The White House News

Your source for all things White House.

Politico

White House doctor says Biden well enough to resume exercise

White House physician Kevin O’ Connor said Tuesday that President Joe Biden has completed his five-day course of the Covid antiviral Paxlovid and “now feels well enough to resume his physical exercise regimen.”

Reiterating his Monday update, O’Connor said that the president’s symptoms had “almost completely resolved” with his pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remaining “absolutely normal.”

The physician did not note any lingering symptoms that the President, who tested positive for Covid late last week, is still experiencing.

Go to Source: Politico

Biden goes silent after SCOTUS gives him power to nix Trump immigration policy

Last month, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Biden administration to unwind a Trump-era policy that has forced thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, often in dangerous settings, for their U.S. court proceedings.

But having previously moved quickly to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy, the administration has suddenly decided to take its time.

The White House and Department of Homeland Security have been mum on their plans following the Supreme Court’s ruling. Immigration advocates asking about next steps have been met with a similar silence. In that void, a question has emerged: What, exactly, is the hold up?

“The bottom line is they’ve been saying they want to restore a meaningful asylum system. Well, now is their chance to show that they mean it,” said Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Their hands are no longer tied and as long as they’re no longer tied — they should make good on that promise.”

The silence from the administration is the latest tension point between the president and immigration advocates frustrated by President Joe Biden’s failure to deliver on promises he made as president and during his campaign. Advocates continue to press Biden on his pledges to reverse restrictive border policies, including “Remain in Mexico,” imposed by his predecessor. While pieces of Biden’s immigration agenda have been blocked by the courts, they argue the president has also ducked such tough issues for political expediency.

Several groups that were involved in the early efforts to wind down the policy say they have yet to be contacted in the wake of the court ruling. For example, the U.N. refugee agency, which originally played a significant role in organizing to bring asylum seekers with MPP cases into the U.S., has not been looped in any discussions so far, the organization confirmed.

“UNHCR does not have specific plans to be directly involved with the termination of the MPP and as of now we have not been approached nor have we discussed this with the U.S. administration,” an agency spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement, adding that UNHCR “will continue to work with the U.S. and other governments in the region to ensure border and asylum practices and policies are in accordance with international refugee and human rights law.”

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. But legal steps remain before the policy can officially be terminated.

The Supreme Court still has to formally send its ruling from last month down to the lower court for “Remain in Mexico” to be officially ended — a process that can take weeks.

Still, advocates argue that there’s a lot more administration officials should be doing to prepare for the end of the policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols.

Though DHS officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, have publicly and privately affirmed the policy will be terminated as planned, they have not shared details of their plans, according to several immigration advocates and civil society groups in regular contact with the administration. Those groups say government officials have not discussed what will happen to the thousands of migrants currently enrolled in MPP, waiting in Mexico as their asylum claims make their way through the backlogged U.S. immigration court system. They note, with frustration, the U.S. has continued to enroll more migrants into MPP even after the Supreme Court ruling.

Early in his presidency, Biden officials approached the issue much differently. In February 2021, the administration worked closely with international and nongovernmental groups and the Mexican government to gradually let in migrants with active MPP cases. On Biden’s first day in office, DHS announced it was suspending enrollments into the program. But late last year, Biden revived MPP in order to comply with a court order.

In a letter sent last week to the White House, more than 110 immigrant and refugee rights groups, including the ACLU and Women’s Refugee Commission, urged the Biden administration to take specific actions to unwind the policy. Among the actions demanded included ceasing the return of any migrants to Mexico under the policy.

“Anything less than a swift and principled end to Remain in Mexico will undermine the administration’s credibility; set a terrible example for other countries, including those that host the vast majority of the world’s refugees; reward and embolden efforts to stop lawful administration actions; and bolster the unfounded narratives peddled by those seeking to portray people seeking protection as threats to the United States,” the groups said in their letter.

The groups also urged the Biden administration to ask the Supreme Court to “expeditiously transmit” its decision to the lower court to speed up the formal end of the policy. In the ruling, the majority opinion specified that a DHS memo issued in October to end MPP “constituted final agency action.” In that memo, Mayorkas said the program would be terminated as soon as the lower court injunction was vacated.

