RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina welcomed its second visit this week from the Trump White House on Wednesday.

Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy Devos traveled to Raleigh in a push to encourage more K-12 schools to reopen with entirely in-person instruction.

Air Force Two touched down at Raleigh-Durham International Airport around noon.

Pence, Devos, and staff exited the plane wearing face masks. After greeting a small group of onlookers, the vice president traveled to Thales Academy where he participated in a roundtable discussion highlighting how a private school has worked to safely resume classes. On July 20, Thales Academy allowed 300 students to return to campus.

The move comes as President Donald Trump and Devos have threatened to withhold federal funding from K-12 schools that don’t allow all of their students to return to physical classrooms.

RELATED: Recap of President Trump's Visit to N.C. 

Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced earlier this month that public schools may offer a mix of both online and in-person instruction, though districts can choose to offer fully remote learning.

“We don’t respond to those kind of threats,” Cooper said in a July 14 news conference of the Trump administration’s consideration of withholding federal funds.

After his visit to Thales Academy, Pence remained in the Raleigh area to tour NCBiotech, which is conducting Phase 3 clinical trails for a coronavirus vaccine. Pence’s appearance comes two days after Trump visited Morrisville to tout the country’s progress in developing a COVID-19 vaccine under his Operation Warp Speed initiative.

The vice president’s office said on Tuesday that Pence would “discuss President Trump’s goal of making a coronavirus vaccine available to the American people as soon and as safely as possible.”