President Biden’s latest claim about being ‘raised in the synagogues’ of Delaware follows a long history of the octogenarian president exaggerating his cultural background in an attempt to connect with people he’s speaking to. 

‘I, you might say, was raised in the synagogues of my state. You think I’m kidding, I’m not,’ Biden told a group of rabbis during a call Thursday ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year holiday that began Friday. 

The president, who calls himself a devout Catholic, has made the claim before, though there’s little evidence to support it. 

‘I probably went to shul more than many of you did,’ Biden said last year during a speech marking Rosh Hashanah. ‘You all think I’m kidding … I’m not. I’m not.’ 

BIDEN’S HISTORY OF CONTROVERSIAL RACIAL COMMENTS 

Biden said at the time, ‘I received my education’ at the Congregation Beth Shalom in Wilmington, Delaware. But neither of Biden’s memoirs make any mention of Beth Shalom or attending synagogue, the New York Post previously reported.  

Biden also told the rabbis Thursday that he ‘got involved with the civil rights movement’ before becoming a senator – a claim that Biden himself acknowledged wasn’t true during his 1988 presidential bid that was derailed over plagiarism allegations. 

‘During the ’60s, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement,’ then-presidential candidate Biden said in 1987. ‘I was not an activist. I worked at an all-Black swimming pool in the east side of Wilmington, Delaware. I was involved in what they were thinking, in what they were feeling.’ 

‘But I was not out marching, I was not down in Selma,’ he continued. ‘I was not anywhere else.’ 

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Biden has also frequently claimed to have attended a Black church as a teenager despite longtime congregants insisting that they never saw him. 

‘Let’s lay one thing to rest. I may be a practicing Catholic, but [I] used to go to 7:30 Mass every morning in high school and then in college before I went to the Black church,’ Biden said. ‘Not a joke.’ 

In February 2015, Biden raised eyebrows after he claimed he had ‘an awful lot’ of Somali friends who drove taxis. 

‘Somalis have made my city of Wilmington, Delaware, [their home] on a smaller scale. There is a large, very identifiable Somali community,’ he said. ‘I might add if you ever come to the train station with me you’ll notice I have great relationships with them, because there’s an awful lot driving cabs and are friends of mine. For real. I’m not being solicitous. I’m being serious.’ 

The Washington Post’s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, called the claim a ‘whopper’ and argued that the vast majority of refugees who settled in the area hailed from West African countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, not Somalia. 

In February, Twitter users piled on Biden after he boasted about growing up in a Polish community while visiting the country. 

At the time, Biden met with Polish President Andrzej Duda regarding the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine entering its second year. While speaking to the media, the president recalled his own connections to Poland, saying that his childhood home was in a Polish community. 

‘I was, as a young man, I was born in a coal town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, northeastern Pennsylvania, in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood. Then when coal died, we moved down to Delaware, to a town called Claymont, Delaware, which was a working-class town, but everybody in town was either Polish or Italian. I grew up feeling self-conscious my name didn’t end in an S-K-I or an O,’ Biden said. 

He continued, ‘But all kidding aside, the connection between — I was telling the president, the pride, the overwhelming, demonstrable pride that Polish Americans feel about Poland and the role you are playing now, we were talking about it, it is extreme. It is. You would be — if you haven’t seen it, you should come and see it.’ 

Several social media users have also pointed out that Biden has frequently claimed to have grown up in various communities, depending on his location, most notably the Puerto Rican community. 

In October 2022, President Biden visited Puerto Rico on Monday in an effort to express support for the island following the impacts of Hurricane Fiona, saying he was raised in the Puerto Rican community on the U.S mainland in a political context. 

‘We have a very… large Puerto Rican population in Delaware,’ he said. ‘I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically. We came here for a long time as part of both business and pleasure. I’m committed to this island.’ 

Additionally, Biden insisted during Greek Independence Day 2009, ‘I’m an honorary Greek — not only today but every day!’ He also stated on another occasion, ‘We haven’t had a Greek in the White House, but now we have Joe Bidenopoulos.’ 

