Two related stories via memeorandum this morning.
New York Post (“Biden heads to St. Croix as winter blast kills dozens, cancels 10,000 flights“):
Wanna get away?
President Biden left the White House Tuesday night for a tropical vacation in St. Croix to ring in the New Year — as much of the country deals with extreme cold and snowfall that has killed at least 65 people and canceled 10,000 flights since Christmas Eve.
The 80-year-old commander in chief will bask in the Caribbean sun near an in-ground pool at a three-bedroom beachfront villa with sweeping views on the largest of the US Virgin Islands.
Meanwhile, travel chaos, widespread power outages and rising deaths caused by single-digit weather continue across the Midwest and East Coast, but especially in Western New York, where at least 32 people died in Buffalo’s Erie County amid more than 4 feet of snow.
It’s unclear who owns the vacation property or whether Biden will be paying for his stay, though he has a long record of staying for free at the houses of wealthy Democratic donors.
Gothamist (“Mayor Adams defends U.S. Virgin Islands trip as NYC prepared for winter storm“):
As a major winter storm brought frigid temperatures and flooding to parts of the city, delaying mass transit and sending holiday travel plans into a tizzy, Mayor Eric Adams was in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The mayor revealed his weekend whereabouts at an unrelated press conference Tuesday evening after his office hid them from the public for days. Adams stood by his decision to leave town and said he was mourning his mother during his second Christmas without her.
“After 365 days of commitment to this city, I decided to take two days to reflect on mommy. And to watch how you responded to my two days out of this city was really alarming,” the mayor told reporters after someone asked where he had been over the holiday weekend. “I deserve a good work-life balance like you do.”
Adams asked for sympathy from the city press corps as he noted that, in the past year, he has dealt with killings, fires and police officers dying — all without his parents. His mother died in 2021 while he was campaigning for mayor.
“If I take time off to get my mental capacity together, so I can take the city through the crisis, I deserve those two days,” the mayor said.
Adams added that he had followed City Charter rules, which place the first deputy mayor in charge in the mayor’s absence.
“Nowhere in the New York City Charter does it say I have to report to the New York City press where my whereabouts are,” he said. “I’m not going to do that. And I’m not going to apologize for having the mental and physical capacity that’s needed to do the second-most difficult job in politics in America.”
Adams’ self-righteousness notwithstanding, he ain’t wrong.
Let’s acknowledge that the optics of leaders headed off to the tropics—U.S. colonies, no less!—while a brutal winter storm hits are suboptimal. But we don’t hire Presidents or mayors on the basis of their expertise in weather response; they have people for that.
Leaders need downtime more than anyone. Making good decisions requires rest. Yet, there’s never a good time for them to be seen as not at work. (Presidents, at least, are never really off work; they can always be reached instantly.) Picking a time when the government is as close to shut down as it ever is—the week between Christmas and New Year—would seem to be the ideal time to get away.
