For the first time in history, a woman has assumed the acting president of the United States. Joe Biden, 78, has temporarily transferred executive power this Friday to Vice President Kamala Harris due to a routine procedure to which the Democrat who has him sedated, and therefore unable to make decisions, is being subjected. The White House has reported that it will share a written summary of the president’s physical examination this Friday afternoon.
“The vice president will work from her office in the west wing during this time,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. It is routine for the vice president to assume presidential powers while the president undergoes a medical procedure that requires anesthesia, but as Harris is the first woman to number two, has made history. Psaki recalled the cases of 2002 and 2007, when then-President George W. Bush also underwent a routine colonoscopy and Vice President Dick Cheney temporarily took office.
Biden arrived first thing in the morning at Walter Reed Military Hospital for his annual physical exam the day before his 79th birthday. The Democratic president is the oldest person to occupy the Oval Office and, although in Washington there is a question about whether he will run for re-election in 2024, he has cleared up the doubts by ensuring that he will compete again.
Earlier this year, former President Donald Trump’s former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, hinted that the Republican underwent a “very common procedure” during which “a patient is sedated,” but kept it a secret to avoid hand over presidential power to his then vice president, Mike Pence. He also didn’t “want to be the butt of a joke” on evening entertainment shows for undergoing an operation that occurred at Walter Reed Military Hospital in 2019, Grisham added in the book I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the House. Trump White.
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