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer declared last Thursday that the first son ‘did not share’ his business or his profits with his father, marking another notable shift in the narrative responding to allegations linking President Biden to his son’s shady business dealings.

Abbe Lowell, who has been aggressively defending Hunter, said he can ‘categorically’ declare that Biden was not involved in Hunter’s previous business dealings and did not profit from any of them.

‘I can tell you that Hunter did not share his business with his dad,’ Lowell told CNN on Thursday. ‘I can tell you that he did not share money from his businesses with his dad. And as the evidence out there, his dad, like all good parents, tried to help Hunter when Hunter needed that help.’

House Republicans who are investigating the Biden family have accused the White House of shifting its narrative in denying that Biden was involved with his son’s businesses. In 2019, Biden emphatically denied ever discussing business matters with his son, despite Hunter’s longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, handling the elder Biden’s finances throughout the entirety of the Obama administration. 

Then- Vice President Biden also met with over a dozen of Hunter’s foreign business partners, as previously reported by Fox News Digital.

‘First of all, I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period,’ Biden said in August 2019. ‘There wasn’t any hint of scandal at all when we were there. It was the same kind of strict, strict rules. That’s why I never talk with my son or my brother or anyone else, even distant family about their business interest, period.’

‘I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,’ a frustrated Biden told Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a month later. ‘You should be looking at Trump. Trump’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum. … Everybody’s looked at it and said there’s nothing there. Ask the right question.’

‘I don’t discuss business with my son,’ Biden said again the next month in October 2019.

The narrative, however, took a drastic turn in June when the White House began saying Biden was not ‘in business’ with his son during his vice presidency. 

‘As we have said many times before, the president was not in business with his son,’ White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams said in a June 29 statement.

‘The answer remains the same,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a July 24 briefing. ‘The president was never in business with his son. I just don’t have anything else to add.’

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith wrote a letter to White House Counsel Stuart Delery in July seeking clarity on the shifting message, but their July 27 deadline was ignored.

Additionally, Hunter’s lawyer’s claims last week about Hunter not sharing profits with his father do not appear to hold up when looking at Hunter’s text messages and emails from his abandoned laptop, according to previous Fox News Digital reports.

In a January 2019 text message, Hunter expressed frustration with his daughter, Naomi, and revealed that his dad forced him to fork over half his salary.

‘I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family Fro (sic) 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary,’ Hunter wrote. 

In a 2018 WhatsApp message with his uncle, Hunter fumed about now-first lady Jill Biden and called her a ‘f—ing moron’ after she shot down a proposal about him teaching and said he needed to get sober first, or he would not be able to support his family.

‘I suooorted [sic] my GM [sic] family including some of the costs you should have used your salary to lay [sic] for- for the last 24 years,’ Hunter said. 

In another text message exchange from 2018, Hunter claimed to have paid his father’s bills for more than a decade, which received backlash from House Republicans.

‘Too many cooks in the kitchen,’ he wrote on April 12, 2018. ‘Too many profile changes and such. Happened 10 days ago too. What do you need? I’m going to bank in a few. Need to verify identity in person.’

‘I need to pay AT&T,’ Hunter’s assistant Katie Dodge responded.

Hunter then instructed Dodge to put the payment on both his debit card and his ‘Wells Fargo credit line.’

‘My dad has been using most lines on this account which I’ve through the gracious offerings of Eric [Schwerin] have paid for past 11 years,’ Hunter wrote.

It is not clear whether Hunter was claiming to have a shared AT&T account or a shared Wells Fargo account with his father. The White House declined to clarify when previously reached by Fox News Digital.

A 2010 email from Schwerin, Hunter’s longtime business partner, said he was transferring funds from Biden’s tax refund check into Hunter’s account because ‘he owes it to you.’

House Democrats acknowledged Wednesday that Schwerin, the former president of Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca Advisors, handled Biden’s finances for the duration of his vice presidency.

A 2016 email from Schwerin to Hunter indicated that Hunter was expected to pay an AT&T bill in the amount of $190 for ‘JRB.’

