Biden, Trump Plan Quiet Thanksgiving Celebrations at Home as Pandemic Rages

Democratic President-elect 👤Joe Biden and sitting Republican President 👤Donald Trump, like hundreds of millions of Americans, planned quiet Thanksgiving celebrations at home on Thursday, as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the United States.

Former Democratic Vice President Biden was spending the holiday in the small seaside town of Rehoboth, Delaware, where he and his wife Jill have a vacation home. The Bidens were to host daughter Ashley Biden and her husband Dr. Howard Krein for the holiday meal.

This year will be a rare break from the Bidens’ decades-long tradition of gathering with extended family for Thanksgiving, typically on the island of Nantucket off Massachusetts. In a pre-Thanksgiving speech on Wednesday, Biden said they had traveled for Thanksgiving for 40 years, except the year after his son Beau died in 2015.

He alluded to that bereavement in the presidential-style address to a nation which has lost more than 260,000 lives to coronavirus.

“I remember that first Thanksgiving, the empty chair, the silence,” Biden said. “It takes your breath away. It’s really hard to care. It’s hard to give thanks.”

For Republican President Trump, Thursday was a far cry from last year when he made a surprise visit https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-afghanistan/trump-makes-surprise-afghanistan-trip-voices-hope-for-ceasefire-idUSKBN1Y225Y to Afghanistan. There he met with President Ashraf Ghani and served turkey to some U.S. troops before sitting down to eat dinner with them.

Trump often likes to celebrate holidays at his Florida Mar-a-Largo resort but on Thursday he was scheduled instead to remain at the White House. In contrast to Biden, who pleaded with Americans to celebrate the holiday safely by wearing masks and socially distancing, Trump urged Americans to “gather” in his Thanksgiving proclamation.