WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is gearing up for a summer of socializing as the White House looks to restore traditional events put on hold by the pandemic — including more working meals with elected officials and the possibility of hosting his first state dinner, several Biden administration officials said.
The discussions are preliminary, and no decisions have been made, the officials said. An official said July has been discussed as the likely timing for the first state dinner should Biden decide to move forward with one.
The shift from the White House to hosting more social gatherings and the discussions of a state dinner, which usually draws at least several hundred guests, comes as Covid continues to spread, with Vice President Kamala Harris testing positive this week, and questions persist about the risk of large events. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, recently backed out of attending the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which typically draws about 3,000 people. Biden, however, does plan to attend, although White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that he would limit his time at the event.
Even so, the president has begun to host more events at the White House and have more social meetings. On Monday he hosted Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan for lunch in the dining room off the Oval Office and was so eager to keep the conversation going that he held a call congratulating French President Emmanuel Macron on his re-election in the middle of their discussion over turkey club sandwiches.
“He talked about Ukraine and NATO and then jumped back into what’s happening in Detroit,” Duggan said in an interview.
Biden also invited Duggan to a couple of meetings he had after lunch, one with a Harvard professor and then one with some college students, as well as his event honoring the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Stanley Cup champions, Duggan said.
“It’s good to have it back to normal,” Duggan said. “We talked about the fact that he’s at his best when he’s with people. He is very, very anxious to just be out meeting people.”
A White House official declined to comment on discussions about a state dinner but said Biden intends to do more hosting than he and the first lady have done in the past 15 months. One likelihood is that some staid conference-room-style meetings will turn into less formal working lunches, the official said.
“The Bidens are excited to share more of the people’s house with the American people — from public tours to dinners to holiday celebrations to historic commemorations,” a White House official said.
Last month, the official pointed out, Biden outlined publicly how the country was in a position with Covid where it’s safe for people to largely resume their usual routines — including at the White House.
“That doesn’t mean there’s zero Covid risk, and we continue to take steps to keep the president safe, but it means we are in a different place than we were before,” the official said.
White House state dinners are among the most anticipated events a president and a first lady host. They have been held in honor of visiting heads of state — from presidents and prime ministers to kings and queens — since the 19th century. The glamorous dinners are a show of friendship between the U.S. and its close partners and allies, as well as an elaborate display of American global influence, and they typically feature A-list guest lists of prominent lawmakers, ambassadors, business moguls and celebrities.
Biden, as a former vice president and senator, is more familiar with the significance of state dinners in the arsenal of U.S. diplomacy. He has been attending state dinners for at least two decades, including President George W. Bush’s first one, in 2001. At that gala, honoring Vicente Fox, then the president of Mexico, Biden hobnobbed with the likes of actor Clint Eastwood and singer Placido Domingo. After a dinner featuring Southwest cuisine,…
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