One of the most infamous emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop was the email that refers to the elder Biden as the ‘big guy’ and says, ’10 held by H for the big guy?’ which is shorthand for 10% held by Hunter Biden for his father. Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski previously confirmed ‘big guy’ was a reference to now-President Biden.

The 2017 email about the equity split proposition for the joint venture with CEFC, a CCP-linked energy company, was sent by business associate James Gilliar, who also infamously told Bobulinski on WhatsApp, in May 2017 not to ‘mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.’

‘OK they should be paranoid about things,’ Bobulinski said.

‘For real,’ Gilliar said.

The House Oversight Committee recently included a few of these examples as their ‘evidence’ that Biden was involved with Hunter’s business dealings and that he profited, including testimony from a pair of whistleblowers. 

One of the whistleblowers, who claimed Justice Department, FBI and IRS officials interfered with the investigation into Hunter Biden, said earlier in the summer that Hunter invoked his father to pressure a Chinese business partner while discussing deals. IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley oversaw the IRS probe into the president’s son and said the agency obtained a July 2017 WhatsApp message from Hunter to Harvest Fund Management CEO Henry Zhao showing Hunter alleging he was with his father to pressure Zhao to pay him $10M.

‘I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,’ Hunter wrote in the WhatsApp message to Zhao, according to the documents. ‘Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,’ Hunter wrote.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s, R-Calif., announced an impeachment inquiry last week for Biden, prompting the White House to release a 14-page memo pushing back on Republican claims and calling on media outlets to increase scrutiny.

‘After nearly 9 months of investigating, House Republicans haven’t been able to turn up any evidence of the President doing anything wrong. But House Republicans led by Marjorie Taylor Greene are nonetheless opening a baseless impeachment inquiry of President Biden — despite many House Republicans openly admitting there is no evidence on which to support it,’ White House spokesperson Ian Sams wrote last week. 

‘Impeachment is grave, rare, and historic. The Constitution requires ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,’’ Sams continued. ‘But House Republicans are publicly stating they have uncovered none of these things.’

The White House and Hunter’s attorney did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.

The Department of Energy (DOE) quietly promoted a top adviser to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to a senior role overseeing home appliance regulations after he failed to clear Senate confirmation.

The DOE announced last week that Jeff Marootian was appointed to be the principal deputy assistant secretary of the agency’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The appointment came days after the White House withdrew his name from consideration to lead EERE as the office’s assistant secretary.

While Marootian’s nomination failed after Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., opposed him over the Biden administration’s crackdown on natural gas-powered stovetops, his appointment last week makes him the effective chief of the DOE’s EERE office. 

President Biden has yet to nominate another person to be Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, meaning Marootian, whose new position doesn’t require Senate confirmation, is the most senior official in the EERE office. The office is tasked with issuing and implementing energy efficiency regulations such as those affecting gas stoves and other home appliances.

‘Jeff Marootian is an unelected, unaccountable, and unconfirmed bureaucrat who is carrying out President Biden’s orders to attack affordable household appliances,’ Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘These rules are making life more expensive for all Americans by denying them the products they need. Biden and Marootian are coming after appliances in every room of our home – from gas stoves in our kitchen to water heaters in our basement,’ he continued. ‘The administration should put forward a new nominee who will work to lower costs and give consumers choice.’

Barrasso opposed Marootian’s nomination last year, arguing he was more qualified for a Transportation Department role.

Marootian was first nominated to take the helm at the EERE office in July 2022 after serving as special assistant to Biden and, prior to that role, director of the Washington, D.C., Department of Transportation. The position has been vacant since Daniel Simmons, who led the office throughout the Trump administration, departed the DOE in early 2021.

Granholm then hired Marootian as her senior adviser for energy efficiency and renewable energy in September 2022. His confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee took place in November, and he was reported out of committee in December, but his nomination stalled at the end of session, forcing Biden to renominate him in January.

Manchin then unexpectedly came out in opposition to Marootian’s nomination in May, putting Marootian’s chances of receiving Senate confirmation in jeopardy. Though the White House stood by Marootian at first, it ultimately withdrew his nomination earlier this month.

