In early September 2024, the Internet dispersed that the current president of the United States has rested 532 days since the election. We decided to check if this is really so.

The fact that the American president took the weekend too often and went on vacation, some Russian media reported (Lenta.ru, "Gazeta.ru","Evening Moscow","Military Review" SVTV News etc.) and many popular Telegram channels, for example, "The ax live"(857,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Insider UA | Ukrainian | New"(445 000),"Dmitry Nicotin"(362 000),"Zerada"(268 000),"Solovyov"(248 000). Users and other social networks are discussing resonant statistics ("VKontakte" X, Facebook) And Platform blog.

The authors of most of Russian -language publications refer to the American media or specifically to the New York Post tabloid. September 7, 2024 in the publication really came out article Under the loud headline, “Biden's striking number of vacations has been revealed - in four years the president took vacations laid for 48 years of work.” Journalists clarified that the average American takes only 11 days of vacation per year, and calculated that a regular citizen could gain the same number of days of rest as the head of state in almost half a century of career.

The authors of the article, in turn, refer to fast In the account of the National Committee of the Republican Party (RNC) on the social network X, which indicates the relevant figures: "In total, he spent 532 days (40.3% of his presidency) on vacation." How and on the basis of what data the calculations were made, the post is not specified. There is no such message on the RNC website at all - a news feed in September 2024 concentrated Mostly criticism of Kamaly Harris, candidates for US presidency from democrats. Last publication RNC, dedicated to Biden's vacations, was made at the end of August 2023. According to the calculations of the portal, Biden at that time spent on vacation for almost a year from his three -year presidency. But there, too, the methodology of this statistics was not described. The publication contains links, but all of them are no longer inactive and it was not possible to find their archival copies of “verified”. Then the New York Post is also Published The article criticized the president and indicated that he confirmed the data of the RNC using official white house reports on Biden's movements. Article With the same numbers (40% of the time on vacation) went out in the publication in 2022 and was based on the same source. Moreover, in articles 2022 and 2023 it was clarified that this figure was obtained on the basis of the number of days spent by Biden outside the White House, and not at all from official leave and weekends.

Source: The White HousePublic Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons

Based on open information, it is impossible to draw an unambiguous conclusion about how many of these days Biden really rested without doing his direct duties. So, for example, after the release of the New York Post in 2023, the CBS factor on the basis of the same White House reports found outthat during a trip to Lake Tahot, the president received information about forest fires and floods in some parts of the country almost daily, signed a natural disaster declaration, held a press conference and talked by phone with several officials, including the national security adviser to Jake Sullivan and the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky. In the fall of 2023, responding to the next claim against Biden regarding the fact that at a busy moment he is not at the workplace, but in his mansion in the Rehobot Beach (Delaware), Deputy Spokesman of the White House Andrew Bates He said: “As it was for most of the century, presidents can fulfill the whole range of their duties from anywhere in the world, whether in the war zone in Israel or 100 miles from the White House in Delaware.”

In August 2024, some media Reportedthat Biden spent the last two weeks of the month on vacation in his homes in California and Delaware. Journalists note that he was often seen on the beach, and confirm this with appropriate photos and videos. Judging by schedule Presidential public events, during these two weeks, held morning briefings almost daily and talked with reporters from the White House pool. In addition, public events are not exhausted by the President’s responsibilities. On site His administration has been published in this period statements Biden on different ones reasons, transcripts conversations with foreign leaders And reports About his other activities.

Biden is far from the first president of the United States to be accused of too frequent vacations. Exactly the same Claims sounded to the address Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George Bush - the younger and other American leaders (both democrats and republicans). However, neither then nor now no convincing evidence was presented that the president is neglecting his duties while in his private residence. Journalists From the White House pool and Researchers They say that the presidents, in fact, do not have a real weekend and vacations, when they can completely distract from work. So, the fact that Biden spent 40% of his presidency outside the White House says only how much time he worked from other points of the United States and the world.

Thus, the publications that Biden rested 40% of his presidency was based on a statement by his political opponents from the Republican Party. The methodology of their calculations is not disclosed, so it is not possible to verify statistics. Most likely, these figures correspond to the amount of time that the president spent outside the walls of the White House. However, it is reliable to say whether he really was resting, being in his private residences or other trips, and did not perform official duties, maybe only a very narrow circle of people close to Biden, and “verified” could not find such statements. Such claims were made by all the latest presidents of the United States during their stay in the post, so there is reason to believe that this is rather a method of political struggle than reliable data.

Photo on the cover: The White HousePublic Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons