Country star John Rich has questioned video footage shared online of President Joe Biden vacationing on a beach in Delaware.
Biden, who announced in July that he was stepping down from his reelection efforts and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place on the Democratic ticket, has been on vacation with first lady Jill Biden over the past several days.
After making an appearance at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, the president spent some time in California before jetting off to his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
On Wednesday, the New York Post published photos of Biden relaxing on the North Shores as he vacationed with his wife and two of her sisters. The photos showed the back of the president as he sat on a beach chair.
The Post shared video footage of the beach trip on X, formerly Twitter, where it caught Rich's attention. A frequent critic of Biden and a supporter of Donald Trump, the musician questioned what he perceived to be a missing element.
"Why is there no secret service around the President of the United States of America??" Rich wrote. "Is he the POTUS or not? Is the Commander In Chief of the most powerful military in history just sitting on a beach waving at passerby's? With no security? Cmon man...something ain't right."
The post has garnered more than 200,000 views. Newsweek has contacted a representative of Biden via email for comment.
While a host of X users agreed with Rich's questions, one said the Secret Service "is probably there, but we can't see them in this video."
"They were probably off in the distance not looking at people with rifles on rooftops," Rich responded, in reference to the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Secret Service has faced criticism over its security protocols after Thomas Matthew Crooks made his way onto a nearby roof armed with an AR-15-style firearm and shot at Trump during a campaign rally. Crooks also flew a drone around the rally site hours before Trump was due to speak there. Secret Service agents killed him soon after he opened fire.
In an August interview, Biden said he dropped out of the presidential race after receiving pressure from congressional Democrats. The calls for him to step down increased dramatically after his poor debate performance against Trump in June.
"The polls we had showed it was a neck-and-neck race. It would have been down to the wire," the president told CBS News' Robert Costa.
"But what happened was, a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races," Biden added. "And I was concerned that if I stayed in the race that would be the topic you'd be interviewing me about ... And I thought it would be a real distraction."
Biden, 81, added that when he ran in 2020, he intended to be a "transition president" but "things got moving for me so quickly." He continued: "I can't even say how old I am. It's hard for me to get it outta my mouth."
On Labor Day, the president is expected to hit the campaign trail with Harris in Pittsburgh, marking their first campaign appearance together since she landed the nomination.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are set to face Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, in the polls on November 5.
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