‘While I supported Mr. Marootian’s nomination in December, since then the office he’s been nominated to lead has proposed stove efficiency rules that I’ve raised concerns about,’ Manchin told Fox News Digital on May 17. ‘While I appreciate that these rules would only apply to new stoves, my view is that it’s part of a broader, administration-wide effort to eliminate fossil fuels. For that reason, I’m not comfortable moving forward with Mr. Marootian at this time.’

Since Marootian was hired to advise Granholm on energy efficiency and since his nomination was returned to the White House, the DOE has pursued a number of energy efficiency regulations impacting household appliances including gas stovetops, ovens, clothes washers, refrigerators, air conditioners and dishwashers which consumer advocates have criticized as regulatory overreach. 

‘It’s just spreading to more and more appliances. It seems that almost everything that plugs in or fires up around the house is either subject to a pending regulation or soon will be,’ Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, previously told Fox News Digital.

‘Consumers aren’t going to like any of it,’ he added. ‘These rules are almost always bad for consumers for the simple reason that they restrict consumer choice.’

Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci and his wife had a combined net worth that exceeded $11 million when he departed his government post, disclosures reveal.

Fauci’s 2022 termination report, which Fox News Digital obtained from an open records request, included his finances through his exit at the end of last year. The documents show that Fauci and his wife were up nearly $2 million since before the pandemic but experienced a net worth dip from 2021 to 2022.

Fox News Digital also shared the document with OpenTheBooks CEO Adam Andrzejewski, whose group had first obtained and analyzed several prior years of his disclosures. 

‘During the pandemic years, the Fauci’s became deca-millionaires with their household net worth exceeding $10 million,’ Andrzejewski told Fox News Digital. ‘Last year was a tough year in the markets. However, Fauci’s net worth is still up sharply from $7.6 million in 2019.’

‘Before his retirement last December, Fauci was the highest-paid federal employee ($480,654) and significantly outearned the president ($400,000),’ Andrzejewski said. ‘In retirement, we estimate that Fauci is collecting a federal pension, which rivals a presidential salary. It’s the largest federal retirement package in history.’  

The disclosures show that the Faucis saw their net worth expand from around $9.54 million in 2019 to $11.5 million at the end of 2022. The increase over the years came from investment gains, awards, compensation, and royalties. However, they experienced a $1.1 million net worth decline from 2021 to 2022. The pair reported a combined $12.6 million net worth in 2021.

Fauci has spread his assets across trust funds, retirement accounts, and college education accounts. He has invested in mutual funds with no documented holdings of individual stocks. 

At the end of last year, Fauci’s account balance totaled $9.25 million, as his wife, Christine Grady, added around $2.2 million.

Fauci’s compensation also increased by nearly $25,000 between 2021 and 2022 as he remained the highest-paid federal employee, receiving more than President Biden. Fauci acquired roughly $481,000 in compensation in 2022, an increase from the $456,000 he earned in 2021.

Fox News Digital reached out to Grady’s government email account seeking comment from them on their net worth but did not receive a response. 

Fauci, who stepped down in December, has since joined Georgetown University as a Distinguished University Professor in the School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, which the school describes as ‘an academic division that provides clinical care, conducts research and trains future physicians in infectious diseases.’

The announcement noted Fauci would also hold an appointment in the university’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Fauci became a polarizing figure during the pandemic. Last year, he admitted that he knew the ‘draconian’ pandemic measures would lead to ‘collateral negative consequences’ for the economy and schoolchildren. 

While justifying the measures, he said that ‘sometimes when you do draconian things, it has collateral negative consequences, just like when you shut things down, even temporarily, it does have deleterious consequences on the economy, on the schoolchildren. You know that.’

Fauci confirmed he risked these harms, adding, ‘But you have to make a balance when you’re dealing with — we know the only way to stop something cold in its track is to try and shut things down.’

‘If you shut things down just for the sake of it, that’s bad,’ he said, adding, ‘But if you do it with the purpose of being able to regroup so that you can then open up in a more safe way, that’s the best way to do it.’

Fox News Digital’s Gabriel Hays contributed reporting.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom brushed off allegations of Hunter Biden’s corrupt business dealings on Monday, saying it is ‘hardly unique’ for people to use their family members to get ahead.

