President Joe Biden on Thursday called the impact from the California wildfires "outstanding" and said the "only one piece of good news" was that the Los Angeles home of his son Hunter appears to be "still standing."
"There's only one piece of good news. My son lives out here and his wife," Biden said Thursday during the remarks from the Santa Monica Fire Station.
"Their — they got a notification yesterday that their home is probably burned to the ground. Today, it appears that maybe it's still standing. We're not sure."
"But the good news is: I'm a great-grandfather as of today. My eldest granddaughter. A 10-pound, 4-ounce baby girl — baby boy. So I'm going to remember this day for a lot of the wrong reasons. But anyway," he added.
Biden canceled the final overseas trip of his presidency just hours before he was set to depart for Rome and the Vatican, choosing to remain in Washington to monitor the response to devastating fires raging in California.
The announcement of the trip's cancellation came just hours after Biden departed Los Angeles after meeting his first great-grandchild, who was born Wednesday at an area hospital. He received a briefing from local fire officials before returning to Washington as smoke and ash from blazes raging in the area clouded the daytime sky.
The large Palisades fire sparked Tuesday morning as Biden was in Los Angeles, and the high winds that helped fuel its massive spread forced the president to scrub a planned visit to Thermal to announce two new national monuments.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.