President Joe Biden has fled Washington DC to hole up at his Delaware mansion for an extended weekend, even as multiple crises engulf his administration.
Biden left the White House before noon on Friday, hours before the Pentagon held a late-afternoon briefing to reveal that US forces had badly botched a drone strike in Kabul, killing 10 innocent civilians.
Meanwhile as the day unfolded, France recalled its ambassador to the US in outrage over the new AUKUS security pact, the US Food and Drug Administration rejected Biden's call for widespread COVID booster shots, and a squalid camp of 12,000 Haitian migrants continued to grow near the border in Texas.
The Secret Service dropped Biden off at his mansion in Rehoboth Beach at 1.37pm, and he plans to spend the weekend there with the First Lady, with no events on his public schedule.
Biden arrives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Friday for an extended weekend, even as multiple crises engulf his administration
A relative throws himself and weeps over the casket of Farzad, 12, who was one of 10 civilians killed by U.S. drone airstrikes
DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment.
White House press Secretary Jen Psaki has said in the past that presidents never fully go on vacation, noting that Biden travels with a national security aide and gets regularly briefed when he is out of the White House.
Before skipping town to get an early jump on the weekend, Biden did work from the Oval Office in the morning, convening a forum on climate change and receiving his daily intelligence briefing.
Hours after he arrived in Rehoboth Beach, the Pentagon made a stunning and embarrassing reversal, admitting that the August 29 drone strike in Kabul killed an innocent aid worker and nine of his family members, including seven children.
'Our investigation now concludes that the strike was a tragic mistake,' said the head of U.S. Central Command, Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie.
US officials had for weeks defended the botched strike, with Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark A. Milley calling it 'righteous' when pressed on civilian casualties.
Then, a dramatic and unprecedented diplomatic crisis erupted between France and the United States, with Paris recalling its top envoy in Washington DC for the first time in history.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves LeDrain announced the move to recall the ambassador Friday, saying it came in a request from French President Emmanuel Macron (pictured)
The French embassy event was supposed to commemorate the 1781 'Battle of the Capes when the French Navy delivered a decisive blow to Britain's Royal Navy in the Revolutionary War. The Battle of Virgina Capes shows British forces on the right and French on the left
France was the first country to formally recognize the United States government with a treaty in 1778, and the two republics have long had close and friendly diplomatic relations.
But the French government is furious with the new security pact between Australia, the US and the UK, which saw Canberra cancel a $90 billion submarine contract with Paris.
Instead of French conventional diesel-electric submarines, Australia will now pursue nuclear-powered subs through the trilateral security pact known as AUKUS.
Ambassador Philippe Etienne tweeted the AUKUS arrangements are 'directly affecting the vision we have of our
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