The groups also urged the administration to quickly coordinate with shelters, international groups and nongovernmental organizations to build out a process so that migrants placed in MPP under both the Trump and Biden administrations could instead pursue their asylum claims from within the U.S.

Several advocates said they want to see the administration be more transparent on its plans for ending MPP and coordinate with local groups and NGOs. They also stressed quick action because of the dangers migrants enrolled in MPP face — including kidnapping and assault — the longer they wait in Mexico.

“The most important thing is to get people to safety and out of the insecurity they face in Mexico as quickly as possible,” said Katharina Obser, director of the migrant rights and justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “We strongly hope they will act with urgency here to ensure people can, in fact, fairly and humanely pursue their asylum claims … after they’ve very publicly committed to doing this.”

Go to Source: Politico

Biden’s doctor says the president’s Covid symptoms are ‘almost completely resolved’

The White House delivered another upbeat health update for President Joe Biden on Monday, four days after he tested positive for Covid.

“The President completed his fourth full day of PAXLOVID last night,” Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s doctor, wrote in a letter. “His symptoms are now almost completely resolved … His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear. ”

The President’s remaining symptoms include residual nasal congestion and minimal hoarseness, the physician’s letter noted. The president will continue the Paxlovid treatment and will stay on a low dose of aspirin as an alternative type of blood thinner.

O’Connor also reiterated that the BA.5 variant is “particularly transmissible” and that the president would continue to isolate in accordance with CDC recommendations.

Go to Source: Politico

Harris plots her next, more aggressive, volley in the abortion fights

Vice President Kamala Harris and her team plan to hit the campaign and fundraising circuit in an aggressive bid to elevate Democratic state legislators and governors on the abortion rights frontlines.

The events reflect the vice president’s expanding work on abortion policy since the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade. And, if executed, they would mark an aggressive push by the second highest Democrat in the land to get involved in races often overlooked by the national party.

“We need to make it a goal that we’re out in America three days a week,” Harris told her staff recently as they worked to figure out how much overall travel she should take through the November elections, a source familiar with the conversations said.

Already, the vice president has started executing on the state and local strategy. Last weekend, she surprised volunteers and campaign aides for Josh Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign in Pennsylvania with a visit. White House aides said the campaign had asked Harris to stop by and give a morale boost in what’s set to be a very close race in the state.

“Who is governor of this state will matter,” Harris told the crowd. “The General Assembly … [we’ve] got to turn it and elect a majority pro-choice General Assembly.”

The message echoed those she’s shared for national races, and the visit was part of what Harris aides and Democrats in state-focused organizations see as a necessary step to find ways to protect abortion rights.

For weeks, Harris has held meetings with lawmakers in states where abortion rights have been, or will be, greatly restricted. Those meetings have been a mix of listening sessions and opportunities to relay promises the administration will assist in the push back against restrictions.

But the next chapter in her strategy will get more aggressive. White House aides said the vice president is going to specifically head to red and purple states to call out “Republican extremism” on issues like abortion. On Monday, Harris will visit Indiana, as the state begins a special legislative session on abortion, the first in the nation since Roe v. Wade was overturned last month. The White House says she’ll meet with abortion rights advocates and state legislators during her trip.

On a parallel track, the White House has also taken several executive actions to try and protect access to abortion pills and give additional protections to abortion providers, as well as those who cross state lines to get the procedure. But Harris, President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders have stressed that the main remedy for the court’s decision is to elect more Democratic lawmakers who could change the laws on the books.

Harris’ direct involvement in local and state elections is something that Democrats in organizations focused on those races have sought for years from top Democrats.

“If the vice president is willing and interested in doing fundraisers down ballot we would gladly welcome it,” Jessica Post, president at the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in an interview. “We continue to trail our Republican counterparts. So having a major leader of our party out there helping with fundraising would be huge for us.”

Democrats say Harris is uniquely qualified to make the push both as the first woman vice president and a past state and local elected official herself. Allies and attendees of Harris’ legislator meetings say she has leaned on that experience to stress that “she inherently understands the stakes”of state and local elections on abortion policy.

