Obamas surprise White House visitors

Obama with wife

President Obama and the First Lady have surprised visitors to the White House as tours resumed after seven months,Skynews reports.

The Obamas, along with their dogs Bo and Sunny, personally greeted delighted families as they filed through the building, where guided tours had been halted by budget cuts in March.

Mrs Obama told one family, “We are so glad you are here. We are so glad they’re (the tours) back.”

President Obama told a smartly-dressed eight-year-old boy that he looked “raffish” with a pocket square he was wearing.

And he joked with a girl of four that he had only missed her recent birthday party because he was busy with the government shutdown.

The president asked another girl if he had more grey hair than a waxwork of him she had seen earlier on her trip.

The tours, which were cut back as part of sequestration cuts, are returning for three days a week instead of five.

The US Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting the president and White House, said last March that cancelling the tours was necessary so officers normally responsible for securing the tours could be reassigned to other security posts at the White House.

That move reduced overtime costs and the number of days off the Secret Service faced as a result of the budget cuts.

The current tour schedule is guaranteed until January 15, when a budget deal to keep the US government going expires.

Source: Punch