Charlie noted that President Biden flew to Delaware and back in one evening, simply to cast a ballot in Delaware’s primary that had one contested statewide office. Biden and the first lady were on the ground in Delaware for about one hour and 15 minutes.
It will probably not surprise you to learn that when asked about this, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not have a particularly good explanation for why the president didn’t simply vote absentee, or vote early when he was in Delaware this past weekend.
Q: Thanks, Karine. Can you tell us why the President went to Wilmington yesterday to vote in the primary when he could have had an absentee ballot or he could have voted in person, early voting, when he was there last weekend?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, it’s multiple things. I know there has been a lot of interest in this.
So every American, as you know, has a sacred and constitutional right to vote. The President exercised that right, alongside other Delawareans, last night. That’s what you saw, just a couple — to answer your specific questions.
Look, as you know, the President has a very heavy schedule. He’s the President of the United States. It worked out best for him to vote yesterday, to vote on Tuesday. He thought it was important to exercise his constitutional right to vote, as I just mentioned, and set an example by showing the importance of voting.
He also had the opportunity to say hello to poll workers and thank them for their work. And we know how under attack poll workers have been these past several years.
And as some of you noted — some of your colleagues noted that many Presidents — it’s not — it’s not unusual — head home to vote in their local elections. And he thought it was important to do so yesterday.
Q: Do you think that it would have been better then to make it more of, like, a public event, for him to sort of, like, tout it a little bit more? It was sort of a surprise — right? — until we — until he landed there.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, the President has been voting in Delaware for decades. And this is something that was important to do. He wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to vote — to vote yesterday, and he did that. It is not unusual for him. He’s done that for — again, for many decades.
And so — so, you know, he had an opportunity to thank the poll workers. He had an opportunity — I think by the President going to vote, that sends a very strong mesh- — message to the American public.
Ah, so the president flew to Delaware and back, just so he could thank the poll workers in person.
Either carbon emissions matter, or they don’t. If they matter, then the president is setting a bad example by taking his 35-minute flight from Joint Base Andrews to Wilmington, Del., and back to cast a ballot with one contested primary. And if the decisions that influence a person’s carbon emissions don’t matter for President Biden, then they don’t matter for anyone else.