President Joe Biden will ring in the new year from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
He and First Lady Jill Biden arrived on the Caribbean island on Dec. 27 after spending the Christmas holiday with several family members at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.
The first couple will be staying at a luxury beachfront property owned by their friends and Democrat donors Bill and Connie Neville. They celebrated New Year’s with their family at the same location last year.
The Bidens will return to Washington next week, after the New Year’s break.
Given the political challenges both at home and abroad, President Biden is expected to use the tropical getaway as a respite before gearing up for an intense 2024 presidential race.
He’s entering the new year with persistently low job approval ratings. Voters have been critical of his handling of the economy and inflation, in particular. In recent weeks, he has also come under fire for his response to the war in Gaza.
This week, President Biden directed retaliatory air strikes against an Iranian-backed terror group after a drone attack in Iraq targeted U.S. military personnel on Christmas morning. The attack wounded three U.S. service members, one of whom was critically injured.
Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups claimed responsibility for the attack.
President Biden instructed Pentagon officials to prepare response options following the attack. After being presented with the options, he directed strikes against three locations used by the terrorists for unmanned aerial drone operations, according to National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.
“The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way. The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue,” Ms. Watson said in a statement.
Later, the Pentagon stated that the airstrikes killed “a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants” and destroyed multiple facilities used by the group.
On Dec, 25, an Israeli airstrike also killed a senior Iranian commander, Seyyed Razi Mousavi, in Syria.
There is mounting pressure on President Biden to prevent the Gaza conflict from escalating into a regional war.
Low Poll Numbers
The 46th president, who’s running for reelection, is also struggling to win over Americans with his domestic agenda. According to the most recent Monmouth University poll, President Biden’s job rating has hit an all-time low, with only 34 percent approving of his job performance. Respondents gave poor marks in particular for his handling of immigration and inflation.
Many have been pointing fingers at President Biden for inflation, claiming that he approved trillions of dollars in wasteful spending bills.
Additionally, the president is facing increasing pressure over the handling of the U.S. southern border as the migrant surge in recent weeks is making the crisis worse.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers encountered more than 12,600 migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 18, a single-day record. Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials were visiting Mexico on Dec. 27 to increase cooperation between the two countries to drive down border crossings.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall were to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico.
During the meeting, the U.S. delegation will “underscore the urgent need for lawful pathways and additional enforcement actions by partners throughout the region,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week.
From The Epoch Times
