In July 2023, the White House decided to pay a visit to the Philadelphia Shipyards, highlighting a ship linked to former President Joe Biden.
Documents obtained by the watchdog group Protecting the Trust of the People through the Freedom of Information Act indicate that staff from the Department of Transportation were actively gathering details about this trip and the president’s planned activities during the visit.
The Maritime Bureau awarded a contract to the Philadelphia Shipyard years prior for constructing a large National Security Vessel (NSMV).
A note from Malad’s official notice office indicated that, due to the numerous steps required to board the ship, a visit to the NSMV was deemed unfeasible. A somewhat informal remark made in the message pondered the complexity of those “many steps on the lattice.”
Despite this, Biden did visit the Philadelphia Shipyard, where he met with an apprentice and participated in steel-cutting ceremonies for an offshore wind farm construction vessel. This visit occurred only weeks after he experienced a significant fall during a graduation ceremony at the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
Since that incident, the president has been seen boarding Air Force One using shorter flights of stairs. Just a week before the Philadelphia visit, Biden was at Helsinki’s Kivantan International Airport, navigating some short air force stairs.
The email from DOT staff revealed that concerns about the number of steps involved in boarding national security vessels were not isolated instances. There have been other occasions where Biden was restricted from boarding due to similar concerns.
In his autobiography, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recounted a situation where Biden’s team prevented him from boarding the Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, before the 2021 G7 Summit in Cornwall. This incident raised questions from Johnson regarding Biden’s physical fitness, as Biden’s staff cited the complexity of boarding as the reason for not participating.
