President Biden and his family returned to their favorite vacation spot for Thanksgiving, billionaire David Rubenstein’s Nantucket home.
Air Force One landed at Nantucket Memorial Airport Tuesday evening, and the first family and Secret Service immediately left for the 13,000-square-foot home in the 14-acre Rubenstein compound on Rabbit Run Road, the Nantucket Current.
The Biden family will also celebrate the president’s 81st birthday, which was Monday, with a traditional coconut cake, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday.
Biden has planned a call with U.S. military personnel on Thanksgiving Day, but no other public events are planned on his schedule.
On Friday, Biden is expected to visit downtown Nantucket for the annual tree lighting ceremony on Main Street — which will begin at 4 p.m. ET — as it has for the past two years, the Nantucket Current reported.
The local newspaper said Biden’s security entourage had been preparing the island for his visit over the past five days, with C-17 Globemasters and other aircraft delivering vehicles, equipment and supplies to the Nantucket Memorial Airport. Many Massachusetts State Police officers arrived on the island by ferry Monday, the report said, and hotels are filled with Secret Service agents, government personnel and media from outside the island.
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Rubenstein, a friend of the Bidens whose net worth is estimated at more than $3.5 billion, offered his property to the family for their Thanksgiving celebrations since at least 2021, Forbes reported. The lavish Abram’s Point coastal property includes several guest houses, a tennis court, a hot tub and a swimming pool and has a total estimated value of more than $34 million, according to the Nantucket assessor’s office .
The billionaire purchased the property in 1998 for $8 million with his ex-wife, Alice, and has since expanded the resort with five additional guest structures.
Teleprinter | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
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CG | CARLYLE GROUP | 32.39 | +0.30 | +0.93% |
Rubenstein is co-founder and co-chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, with more than $382 billion in global assets across 29 offices around the world. He is not a major political donor, but before his career in the private sector, he worked as an adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, Forbes reported. He currently serves as president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Biden’s Thanksgiving holiday on Nantucket comes after the White House helped broker a deal between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas for the release of hostages.
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Qatari negotiators also helped broker the deal, which included the Israeli military agreeing to temporarily suspend its airstrikes and ground invasion of Gaza for humanitarian purposes. Additionally, Hamas agreed to release dozens of hostages simultaneously and Israel agreed to release Palestinian prisoners at a ratio of 3 to 1. Hamas leaders said they would release one hostage for every three Palestinians released by Israel of its prisons.
Biden welcomed the release of the hostages after Hamas’s ‘brutal assault’ on Israel on October 7, saying he was “extraordinarily happy that some of these brave souls, who endured weeks of captivity and indescribable ordeal, will be reunited with their families once this agreement is fully implemented.”
FOX Business’ Peter Aitken and Landon Mion contributed to this report.