In announcing the address, President Biden said he would discuss “what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.” His physician said the president has now tested negative for Covid.
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President Biden has not been seen in public since late Wednesday, when he tested positive for Covid.
President Biden plans to address the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night to explain his decision to bow out of the presidential campaign and outline how he wants to use his final six months in office.
Mr. Biden tested negative for Covid and his “symptoms have resolved,” the White House physician said, paving the way for the president to return to Washington on Tuesday afternoon for the first time since announcing his withdrawal on social media on Sunday. He spent six days at his vacation house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., recovering from Covid and recalibrating his political future.
In a post on social media announcing that his address would be at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Mr. Biden said he would discuss “what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.” He made clear in a phone call to his old campaign headquarters on Monday that he was determined to use his remaining time in office to campaign vigorously for Vice President Kamala Harris and to advance domestic and foreign priorities. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, a phrase he used three times in four minutes.
Mr. Biden has not been seen in public since late Wednesday, when he disembarked from Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware looking frail and uncertain. He had just tested positive for Covid and was described as sick and coughing.
The White House physician said in a written statement on Tuesday that after days of treatment with Paxlovid, the president had recovered. “Over the course of his infection, he never manifested a fever, and his vital signs remained normal, to include pulse oximetry,” wrote the physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor. “His lungs remained clear” and he “continues to perform all of his presidential duties.”
While Mr. Biden said he planned to campaign for Ms. Harris, who was set to headline her first campaign rally as the putative Democratic nominee on Wednesday in Milwaukee, the president has canceled his travel schedule for the rest of the week. He plans to sit down at the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who is in Washington to address a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday.
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Source: nytimes.com
