Vice President Joe Biden showed up at the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters bearing muffins Thursday morning, and greeted employees as they returned to work after the 16-day government shutdown.
“I brought some muffins!” Biden said when he arrived, placing few containers of “Coffee Cake Bites” on the EPA security desk, per a White House pool report.
The vice president spotted a sign on the desk that read, “All visitors must be escorted at all times.” Biden announced: “I’d like to be escorted!”
After the muffins sat untouched at the desk for a while, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy held them out to staff.
“Would you like a muffin? The vice president brought some muffins,” McCarthy said, per the pool report. A line formed, and Biden worried aloud: “I didn’t bring enough muffins!”
Nearly all EPA employees were furloughed during the shutdown.
McCarthy sent a memo to her staff reminding them to take down their “out of office” messages from email and voicemail Thursday morning, according to the Associated Press.
