President Joe Biden will no longer travel abroad this week as a major hurricane speeds toward Florida.
Biden said he needs to be in the country when the potentially disastrous Hurricane Milton hits Florida later this week, shortly after he cancelled trips to Germany and Angola. But he added he is still “planning on visiting all the places I said I’d be and all the conferences I said I’d participate in.”
“As you know, I put out a statement this morning. I’m canceling my trip to Germany and Africa,” the president told reporters Tuesday during a briefing on the hurricane. “We’re going to try to re-work those out later, but I just don’t think I can be out of the country at this time.”
He said there would be “plenty of time to talk about Angola” and that he still plans to visit Africa.
“I’m going to be talking today with my friend, the chancellor of Germany, and we’re going to try to work that out,” he said. “We’ve already talked to all, these people, OK? But I’m going to be on the phone today.”
Biden’s team had been closely monitoring the storm as the trip approached, with a decision looming on whether to cancel. With just weeks left until Election Day, the politics of managing the storm recovery – with Republicans already having seized on the Biden administration’s handling of Helene – had become a serious flashpoint.
There have not yet been any discussions in earnest about when the postponed trip would be rescheduled, another White House official said.
All presidents at some point face decisions on canceling foreign travel to tend to matters at home. Trump himself canceled a visit to Poland in 2019 several days before Hurricane Dorian made landfall in Florida. But those decisions come with costs, in the form of missed opportunities and sore feelings for countries eager for a visit from the American president.
This week in Germany, Biden was scheduled for a state visit in Berlin – his first as president – on Friday. Biden was also planning to travel afterward to Angola, making good on a promise he made several years ago to visit sub-Saharan Africa as president.
Also complicating the decision-making: Biden was planning a major summit while in Germany with the leaders of France, the United Kingdom and other European countries all putting aside time for talks on sustaining support for Ukraine.
A four-way meeting between Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had been on the schedule, according to people familiar with the plans, meaning a cancelation requires smoothing over in multiple capitals.
And other NATO leaders were also planning to attend a larger-format gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contract Group, where the main topic of discussion will be sustaining support for Kyiv amid growing war fatigue and an amorphous endgame.
The president and top White House officials have grown highly concerned at the spread of disinformation about the federal response to last week’s Hurricane Helene, including falsehoods repeated by former President Donald Trump.
One of Trump’s spurious claims has been that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are absent from the storm recovery, despite both traveling to affected states. If Biden was abroad after Milton, however, some Democrats worried it could lend credence to what have otherwise been baseless allegations.
The White House had appeared aware of the optics of the president potentially being abroad after a catastrophic storm. The decision was hastily made at the last minute – even as of early Tuesday morning, staff had received communications about upcoming travel logistics for later this week, according to a source familiar.
Ultimately, the expected damage that Milton appears poised to unleash on a part of the country that only days ago had already suffered devastating losses from Hurricane Helene made it impossible for the White House to move ahead. Biden’s focus in the coming days must remain on storm preparedness and recovery efforts, officials said.
“The real hard work comes after the storm,” one senior White House official said. “The days and weeks after the storm – that’s when the federal government is judged most harshly.”
Jean-Pierre had said on Monday that the White House was closely monitoring the situation.
“The president is monitoring this very, very closely,” she said to reporters. “He’s gotten updates about the hurricane and (is) obviously continuing to get updates on what is happening on the ground as after the horrible hurricane, Hurricane Helene, and so that will continue.”
There is little time remaining in his presidency to reschedule.
“Three months is not a long time. As you know, that’s going to fly by. That’s going to fly by,” Jean-Pierre said.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.
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