“She’s been kind of leading the fray and just pushing that shift forward in making sure the Democrats focus on that. All too often to our detriment, we’ve put a lot of focus on federal elections,” said David Turner, communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. “We’ve seen the results in some of the key states about what can happen when we lose a state legislature or a governor or an attorney general.”

Already, Democrats say they’ve seen a gush of money pour into races across the country in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling. An official at the DLCC said it had its two best online fundraising days in the 48 hours after the decision came down, raising nearly four times what it did this time last month.

The DLCC also doubled its new donors during the second quarter of this year compared to its first (the second quarter included both the publication of the Supreme Court draft decision and the final decision). The committee also credits its role to help flip a GOP-held district in New Hampshire in 2021 to the issue of abortion rights, which it’s independent expenditure arm made a central piece of its campaign.

An aide at the DGA said the organization raised more than $200,000 on June 24, the day Roe was overturned, reflecting its best day of a two-year cycle and one of the strongest in history with more than $900,000 coming in since.

Meanwhile, the Democratic online fundraising portal Act Blue released data showing that small-dollar donors gave $20.6 million on the day Roe was overturned, “making it ActBlue’s largest day of the 2022 cycle by contributions and dollars raised.” It added that eight out of ten of the biggest days of the cycle for first-time donors occurred in the days following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe, when the draft opinion was published, and after the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Go to Source: Politico

White House doctor: Biden’s ‘symptoms continue to improve significantly’

After testing positive for Covid-19 last week, President Joe Biden’s symptoms “continue to improve significantly,” the White House physician said in a memo Sunday.

Biden finished a third day of treatment with the antiviral Paxlovid on Saturday night and his “predominant symptom now is a sore throat,” wrote Kevin O’Connor, the physician to the president. He noted that the sore throat was likely a result of Biden’s body clearing the virus, and that the previously reported nasal drip, body aches and cough have “diminished considerably.”

O’Connor also wrote that Biden was experiencing no shortness of breath and that his blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remained normal. He said the president would continue taking Tylenol, using an inhaler for his cough and hydrating.

The White House announced Thursday that the president had tested positive for the virus and was experiencing mild symptoms. Officials noted that Biden had received a second Covid booster shot.

The president, who is 79 years old, also began taking the antiviral the day of his positive test. Pfizer says Paxlovid has been shown, if taken in the first five days of symptoms, to reduce the hospitalization and death risks by 90 percent for high-risk patients.

The White House faced criticism over transparency regarding the president’s health, with Sunday news show hosts pressing Biden’s top Covid adviser on why reporters had been unable to interview the president’s physician.

“Dr. O’Connor and I are speaking multiple times a day,” Ashish Jha said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

“He’s speaking to Dr. [Anthony] Fauci. We are being very transparent, probably giving updates several times a day about how the president is doing. The president has a mild respiratory illness as of right now. And, in that context, we are making all of that information widely available every day to the American people.”

Go to Source: Politico

Biden’s Covid condition continues to improve, White House physician says

President Joe Biden is continuing to suffer symptoms of Covid infection but his condition is improving, the White House physician said in a letter Saturday.

The president’s symptoms, which include sore throat, loose cough and body aches, are “less troublesome,” Kevin O’Connor wrote.

Biden’s pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature are normal, the letter said. The president’s oxygen saturation is “excellent” and his lungs remain clear, O’Connor noted, and he is not experiencing any shortness of breath.

Biden has completed his second full day of Paxlovid treatment for a likely BA5 variant infection, the letter said.

The president is “responding to therapy as expected,” which includes outpatient treatment, according to the letter. Biden will continue to isolate in accordance with CDC guidelines.

Go to Source: Politico

White House delivers positive update on Biden’s Covid case

The White House on Friday delivered an upbeat update on President Joe Biden’s health, taking the opportunity to attribute his so-far mild bout with Covid to his vaccination status and treatment while encouraging other Americans to use these same tools if they catch the virus.

The president said he’s still putting in eight-plus hour days during his isolation period and was feeling better, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha, joining the press secretary at the podium, said he FaceTimed with Biden on Friday, noting the president was in good spirits. Jha said he has also had multiple calls with the physician to the president, Kevin O’Connor.

