White House releases President Biden’s schedule for first day of 2024 Seattle trip

A short time ago, the White House released Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s itin­er­ary for Fri­day, May 10th, 2024, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for us to share a few more details about his sec­ond mul­ti-day vis­it to Wash­ing­ton State as Pres­i­dent — a trip that NPI broke the news of last week when the first details became verifiable. 

Biden’s day will begin in Cal­i­for­nia, where he just arrived fol­low­ing a cross-coun­try flight from Joint Base Andrews that began a lit­tle after 5:30 PM East­ern Time. 

He’ll be briefed, as usu­al, and will then head­line two cam­paign recep­tions in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area. After that, he’ll return to Mof­fett Air­field and fly north to the great Pacif­ic North­west. His arrival should take place short­ly before 6 PM, and by 7 PM, he’ll arrive at the loca­tion of the first of two cam­paign recep­tions in our area.

That recep­tion is now sold out, as you can see… tick­ets are no longer available:

Those read­ers in the Seat­tle area wish­ing to avoid traf­fic impacts should plan on hav­ing arrived at their des­ti­na­tion no lat­er than 6 PM. The pres­i­den­tial motor­cade will be rolling out of SeaT­ac with­in a few min­utes of when Biden touch­es down, and there will be road clo­sures to accom­mo­date the Pres­i­den­t’s movements. 

For secu­ri­ty rea­sons, the Secret Ser­vice does not dis­close the routes they choose, so we can’t tell you which roads will be closed, or when. But you can expect that high­ways and major arte­ri­als in between SeaT­ac and down­town Seat­tle will be either closed or impact­ed by clo­sures between 6 PM and 7:30 PM on Friday.

There will also be some flight dis­rup­tions — main­ly delays — because Biden is com­ing in to our region’s pri­ma­ry pas­sen­ger air hub, Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, rather than Boe­ing Field or Paine Field, which usu­al­ly wel­comed Air Force One dur­ing the Oba­ma era.

Now, here is the sched­ule for Fri­day as announced by the White House:

In the morn­ing, the Pres­i­dent will receive the President’s Dai­ly Brief. This meet­ing will be closed press.

Lat­er, the Pres­i­dent will depart Mari­na Green Park­ing Lot Land­ing Zone en route to SLAC Land­ing Zone. The depar­ture from Mari­na Green Park­ing Lot Land­ing Zone and the arrival to SLAC Land­ing Zone will be cov­ered by the out-of-town pool.

In the after­noon, the Pres­i­dent will par­tic­i­pate in two cam­paign recep­tions. These recep­tions, in the Bay Area of Cal­i­for­nia, will be cov­ered by the restrict­ed pool and the out-of-town pool will accom­pa­ny.

Then, the Pres­i­dent will depart the Bay area of Cal­i­for­nia, en route to Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton. The depar­ture from Mof­fett Air­field and the arrival to Seat­tle-Taco­ma Air­port will be open press.

In the evening, the Pres­i­dent will par­tic­i­pate in a cam­paign recep­tion. This recep­tion, in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton, will be cov­ered by the restrict­ed pool and the out-of-town pool will accom­pa­ny.

All Times Pacif­ic

9:50 AM: THE PRESIDENT receives the President’s Dai­ly Brief
Closed Press

11:55 AM: THE PRESIDENT departs Mari­na Green Park­ing Lot Land­ing Zone en route to SLAC Land­ing Zone
Mari­na Green Park­ing Lot Land­ing Zone
Out-Of-Town Pool

12:20 PM: THE PRESIDENT arrives at SLAC Land­ing Zone
SLAC Land­ing Zone
Out-Of-Town Pool

1:15 PM: THE PRESIDENT par­tic­i­pates in a cam­paign recep­tion
Bay Area, Cal­i­for­nia
Restrict­ed Pool 

3:00 PM: THE PRESIDENT par­tic­i­pates in a cam­paign recep­tion
Bay Area, Cal­i­for­nia
Restrict­ed Pool 

4:10 PM: THE PRESIDENT departs Bay Area, Cal­i­for­nia en route to Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton
Mof­fett Air­field
Out-Of-Town Pool

5:50 PM: THE PRESIDENT arrives in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton
Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port
Open Press

7:00 PM: THE PRESIDENT par­tic­i­pates in a cam­paign recep­tion
Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton
Restrict­ed Pool 

Some of the ter­mi­nol­o­gy in the pub­lic sched­ule above may not be famil­iar to peo­ple who don’t work in the White House or the mass media. Here’s a quick primer:

• “Closed press” sig­ni­fies a func­tion or event that reporters are pro­hib­it­ed from observing
• “Open press” sig­ni­fies the oppo­site — media are allowed to be present
• “Out-of-town pool” and “restrict­ed pool” are events that will be wit­nessed by a select num­ber of reporters on behalf of the entire White House press corps, with writ­ten obser­va­tions dis­trib­uted by the White House press office

Accord­ing to one of the reporters trav­el­ing with the Pres­i­dent, Air Force One reached Mof­fett Field Air Base in Moun­tain View Cal­i­for­nia at 7:25 PM Pacif­ic Time. The Stan­ley Cup play­offs were play­ing on MSNBC for most of the flight.

“We had no vis­i­tors to the press cab­in, aside from Karine [Jean-Pierre, the Pres­i­den­t’s Press Sec­re­tary] who came back to brief about an hour into the flight,” the pool report not­ed. “Most ques­tions were about Israel and POTUS’ [mean­ing, Pres­i­dent Biden’s] com­ment about halt­ing the sup­ply of weapons if Israel invades Rafah.”

“For him this is straight­for­ward: he will con­tin­ue to pro­vide Israel with all capa­bil­i­ties it needs to defend itself. But he does not want cer­tain cat­e­gories of Amer­i­can weapons used in a par­tic­u­lar type of oper­a­tion in a par­tic­u­lar place.”

The report went on to note that Jean-Pierre was asked about the rea­son for the transcon­ti­nen­tal flight, and if she could offer any details about the next two days and whether it involved any­thing beyond cam­paign fundrais­ers. The response: “We are head­ed to Cal­i­for­nia, head­ed to Seat­tle. Those are cam­paign trips and cer­tain­ly the cam­paign can speak specif­i­cal­ly on what we are doing. Can’t say beyond that.”

Noth­ing offi­cial? “No. This is strict­ly campaign.”

In oth­er words, the White House isn’t stag­ing any events while Biden is here. He will shake the mon­ey tree on behalf of the Biden Vic­to­ry Fund and then return to the East Coast.

NPI will bring you con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of the Pres­i­den­t’s vis­it to the PNW tomor­row and Sat­ur­day, right here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. Check back for reg­u­lar updates.