President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are traveling to Florida on Thursday as search and rescue operations continue in the aftermath of a deadly seafront condominium collapse in Surfside.
The White House was hesitant to release details of the president’s agenda ahead of the trip, but according to Biden’s public schedule distributed to reporters late Wednesday evening, he will start once he lands in South Florida with a briefing from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, and other local officials on the current state of play.
DESANTIS, TRUMP FEUD OVER FLORIDA RALLY AS SURFSIDE SEARCH AND RESCUE CONTINUES
Following the president’s meeting with DeSantis, the Bidens will greet first responders and thank them for their service before spending the afternoon sitting with families of those killed or still missing in the collapse. That meeting is scheduled to last at least three hours.
That is in keeping with Biden’s modus operandi for dealing with grieving family members. He’ll also deliver national remarks on the tragedy in the late afternoon, yet the extent to which he will answer reporters’ questions about the building’s structural failure remains unknown.
The president’s schedule also doesn’t make clear whether or not he will visit the actual site of the collapse. The White House has maintained that Biden doesn’t want his trip to reroute resources away from the search for survivors.
“The president repeated this to me multiple times yesterday — every component of this needs to be coordinated with officials on the ground,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained at a Wednesday briefing. “There is still an ongoing search and rescue effort on the ground, and we want to ensure we’re not doing anything to pull away from those resources.”
Biden did not stop to answer reporters’ questions about the trip while leaving the White House early Thursday morning, but the president, who frequently discusses his own tragic family history, touched on the difficulties of losing loved ones during his first reaction to the Surfside incident last week.
“There’s nothing worse than having to wait and wonder what happened,” he said during remarks at the White House. “It’s a tough, tough time. There’s so many people waiting. ‘Are they alive? Will they be — what will happen?’ And so our heart goes out to them.”
Biden’s visit comes as DeSantis’s office has privately urged former President Donald Trump not to politicize the tragedy this weekend.
Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Sarasota, but DeSantis “made a direct plea” to the 45th president to “read the room” and postpone the event, according to multiple sources.
Trump’s post-White House spokeswoman Liz Harrington, however, shot down the idea of any conflict behind the scenes and indicated that the president would not alter his plans for July 3.
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“Like all Americans, President Trump sends his deepest condolences to those who’ve lost loved ones or been displaced by the terrible tragedy in Surfside. The event in Sarasota, however, is on the other side of the state, 3 1/2 hours away, approximately the same distance from Boston to New York, and will not impact any of the recovery efforts,” she said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “In fact, President Trump has instructed his team to collect relief aid for Surfside families both online and on-site at the Sarasota rally.”
