{"id":163943,"date":"2023-07-20T08:02:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T15:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=163943"},"modified":"2023-07-20T08:02:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T15:02:16","slug":"president-biden-and-vice-president-harris-at-congressional-picnic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=163943","title":{"rendered":"President Biden and Vice President Harris at Congressional Picnic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hello, everybody!  (Applause.).  Every time I hear \u201cHail to the Chief,\u201d I turn around and say, \u201cWhere is he?\u201d  (Laughter.)  I\u2019m getting used to it, though.  Folks, thanks for being here.  Welcome to your house.  And you\u2019re the way \u2014 oh, you think I\u2019m kidding?  I know who \u2014 I know who owns this place.  (A pigeon flies in front of the podium.)  Thank you \u2014 that bird, right there.  That \u2014 that pigeon.  (Laughter.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LX5BqqRYmLM\" title=\"President Biden and the First Lady Host the White House Congressional Picnic\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Folks, first of all, let me begin by thanking all our families.  I think we underestimate sometimes \u2014 hey, Tommy.  How are you?<\/p>\n<p>I think we underestimate sometimes how much pressure is put on the family \u2014 our kids, our grandkids, our spouses, our parents.  And I want to thank you.  And that\u2019s why this is really not for the members of Congress; this is for all of their families.  That\u2019s what this is all about.  So, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n<p>And, folks, look, I want to \u2014 a special welcome to Speaker Emeritus \u2014 and she\u2019s \u2014 she\u2019s going to be my Speaker her whole life, I think \u2014 my whole life.  And I want to thank Nancy and her \u2014 and \u2014<\/p>\n<p>THE FIRST LADY:  Oh, she\u2019s right there.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Where \u2014<\/p>\n<p>THE FIRST LADY:  There.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  There you are, Na- \u2014 well, she\u2019s hiding behind that big guy.  You know what I mean?<\/p>\n<p>And her grandsons and \u2014 (applause).<\/p>\n<p>Leader Schumer and his wife and his \u2014 and his daughter-in-law.  And, by the way, he has a grandson.  Now he \u2014 now that we know who \u2014 if we want to get anything done, we go to his grandson.  He\u2019s only five years old, and we can get it done.<\/p>\n<p>And, folks, also, I want to thank Leader Jeffries.  He\u2019s \u2014 the reason I like him so much \u2014 (applause) \u2014 he\u2019s got a \u2014 he\u2019s got a backbone like a ramrod and he\u2019s got great integrity.<\/p>\n<p>And Speaker McCarthy, who \u2014 I don\u2019t want to hurt his reputation, but I actually like him.  (Laughter.)  And I\u2019m sorry, I didn\u2019t want to \u2014 want to hurt you.  But all kidding aside, we\u2019ve been able to work together and I appreciate it very much.<\/p>\n<p>And I don\u2019t know whether Dick Durbin is here.  He was supposed to be coming down, as well Whip Clark.  I\u2019m not sure she\u2019s here as well.  But any rate \u2014<\/p>\n<p>AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right here.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  There you are.  Okay.  We\u2019re all set then.<\/p>\n<p>Look, folks, you know, Jill and I especially want to thank you and all the families for coming.  I hope you have a good time.  This is \u2014 nothing formal about this. <\/p>\n<p>This is your house.  This is the people\u2019s house.  This is \u2014 this is a night that \u2014<\/p>\n<p>My favorite picture \u2014 I was \u2014 I \u2014 I\u2019ll end with this.  My favorite picture that I \u2014 we have in this residence as well as home is when our boys were seven and eight years old at one of the \u2014 at one of the congressional picnics.  And they\u2019re standing way down there, and they\u2019re both looking at the monument and the White House is in the background.  It\u2019s my favorite picture of all time.<\/p>\n<p>And I just want to know: I hope you enjoy the night, and I hope you are able to spend some time with one another as well.  You don\u2019t get a lot of opportunity to do that. <\/p>\n<p>And it reminds me of the work that we have to do.  You know, for all the disagreements we have, we got to remember: At the end of the day, we\u2019re friends.  That\u2019s how it\u2019s always been.  We got to be friends, good to each other.  And I \u2014 (applause) \u2014 no, I \u2014 I mean it.  And I think we\u2019re getting there.<\/p>\n<p>So, I want to thank you all very much for coming.  I\u2019m not going to say anything more. <\/p>\n<p>You want to say anything, Madam Vice President?  (Applause.)<\/p>\n<p>THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, all.  Your role of leadership, the sacrifice that the families make really does make a difference in terms of the good work that we do together for the sake of our country.<\/p>\n<p>So, I thank you all for what you do every day.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  God bless America.  Let\u2019s get going.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hello, everybody! (Applause.). Every time I hear \u201cHail to the Chief,\u201d I turn around and say, \u201cWhere is he?\u201d (Laughter.) I\u2019m getting used to it, though. Folks, thanks for being here. Welcome to your house. And you\u2019re the way \u2014 oh, you think I\u2019m kidding? I know who \u2014 I know who owns this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Fullscreen-capture-7202023-80108-AM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163945,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163943\/revisions\/163945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/163944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}