“The president is doing better. He slept well last night. He ate his breakfast and lunch — fully. He actually showed me his plate,” Jha said to some laughs, as a reporter asked what was on the menu. “He joked that his one regret was that his appetite had not changed. Look, he was — he is — in a very good mood.”

The update from the briefing room comes during the president’s first full day of isolation in the White House residence after testing positive for Covid on Thursday. The positive news on Biden’s case tracks with O’Connor’s letter Friday morning, which reported an improved status.

The timing of Biden’s positive test also occurs as the administration has sought to project a new phase in the pandemic fight, one in which the country would learn to largely live with and manage the virus. Friday’s briefing bolstered that messaging, as Jean-Pierre passed along words she said were directly from the president. “It matters,” Biden said, reminding Americans to get vaccinated.

“Look, the president hopes the country will see that while we should continue to take Covid very seriously, we have the tools we need to deal with this. President Biden is benefiting from two vaccines, two boosters, and he’s advocating for every American to take advantage of these vaccines and boosters,” Jean-Pierre said.

The president’s temperature rose slightly on Thursday night to 99.4 degrees Fahrenheit, which went down after he took some Tylenol for “discomfort.” He has completed his first round of Paxlovid, but still has a runny nose, some fatigue and now a “non-productive, now loose cough” the doctor’s letter said. His blood pressure and oxygen levels remain normal — though Jha didn’t provide specifics on what these numbers were.

“He gets all of his vitals checked several times a day,” Jha said. “He’s not short of breath. He’s breathing fine.”

Biden has begun a small course of Aspirin as an alternative to his blood thinners while taking Paxlovid, Jha said. And due to Biden’s past experience with asthma, he is using an inhaler as needed — something Biden has used in the past when he gets colds or respiratory illnesses, Jha said.

Before the briefing, Biden participated in an economic meeting, which Jean-Pierre pointed to as part of the “active” schedule the president is maintaining.

His symptoms were noticeable during his remarks at the top of the virtual briefing. As O’Connor reported in his letter, Biden’s voice was a touch deeper, and he occasionally had to clear his throat while speaking. Before the press was escorted from the room, the president unwrapped and took what appeared to be a cough drop and gave a thumbs up to reporters when asked how he felt.

“I feel much better than I sound,” Biden said.

The White House medical unit has notified 17 people who are considered close contacts of the president per CDC guidance, the White House press secretary said. This includes White House senior staff and Massachusetts lawmakers who traveled with the president this week. So far, none of these contacts have disclosed positive tests.

O’Connor will continue to release detailed updates on the president’s health throughout the weekend, Jean-Pierre said, and the press will be notified of any changes in Biden’s condition. Journalists in the briefing room pressed the White House on why O’Connor hasn’t been made available for questioning.

“We feel that Dr. O’Connor’s statements and his detailed report on a situation, as the doctor just said is mild, very mild … is enough,” Jean-Pierre said. “We’ve answered this question many times.”

Go to Source: Politico

Biden world not looking to change things up after POTUS’ Covid infection

President Joe Biden’s coronavirus diagnosis may have disrupted his day. But it’s not giving the White House any pause about how it’s handled the pandemic threat that still looms over his presidency.

White House officials on Thursday struck a defiant tone in the face of questions about Biden’s health and their own Covid protocols, downplaying the risks facing the president and dismissing fresh concerns about their approach to a virus that’s killed more than a million Americans — and is surging across the country once again.

In a briefing just hours after Biden tested positive, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rejected suggestions the White House should step up its Covid precautions. She dismissed the need for tighter masking requirements and refused to say whether others in the West Wing had come down with the disease.

As for where Biden might have picked up the virus over a seven-day stretch that included trips both domestic and abroad? “I don’t think that matters,” Jean-Pierre said.

“We knew this was going to happen,” she added later. “There’s been no change to our protocol.”

The decision by the White House to treat the infection of the world’s most powerful man with a still-deadly disease as a mere nuisance underscores the advancements health care professionals have made in the Covid fight. It also echoes a larger political calculation the president’s team has made to treat the pandemic as an unfortunate by manageable part of life — one now impacting the president himself.

