President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were due to spend the holiday Monday at the wedding of their nephew Cuffe Owens and Meghan King, a former star of the reality TV show Real Housewives of Orange County.
The White House announced they would be attending the small, family wedding at the home of the president’s sister Valerie Owens.
Earlier the president was driven from the first couple’s Delaware home to the Kennett Square Golf and Country Club, just across the state line in Pennsylvania, during a holiday weekend even as the president’s legislative agenda remains stalled and a supply chain crisis casts a shadow over the looming holiday season.
Owens, 42, and King, 37, only revealed they were dating last month.
King, the former wife of baseball star Jim Edmonds, posted a photo of the couple hugging.
‘Trying my best to avoid any cheesy introductions like ‘my main squeeze’ … so just meet my man,’ she wrote to her legions of fans.
King has three children from her marriage to Edmonds, which ended in 2009.
Owens is a Los Angeles-based attorney and the son of Biden’s sister, Valerie Owens, who has played a pivotal role in her brother’s political career including as adviser to his triumphant 2020 presidential run.
Meghan King, 37, posted a picture of her new boyfriend Cuffe Biden Owens, the nephew of Joe Biden, last month. The president and first lady attended their wedding on Monday
Owens is the son of Biden’s sister Valerie Owens, pictured next to President Biden in black and white dress in 2013
King’s most highly publicized relationship was with MLB player Jim Edmonds who she divorced from in 2021 after he admitted he was unfaithful to her
While the Bidens spent the holiday away from Washington indigenous and environmental activists protested outside the White House. The demonstrations was part of People vs. Fossil Fuels protests across the country by a coalition of groups
He has stayed out of the limelight since his uncle arrived in the White House.
His new wife, however, first appeared on television in 2014 in an episode of Just Say Yes to the Dress, before joining the cast of Real Housewives of Orange County a year later.
The Bidens spent the weekend at their home outside Wilmington before attending the wedding on Columbus Day.
‘The president and the first lady are attending a small, family wedding at the home of Valerie and Jack Owens,’ said the White House.
They are due to return to the White House and a full in-tray of crises on Monday evening.
The weekend brought fresh woes, with reports of empty shelves at stores amid continuing supply chain warnings, following weak jobs numbers on Friday and a continuing impasse over the president’s massive spending program.
And things could get worse.
Toy company chief executives have begun telling parents to buy Christmas gifts now to avoid disappointment.
Rationing has begun at some stores. Costco and BJ’s Wholesale Club at the weekend started limiting the amount of paper goods customers could buy in parts of Long Island.
In Bellport, a town in southern Long Island halfway between the Hamptons and New York City, shoppers were limited to two bundles of toilet paper each.
Extra COVID unemployment payments ended in September which economists hoped would drive a surge in jobs, but the response has been sluggish at best.
The Bidens attended church during the holiday weekend. Finnegan Biden (left) embraced her cousin Hunter Biden II, 15, as Natalie followed and their grandfather trailed behind
Biden was in Delaware for the holiday weekend but will face mounting crises on his return
FLORIDA: A Costco in Naples, Florida, ran out of toilet paper on Sunday and was severely low on other goods as the supply chain issues that have been worrying retailers for months presented themselves in stores
Last week produced the worst jobs report of Biden’s presidency, with only 194,000 jobs added – far short of the 500,000 that were expected.
With millions of dollars of American goods sitting in warehouses in China and Asia, the president has launched a White House supply chain task force.
But Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell predicted the issues – triggered by rising demand after pandemic shutdowns and global energy problems – will continue into the new year, prolonging inflation and raising prices for American consumers.
The result is hundreds of thousands of ships full of imported goods from Asia are stuck in jams outside Los Angeles and the world’s busiest ports.
It leaves the president under growing pressure to do more to ease the problems, including lifting Trump-era tariffs that have added to supply chain problems with China.
On Friday his press secretary insisted the administration had been working to tackle the issue.
‘We’ve not only been talking about this since January, we’ve been working to put in place a range of steps to help address the challenges in the supply chains,’ said Jen Psaki.
That is not the only other problem Biden faces on his return.
Divisions within his own party have stalled not just a massive $3.5 trillion social spending plan but a smaller $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Two holdout senators, who balked at the scale of the plans, mean the bigger proposals are likely to cut down to nearer $2 trillion.
But Biden must keep voluble, progressive Democrats on board and they have vowed not to let the infrastructure bill advance until they have agreements on pushing through the big prize of an overhaul of social welfare, free education and efforts to tackle climate change.
The coming weeks could offer the president his last chance to stamp his authority on the nation before the calendar shifts to next year’s midterms.