The man who came to dinner! Joe Biden SHOWS UP for vegetarian G20 feast – after skipping trio of suppers with world leaders over past year
President Joe Biden came to the dinner in New Delhi on Saturday evening – after skipping three meals with world leaders at summits over the past year.
Indian media captured the president entering the Bharat Mandapam convention center about 30 minutes after dinner was supposed to start on Saturday evening, after spending the day attending meetings at the G20 leaders’ summit.
He seemed to be the last guest to arrive.
Biden spent several minutes greeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian President Droupadi Murmu, who was dressed in a sari and was the official host of the dinner.
The guests, including Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is served a vegetarian meal focusing on millet – an important Indian crop.
President Joe Biden (left) arrives Saturday evening at a dinner hosted by Indian President Droupadi Murmu (center) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right). Over the past year, he has skipped three dinners with world leaders during summits
President Joe Biden (left) takes the hands of Indian President Droupadi Murmu (right) as Prime Minister Narendra Modi (center) looks on. The president and other dinner guests are served a vegetarian meal with lots of Indian grain millet
Biden, 80, has gotten into the habit of skipping dinners with world leaders.
In July, he missed the leaders’ dinner during the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
A White House official said Biden said no to the dinner because he had “four full days of official business abroad, including back-to-back summits and a major speech.”
The president felt somewhat sad about skipping the dinner, which the White House noted was a social, not business, event, because he had spent time at this Rehoboth Beach home just before the trip.
Before that, in May, Biden left the G7 leaders’ dinner early.
The leaders were gathered on Miyajima Island outside Hiroshima, known for its iconic “floating” torii gate and domesticated deer population.
The president stumbled as he walked down the steps of Itsukushima Shrine as he rushed to greet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The White House said it was the “plan” for Biden to leave the dinner earlier than the other leaders because of the ongoing debt ceiling crisis at home.
Biden also cut that trip abroad short, as he was scheduled to travel to Australia for the first time as US president but returned to DC days earlier to deal with debt ceiling issues.
During last year’s G20 in Bali, Biden also decided to forego the dinner.
“It’s not COVID,” a White House official told DailyMail.com via email at the time. “He just had a whole day of meetings and had to take care of a few things tonight (nothing urgent!).”
“He spoke to (Indonesian President Joko) Widodo to express his regret about missing the dinner and Widodo said it was no problem and (he) looks forward to seeing him at the mangrove thing tomorrow,” the official added to it.
G20 leaders planted a mangrove tree as part of the planned programme.
COVID-19 was top of mind as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen tested positive for the virus just days after meeting Biden in Phnom Penh.
President Joe Biden took part in the first day of the G20 leaders’ summit on Saturday. At recent past summits, Biden has skipped the leaders’ dinner
Biden had tested negative for COVID earlier in the day and was not considered a close contact.
The White House previously said Biden had a cold.
“It’s been a long day and he has other things to take into account,” the official said.
It was later revealed by CNN that Biden left dinner because he wanted to prepare for his granddaughter Naomi’s wedding at the White House, which took place the following weekend in November.
In the hours that followed, however, Biden was back at work dealing with the missile that entered Poland, raising the prospect that the war in Ukraine could spill over to a NATO ally, potentially setting off a military clash with Russia.
Biden’s old age is shaping up to be one of the biggest challenges facing his 2024 re-election campaign.
The last weeks AP-NORC poll It showed that 77 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Democrats, believe Biden is too old to run for re-election.
This is evident from a Wall Street Journal poll on Monday had similar findings: 73 percent of voters said Biden is too old to run for re-election, including two-thirds of Democrats.
In turn, Biden’s staying power on the world stage has come under increasing scrutiny.
Franklin Foer’s new book from The Atlantic The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Battle for America’s Future wrote about the paradox that Biden’s age slows him down physically, while decades of government experience have been an asset.
Foer noted that this was so ‘striking that he attended so few morning meetings or presided over so few public events before 10am’
“His public persona reflected the physical decline and dulling of mental faculties over time that no pill or exercise regimen can counteract,” the author said. ‘Privately he occasionally admitted that he felt tired.’
But in the same passage, Foer says that the president’s “war leadership,” which supported Ukraine in its fight against Russia, “drew from his weathered instincts and his rugged self-confidence.”
Especially in Ukraine, Foer wrote, “the benefits of having an older president were visible.”
“He was not just a leader of the coalition, he was the father figure of the West, to whom foreign leaders could turn for advice and to whom they could look for assurance. “It was his calming presence and strategic clarity that helped the alliance adopt such an aggressive stance, which has stymied authoritarianism on the front lines,” the book says.