Newsom made the comment in an interview with CNN that aired Monday. The California governor defended the Biden family on issues ranging from Hunter’s businesses to President Biden’s age.

‘One of the things that Republicans are relentless on, of course, is Hunter Biden,’ CNN host Dana Bash began. ‘There is no evidence that Joe Biden benefited from anything that Hunter was doing, but Republicans have shown that Hunter Biden – he tried to leverage his father’s name, and that the president allegedly before he was president joined phone calls that Hunter Biden’s business associates were on. Do you see anything inappropriate there?’

‘I don’t know enough about the details of that. I mean I’ve seen a little of that,’ Newsom responded. ‘If that’s the new criteria, there are a lot of folks in a lot of industries – not just in politics – where people have family members and relationships and they’re trying to parlay and get a little influence and benefit in that respect. That’s hardly unique.’

‘I don’t love that any more than you love it or other people I imagine love that. We want to see a lot less of that, but an impeachment inquiry? Give me a break,’ he continued.

‘Threatening a government shutdown again after we went through that process with the debt ceiling. This is student government,’ he added. ‘This is a joke. Ready, fire, aim. I mean, this is a perversity that the founding fathers never conceived of and imagined. So, if that’s the best they can do, give me a break. That’s about public opinion.’

Meanwhile, Hunter’s legal team has filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming the agency ‘targeted and sought to embarrass’ him by exposing his tax returns to the public.

Hunter’s legal opponents claim the tactic is merely an attempt to shift attention away from his own legal troubles, which involve a felony gun charge.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has also launched an impeachment inquiry into the president relating to his alleged involvement in his son’s business deals. Republicans point to statements Hunter has made, phone calls, and dinners Biden attended as evidence that he was aware of what his son was doing.

Biden has brushed off the impeachment inquiry, however, suggesting it was a tactic by Republicans aimed at making a government shutdown more likely.

Pope Francis on Monday spoke to the Clinton Global Initiative’s (CGI) ‘Keep Going’ session urging action on climate change ‘before it’s too late.’

The leader of the Catholic Church also said on the live video call to former President Bill Clinton that ‘it is necessary to share thoughts on how to contribute to the common good and how not to leave behind the most vulnerable people such as children.’

‘You, Mr. President, have listed the many challenges of our time: climate change, humanitarian crises affecting migrants and refugees and child care, and many others,’ Pope Francis said. 

The pontiff later added, ‘When we talk about migration, let’s think about the eyes of the children we’ve seen in refugee camps.’

While the pope holds to a traditional Christian view of abortion, contraceptives and gender, he blasted some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church in an address last month, accusing them of prioritizing ideology over faith and hindering the evolution of Catholic doctrine. He also acknowledged the existing divisions in the Church, stemming from differing views on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. 

Many conservatives have critiqued the pontiff’s focus on social justice and his willingness to consider changes, such as allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive sacraments.

The CGI summit in New York began Monday and will conclude Tuesday. Pope Francis met with Clinton, along with progressive billionaire donor George Soros’ son Alex Soros, at the Vatican in July.

Other politicians, celebrities and government officials will speak during the two-day event.

The Biden administration will be represented by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland during the summit. Additional speakers include Hillary Clinton, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, retired NBA player Dwyane Wade, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and Fox News host Dana Perino.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom defended President Biden’s ability to serve in office amid growing concerns from Democrats that the president is too old to run for re-election.

In an interview with CNN, Newsom acknowledged that voters ‘have every right to be concerned’ about Biden’s age (80) but insisted he was not concerned.

‘I want a seasoned pro that knows how to get things done,’ Newsom said. ‘I’m a little old-fashioned. I want a guy who produces results, and the results are in: It’s been a master class.’ 

Newsom’s remarks came in response to a question about a recent CBS News/YouGov survey, which found that only one-third of American voters think Biden will remain in office through a second term. Were the president to win re-election and finish another term, he would be 86-years-old when he leaves office.

The popular and staunch progressive California governor, who declined to challenge Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, argued that the president’s record demonstrates he is not too old to lead the country.

