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Joe Biden skips NATO dinner. White House says workload more. Health issues?
Joe Biden was earlier seen on a beach near his Delaware home ahead of the NATO summit.
Joe Biden skipped Tuesday’s NATO dinner with other world leaders as the summit kicked off. The White House said that the president had four full workdays and needed to prepare for a speech. This is the third time that the US president has skipped a dinner with world leaders while on an international trip, Fox News reported.
When the White House was asked for a comment on Joe Biden skipping the NATO dinner, it did not respond, the report claimed. The US president was earlier seen on a beach near his Delaware home ahead of the NATO summit after spending the last two weekends with his son Hunter Biden at Camp David, the report claimed.
The White House later clarified that the US president skipped the NATO dinner because he has four full days of work ahead of him, not behind him, and will be delivering a speech after being questioned about the beach visit.
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At the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Ukraine will be present. The country's president Volodymyr Zelensky lamented that the alliance continues to keep his country from joining it. “It’s unprecedented and absurd when a time frame is set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership,” Zelensky tweeted, adding, “While at the same time, vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine. It seems there is no readiness to invite Ukraine to NATO or to make it a member of the Alliance."
Joe Biden earlier told CNN that he does not support Ukraine joining the alliance during its present war with Russia saying that there are certain issues with Ukraine's eligibility such as a lack of democratization. There should be "a rational path for Ukraine to be able to qualify to be able to get into NATO," he said.
