GOP chair slams RNC for anti-Biden tweet: 'I’m disappointed'

On New Year's Eve, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were interviewed by ABC during a visit to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Republican National Committee (RNC), in a tweet posted a day later, attacked the Bidens for being away from the continental United States — an attack that angered the U.S. Virgin Islands' GOP chairman.

President Biden, during the interview, told ABC, "We're in a better position than any country in the world to lead the world. And we're coming back, and it's about time."

On X, the RNC posted, "Biden, from a beachfront mansion in the Virgin Islands, says his hope for the new year is that people 'understand' the United States is "coming back."

Gordon Ackley, who chairs the GOP in the U.S. Virgin Islands, responded with a tweet of his own — and called his RNC colleagues out.

Ackley posted, "There are a lot of things that are fair game to go after Biden. As a member of the RNC I'm disappointed in this X post by RNC staff insinuating that the Virgin Islands — an American territory — isn't part of the United States."

The U.S. Virgin Islands, like Puerto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States. The possibility of statehood for the U.S. Virgin Islands was discussed in the 1980s and 1990s, but has never come about.