By CHRIS MEGERIAN
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is setting out Monday on a Western swing aimed at showcasing his work on conservation, clean energy and veterans’ benefits as he seeks to draw an implicit contrast between his administration’s accomplishments and former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles.
Biden’s first stop will be the Grand Canyon, where he’s expected to announce plans for a new national monument to preserve more than 1 million acres and limit uranium mining. After Arizona, he will travel to New Mexico and Utah.
The Democratic president will be in Albuquerque on Wednesday and will talk about how fighting climate change has created new jobs, and he’ll visit Salt Lake City on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the PACT Act, which provides new benefits to veterans who were exposed to toxic substances. He’ll also hold a reelection fundraiser in each city.
Biden will use the three-night trip to “continue to highlight the progress he’s making across his agenda,” particularly when it comes to climate change, said Natalie Quillian, the White House deputy chief of staff.
“You can expect to us to highlight more groundbreakings of projects, more ribbon cuttings and opportunities to show the American people how these investments and jobs are reaching their communities and their neighborhoods,” she said.
The White House has been pushing to demonstrate the impact of Biden’s policies, hoping to harness lower inflation numbers and strong employment figures to alleviate the president’s sagging poll numbers.
Biden will be fresh from more than a week of vacation in Delaware, where he stayed at family homes in Rehoboth Beach and Wilmington. On the day that Trump faced a new indictment for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss, Biden went to a fish restaurant with first lady Jill Biden, attended a screening of the movie “Oppenheimer” and took a moonlit walk across the beach.
He hasn’t commented at all…
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