WASHINGTON — President Biden took a snow day Thursday as DC received a half-inch dusting — but Vice President Kamala Harris carried on with scheduled in-person events.
Biden postponed a trip to Michigan, where he planned to tour a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing facility, and the White House declared an 8 a.m. “lid” for reporters — meaning there would be no in-person events.
The president’s trip to Portage, Michigan, was preemptively canceled Wednesday evening before any precipitation fell in Washington.
The early White House “lid” meant a 12:30 p.m. briefing with White House press secretary Jen Psaki was conducted by phone.
Although the destination in Michigan was a frigid 16 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday morning, it wasn’t snowing there.
DC forecasts called for up to a few inches of snow, but those predictions were incorrect. Snow gave way to periods of sleet and freezing rain.
Harris, who attended high school in Montreal, Canada, pressed forward despite the weather. She did not cancel a scheduled 11:15 a.m. event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House.
A supplemental pool reporter remained booked for the event featuring a webcast conversation between Harris, female members of Congress and women’s groups.
“The pandemic has put decades of the progress we have collectively made for women workers at risk,” Harris said, urging Congress to pass Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill.
Harris called the COVID-19 pandemic “a perfect storm for women — the longer we wait to act, the harder it will be to bring these millions of women back into the workforce.”
“This is a national emergency. Women leaving the workforce in these numbers is a national emergency, which needs a national solution,” she said.
Some Republican politicians say that reopening schools would help women return to the workforce. The White House is on the defensive as critics say Biden should use his Bully Pulpit to pressure teachers unions to drop opposition to reopening plans.
It was Biden’s second snow day this month.
Biden postponed a planned Feb. 1 foreign policy speech at the State Department — a few blocks west of the White House — after DC received just 2 inches of snow.
Biden, 78, spent Thursday morning receiving his daily intelligence briefing and a closed-door briefing on COVID-19. He had no scheduled events or briefings on his public schedule in the afternoon.
