With Cameras Rolling, an Uneasy and Isolated Capitol Receives Biden

April 28, 2021 by Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON — If this were a normal year, Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, might have spent hours leading up to President Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress camped out in the House chamber among a small but determined tribe of lawmakers known as “aisle hogs.”

Their goal, on one of Washington’s biggest nights, is usually to score the handful of seats smack in the middle of the political mosh pit best positioned for shaking hands with the president — and being seen on national television — as he parades in and out. Mr. Cohen, an avid sports fan, once even got President George W. Bush to sign a Memphis Tigers hat on his way down the aisle.

But on Wednesday morning, as congressional leaders prepared for a very abnormal pandemic-era speech, neither Mr. Cohen nor any other lawmaker was anywhere in sight. House leaders had locked the chamber shut, blocked off coveted aisle seats to prevent crowding and drastically slashed attendance to about 200 people, from the usual 1,600.

Those without tickets were urged to stay far away as the Secret Service and National Guard members placed the Capitol on a secure lockdown for the first joint session of Congress since Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the building and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.

their formal rebuttal to Mr. Biden’s speech, was characteristically calm as he flitted around the Capitol between prep sessions. His regimen for the big night: “Lots of ice cream and cookies and sitting on the couch, hanging out a little bit.”

The sparse numbers may have been for the best. Security was tight for visitors trying to get through the ring of fencing that has encircled the Capitol building since the January attack and the thousands of National Guard troops patrolling the perimeter. And though the architect of the Capitol moved a metal detector installed outside the House chamber to spare Mr. Biden the indignity of passing through it, other attendees were funneled through secure checkpoints.

Between the added layers of security and health protocols, there was no room for the usual crowds of guests invited by the president, the first lady and members of Congress to sit in the chamber. Representative Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 4 House Democrat, was among those who invited a guest from her district to join her virtually instead, an experience she conceded was nothing like the thrill of being physically present in the Capitol.

“It’s a good refresher of how incredible it is to work in this building, to see these iconic figures that you work with and get used to, when you see it through someone’s eyes, like a guest,” she said.

The few lawmakers who got to attend in person got more access to the president than even the most ambitious aisle hogs do in normal years. After Mr. Biden ended his speech and the applause had subsided, he lingered as he made his way out of the chamber. As Democrats and a few Republicans swarmed him and snapped photos, the president offered fist bumps and leaned in for quiet conversations, savoring his final moments in the chamber even as his security detail urged him onward.

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