Biden has so far experienced only mild symptoms and continued to work in the White House residence, aides said — a point the president himself reiterated in statements and a video.

But while Biden and his team toggled between an aura of defiance and nonchalance, health experts wondered whether they had missed an opportunity to refocus the public’s attention and concern at a time when hospitalizations from the disease have risen sharply and few counties are following guidance to implement indoor mask wearing.

“They need to up their game in terms of masking,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist who advised Biden’s transition team on the pandemic, adding that this represents perhaps the highest-profile reinforcement of the virus’ contagiousness. “Obviously someone who tested negative came in contact with him and converted, so it’s highly infectious.”

White House aides and health experts long viewed Biden’s Covid diagnosis as an eventuality, especially as the various Omicron sub-variants proved they could dodge the immunity provided by vaccines. Aides shifted their public messaging to reflect the changing reality. Their new tenor was that it was indeed possible — maybe even likely — that Biden would suffer a breakthrough case, but would recover well, emphasizing that the vaccines are effective enough to ward off the worst effects, and that beyond that, he has access to round-the-clock medical care.

That, too, was their broader message to the American people: that COVID was not vanishing but it could be managed. The White House did not want to entertain reinstating significant restrictions unless absolutely necessary, believing that the public had pandemic fatigue.

“Because the president is fully vaccinated, double boosted, his risk of serious illness is dramatically lower,” White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha told reporters at Thursday’s briefing. “It’s a reminder of the reason that we all work so hard to make sure that every American has the same level of protection.”

Still, the White House has done its best to limit Biden’s risk. Meetings in the West Wing are often masked and socially distanced, and visitors must test negative before meeting with the 79-year-old president, the nation’s oldest.

But Biden also wanted to project as best he could that both he and the country were back at work. And always a tactile, grip-and-grin politician, he deeply hated being isolated from political friends and regular Americans and urged his staff to start hosting events at the White House and to increase his travel, according to two officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

He embarked on a four-day trip overseas last week and then traveled Wednesday to Massachusetts for a speech. Three Democratic lawmakers from the state — Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Jake Auchincloss — flew with him aboard Air Force One on that Massachusetts trip, along with several aides. Auchincloss later posted a photo from the flight showing the two of them maskless. Biden also greeted and shook hands with dozens of attendees following his speech.

The White House itself had relaxed its protocols over the last several months, dropping its mandatory mask requirements and Covid-prompted attendance limits for its press briefings.

The more relaxed approach that was gradually adopted angered some health experts who believe the administration should be doing far more to break the pattern of Covid and protect vulnerable groups. Biden raised eyebrows by largely eschewing a mask in public events. And in June, Jean-Pierre faced blowback for refusing to detail Biden’s testing regimen. The White House has also limited its disclosure of Covid cases among others in the building, notifying the public on only a handful of occasions where senior aides had tested positive.

On Thursday, Jean-Pierre rejected suggestions that Biden’s personal doctor, Kevin O’Connor, needed to take questions directly from the press about the president’s condition.

“We are doing this very differently,” she said. “And we’re going to continue to provide information for all of you.”

But behind the scenes, White House aides say a concern about the newest variant of Covid-19 has pushed aides, including those who meet with the president, to wear masks more often in recent weeks. Aides seen by reporters in the press office Thursday were masked after the president’s diagnosis, though they say there was no directive to do so.

Under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s current guidelines, Biden’s close contacts will not have to quarantine as long as they’re not showing symptoms. But they should wear a mask any time they’re around other people for the next 10 days, according to the agency, and isolate immediately if they develop any symptoms.

Biden himself received the antiviral pill Paxlovid immediately following his positive test to cut down even more on his chances of developing severe symptoms. His personal doctor also plans to provide daily public updates on his condition.

Beyond his personal health, Biden’s diagnosis represents just the latest inconvenience for a president already struggling to quell whispers within his own party over whether he should run again in 2024. And it serves as an untimely reminder that the White House has largely failed in its quest to end the pandemic.

Eugene Daniels contributed to this report.

Go to Source: Politico