Biden hits the beach – and ditches the shirt

‘GORGEOUS BEACH DAY’ | Secret Service agents accompany US President Joe Biden at the shores of Rehoboth, Delaware. (Agence France-Presse)

REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware — Vladimir Putin hoped to project strength by posing shirtless on a horse. Donald Trump, imagining himself even stronger, pasted his face onto images of Sylvester Stallone’s rippling torso.

But when Joe Biden ditched his shirt on Sunday, he apparently just wanted to catch a few rays.

A picture taken of the 80-year-old US president sunning himself shirtless on the beach near his Rehoboth, Delaware, home went viral on social media on Monday.

Posted by a journalist who happened to be vacationing in Rehoboth, the picture showed Biden in long blue swimming trunks, blue tennis shoes, a backwards baseball cap, sunglasses — and nothing else.

“President Biden is enjoying a gorgeous beach day here in Rehoboth,” the journalist, Eric Geller, wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

Unlike the Kremlin leader’s infamous 2009 horse riding photos, let alone Trump’s frequent Photoshop fantasies, there was no indication that Biden was actually trying to show off his chest.

Closer look

White House reporters who accompany the President on his travels had earlier been briefly brought to witness and photograph him sitting down under an umbrella with first lady Jill Biden.

At that time, however, he was still wearing a blue polo shirt.

Geller told Politico he was walking along the shoreline when he pulled out his cell phone and snapped three pictures of the US president, who was protected by a discreet, but robust security detail.

For a man already the oldest president in history and hoping to win a second four-year term in 2024, the scrutiny over Biden’s physical health is intense. Americans have now been given a closer look than they might have expected.

READ:

As Trump indicted, Biden hits fish restaurant, ‘Oppenheimer’ showing

Joe Biden, America’s oldest sitting president, needs young voters to win again. Will his age matter?

Biden acknowledges seventh grandchild for first time