‘There’s simply no administration in my lifetime that’s been more effective producing more substantive results,’ said the 55-year-old Newsom, who has lived through the Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, both Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies. 

He pointed to several bipartisan wins for the Biden White House, including deals on infrastructure, gun control, raising the debt ceiling and the CHIPS and Science Act, which incentivized companies to build and manufacture semiconductors in the U.S.

‘I mean this, I couldn’t imagine three years ago that this president could accomplish so much in such a short period of time. I mean that,’ Newsom emphasized.

While Newsom and others, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Vice President Kamala Harris, have defended Biden’s age, other Democrats have expressed hesitancy to the Biden-Harris 2024 ticket.

‘I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for re-election,’ Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, a favorite scribe of the liberal establishment, wrote last week, pointing to the fact that Biden would be 82 at the start of a second term.

‘It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping [former President] Trump.’ 

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota, told NBC News recently that he believes ‘there are other candidates who have a far better chance and don’t have the actuarial risk that the president has.’

‘Why does everyone have blinders on? Why are we essentially being led to this cliff without knowing what’s on the other side?’ Phillps said. 

And former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile recently admitted she’s ‘not sleeping at night thinking all is well’ and said Democrats should be concerned with making the case for Biden to continue in office.

Amid these concerns, the White House has repeatedly defended Biden’s age and mental acuity when asked by reporters.

‘Look, here’s what I know,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Fox News’ Peter Doocy last week in response to a question about polling showing voter concerns over Biden’s age. ‘Here’s what I can speak to. I can speak to that – a president who has wisdom. I can speak to a president who has experience. I can speak to a president who has done historic – has taken historic action and has delivered in historic pieces of legislation. And that’s important.’

In an Associated Press poll this summer, 77% said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years, with 89% of Republicans taking that position along with 69% of Democrats.

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

Mayor Eric Adams is reportedly avoiding President Biden during his visit to New York City this week, as the relationship between the two Democrats has been damaged due to the migrant crisis. 

Adams’ packed schedule Monday included sitting down with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to discuss strategies to combat gun violence, welcoming Sierre Leone President Julius Maada Bio to talk about ties to New York City’s growing African community and meeting with Seoul, South Korea Mayor Oh Se-hoon to sign a so-called ‘Sister Cities Agreement.’ He also participated in a roundtable with Pakistani leaders, but Adams scheduled no time to meet with Biden, Politico reported. 

Biden is expected to address the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning. Adams was invited but likely will not attend Biden’s campaign fundraiser or reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Tuesday, two sources familiar with the matter told Politico. 

The mayor’s public schedule Monday also did not say Adams would attend two other campaign receptions Biden was expected to attend, one with Black business leaders and a second featuring Broadway headliners, according to the outlet.

‘It just means that the two of them are trying to avoid exacerbating an already tense situation,’ a City Hall adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Politico. White House aides told the outlet that no meeting between Adams and Biden was on the agenda during the New York visit. 

‘You know I don’t do those private conversations,’ Adams said Monday, dodging a reporter’s question about whether he attempted to meet with Biden while the president was in town. 

‘We always look forward to any conversation that can help deliver the critical support and relief that asylum seekers, longtime New Yorkers and all Americans deserve,’ Adams’ spokesperson added. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and the mayor’s office for comment, but neither immediately responded.

The current situation is a stark contrast to this time last year when Adams and Biden were seen together at Democratic fundraiser and at the United Nations General Assembly’s marquee reception. Adams and Biden reportedly have not been seen together since January, during the president’s visit to New York regarding his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Hudson Tunnel train project.

Adams, who once dubbed himself the ‘Biden of Brooklyn,’ has been increasingly critical of the federal government’s handling of the migrant crisis, as he demands the Biden administration grant work authorization and other aid to the approximately 110,000 migrants who have arrived in New York City so far. 

‘If we don’t receive help from the federal government and additional help from the state government, then this is going to come from somewhere, and it’s going to hurt low-income New Yorkers,’ Adams said during an appearance on MSNBC Sunday evening.