aid to both has been asked for in Biden’s latest emergency spending request, in addition to billions of dollars to replenish FEMA’s disaster relief fund.
Author Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Stephen has authored thousands of articles over the years that focus on politics, technology, and the economy for over a decade. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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