Today the White House has confirmed that Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 – despite having received at least four injections of vaccines – after previously assuring the public that the 79-year-old did not have cancer despite his previous claims.
The White House confirmed that Biden will be “working and resting” as he battles COVID-19, and claimed that he is “experiencing very mild symptoms.” Biden has also started taking Paxlovid, the Pfizer drug that aims to lessen the extent of COVID-19 symptoms, but sometimes appears to cause the illness to lay dormant then return after the patient stops taking the drug.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is black, gay, and an immigrant, told the media that Biden “will isolate at the White House and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time,” according to CNN.
The White House confirmed that there are no current plans to transfer executive powers to vice president Kamala Harris, who tested negative today.
First Lady Dr. Jill Biden also tested negative for the virus. She told reporters that Biden is “doing fine, he’s feeling good.”
The illness has forced the White House to cancel two events, one in Pennsylvania and a second in Florida.
The news of Biden’s COVID-19 diagnoses comes less than 24 hours after the country was left confused when Biden seemed to admit he has cancer while promising to use executive action to bypass Congress and executive his climate change agenda.
At an event yesterday, Biden told the crowd that oil companies are “why I – and so damn many other people I grew up with – have cancer.”
Biden says that his mother using windshield wipers to "get literally the oil slick off the window" is "why I and so damn many other people have cancer." pic.twitter.com/YIoBlZadRJ
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 20, 2022
Eventually the White House began directing reporters to a tweet from a Washington Post columnist which claimed that Biden was using present tense to describe “non-melanoma skin cancers” he had removed in 2019, and that the 46th president does not currently have cancer.
Multiple pundits have noted that Biden used present tense to describe the cancer, and that doctors previously attributed the previous skin cancer to time Biden spent in the sun during his youth, not oil slicks on a windshield as he did yesterday.
Joe Biden is 79-years-old. If he decides to run for reelection in 2024 and wins, he would be 82 when entering his second term.