President Joe Biden traveled to Hawaii on Monday to survey damage caused by recent deadly wildfires, but he will spend the remainder of the week vacationing at Lake Tahoe amid a hectic week for Republicans looking to unseat him in the general election.
Republicans will take the debate stage on Wednesday for the first time this election cycle, and former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, is scheduled to be arraigned for the fourth time this year on Thursday in Georgia.
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Politicians frequently spend August vacationing away from Washington, and though Biden already spent multiple weeks at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden campaign and Democratic Party officials suggested his trip to Lake Tahoe would allow for voters to "take in the train wreck," without the president needing to weigh in on the proceedings.
But even the Maui trip drew criticism, as Biden retold a story about a small house fire while talking to wildfire survivors and appeared to have trouble staying awake at one point while taking in the disaster.
Speculation abounded for weeks that Trump could still take part in Wednesday's debate on Fox News, but the former president announced over the weekend that, based on his growing lead in many GOP primary polls, he would instead sit for an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Multiple outlets reported on Monday that Trump had taped the interview some weeks prior and hoped to air the video as counterprogramming to peel eyeballs away from Fox's live, televised event.
And with Trump away from the debate stage, multiple candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, all look to make up ground, if not outright overtake Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
DeSantis, once thought to be Republicans' best chance of pulling the nomination away from Trump, has slumped in recent weeks. His woes, stemming largely from awkward retail politics stops and an extremely online-focused campaign, have led to major staffing shake-ups, and he enters Wednesday's debate just seven points up on Ramaswamy, per the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Meanwhile, Trump's arraignment in Georgia pertaining to a 19-defendant Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act indictment brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis comes just one day ahead of Friday's surrender deadline.
"Can you believe it? I'll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED by a Radical Left District Attorney, Fani Willis, who is overseeing one of the greatest Murder and Violent Crime DISASTERS in American History," Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday night. "In my case, the trip to Atlanta is not for 'Murder,' but for making a PERFECT PHONE CALL! She campaigned, and is continuing to campaign, and raise money on, this WITCH HUNT. This is in strict coordination with Crooked Joe Biden's DOJ. It is all about ELECTION INTERFERENCE!"
The former president noted he would be released on Thursday on a $200,000 bond, as Willis said he posed a flight risk.
"I assume, therefore, that she thought I was a 'flight' risk — I'd fly far away, maybe to Russia, Russia, Russia, share a gold domed suite with Vladimir, never to be seen or heard from again," Trump closed. "Would I be able to take my very 'understated' airplane with the gold TRUMP affixed for all to see. Probably not, I'd be much better off flying commercial — I'm sure nobody would recognize me!"
Biden campaign officials previously told the Washington Examiner that, when it comes to the election, the president is laser focused on the "issues," not Trump or the "circus" that follows him.
Still, Biden has been criticized for spending extended time on vacation, even as the wildfires in Hawaii raged. It took two weeks after the first fires began burning on Maui until the president's Monday visit, though the White House has stressed that he did not want to touch down in the state until he could not pose a hindrance to the cleanup and recovery effort.
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"Well, as you know, we arrived very late on Friday, and I think we read out pretty much his entire day yesterday to you all because he had a very lengthy briefing with his senior team and Administrator Criswell. And he also had a number of calls with state and local officials yesterday about the extreme weather events throughout the country," White House principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters Monday when pressed on Biden's schedule for the remainder of the week. "Other than that, I can't shed any light on how he's spending some valuable quality family time out here, but certainly, he has been engaged on a daily basis in confronting some of these extreme events we're seeing."
Asked if Biden planned on watching the GOP debate Wednesday night, Dalton simply laughed and responded, "I sure hope not. For his sake."