Politico

President Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid, the White House said on Thursday, raising concerns about his immediate health and underscoring the pandemic’s persistent shadow over his presidency.

The White House said that Biden, who is fully vaccinated and doubly boosted, was experiencing “very mild” symptoms. He has also begun taking Paxlovid.

“Consistent with CDC guidelines, he will isolate at the White House and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

President Joe Biden said, “The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now,” when asked Wednesday whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should take a planned trip to Taiwan, according to pool reports.

“But I don’t know what the status of it is,” the president said. Biden also said he expects to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping in the next 10 days.

Pelosi was planning to visit Taiwan next month, according to two sources. It would be the first visit to the country by a House speaker since Newt Gingrich in 25 years. It’s not clear if Biden’s words will lead to Pelosi canceling or rescheduling her trip.

The trip would come amid tensions between the United States and China near the island, weeks after a Chinese fighter jet had an “unsafe” interaction with a U.S. aircraft over the South China Sea.

Beijing opposes Pelosi visiting the island. A spokesperson for their Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the trip would harshly impact U.S.-China relations.

“It would seriously violate the one-China principle and the stipulations in the three China-U.S. joint communiqués and harm China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Tuesday.

China has considered Taiwan part of its territory since Mao Zedong established a communist state on the mainland in 1949 and nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. The U.S. did not recognize the mainland’s government until the 1970s; since then, American governments have had awkward, indirect relationships with Taiwan.

White House officials plotting the administration’s post-Roe response are weighing a narrow public health directive aimed at safeguarding nationwide access to abortion pills, three people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.

The Biden team has zeroed in on that authority in recent days. They consider it the most feasible of the White House’s limited options for protecting abortion rights, and have concluded that it could have the most immediate on-the-ground impact while also quelling Democrats’ demands for stronger action.

The proposal would rely on powers under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act reserved for public health emergencies to shield doctors, pharmacies and others from liability for providing abortion pills to people across the country — even those who live in states that have outlawed or severely restricted the procedure.

Prominent Democrats and reproductive rights organizations have pressed the administration to use the authority in the weeks since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. And some White House officials have come to view it as a preferred alternative to the expansive public health emergency declaration favored by progressives, because it represents a more limited and better-targeted use of the president’s executive power.

Yet such a move still faces deep skepticism from senior aides who are unconvinced it would survive the inevitable legal challenges, and who worry conservative judges will seize on any opportunity to further limit President Joe Biden’s executive power.

“It’s the only one that’s had a reasonably decent amount of support [internally],” one of the people familiar with the discussions said of a PREP Act declaration. “But there’s no one that’s gung ho.”

A White House spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the PREP Act debate, saying only that the administration is considering any measures that might “provide meaningful help to women seeking reproductive health care, including abortions.”

“President Biden is going to do everything he can within his legal authority to make sure we continue to protect women’s rights,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The White House has stressed repeatedly that it has little power to singlehandedly preserve abortion rights, arguing instead that the only way to restore Roe’s protections is to elect more Democrats to Congress, who could then pass legislation codifying a right to an abortion. What unilateral steps it has taken have been carefully calibrated and tempered by fears over the legal implications.

But the administration is under intense pressure from congressional Democrats and party activists to take more aggressive action in the interim — arguing that at the very least, it’s politically important for Biden to show he’s doing all he can to fight the court’s ruling.

After Democratic lawmakers and prominent reproductive rights groups coalesced earlier this month around a demand that the White House declare abortion access a public health emergency, Biden agreed to re-examine the idea. He also declared he would support waiving the Senate’s filibuster rules to allow for passage of legislation on abortion rights.

Top White House aides had previously dismissed the prospect of a broad public health emergency, citing concerns that it wouldn’t provide enough new resources or flexibilities to promote abortion access while inviting lawsuits that could hamstring the government’s ability to respond to a range of future health crises.

Those objections still stand. But the potential for a PREP Act declaration emerged as an alternative.

“It gives a narrow but very discrete power that the administration wants, which is to protect dispensers of abortion medication,” the person familiar with the discussions said.

Senate Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey have urged the administration to deploy the authority, noting its frequent past use — most recently to shield manufacturers of Covid drugs and treatments from legal liability.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has also been a chief advocate for using the PREP Act, pressing its case in public and in private discussions with administration officials. The group has argued that it would preempt state law to shore up national protections for what’s become the most popular method of abortion.

More than half of all U.S. abortions in 2020 were done with pills, rather than surgery, according to a survey from the abortion rights group Guttmacher Institute.

Even so, no decision to move ahead with the declaration has been made. Aides and outside legal advisers have cautioned against expecting the courts to side with the Biden administration if the choice is to grant expansive federal powers or protect states’ rights. Skeptical officials also question how long the PREP Act would remain in place for abortion, given that other public health emergencies typically come to an end and restoring national abortion access is almost assuredly a long-term proposition for Democrats.

“They’re under enormous pressure,” the person familiar with the discussions said. “The majority of people still don’t think it’s a good idea. But they’re not taking it off the table.”

President Joe Biden on Tuesday issued an executive order aimed at repatriating American hostages and other U.S. citizens wrongfully detained abroad.

The action allows federal agencies to impose consequences — such as financial sanctions — on parties involved in hostage-taking or wrongful detentions; authorizes parts of the U.S. government to share relevant information with families regarding the individuals’ status and U.S. efforts to secure their release or return; and taps experts to develop strategies to deter future hostage-taking and wrongful detentions.

The administration also announced that it was adding a “D” indicator to the State Department’s travel advisories, alerting American travelers of the risk of wrongful detention by a foreign government.

“This additional risk indicator will highlight the elevated risk that Americans face in particular countries and provide Americans with comprehensive safety and security information with which to make informed travel decisions,” a senior administration official said.

The moves come as Americans imprisoned overseas from Russia to China make headlines — putting pressure on the administration to take action.

Advocates have repeatedly called for the release of WNBA all-star Brittney Griner, who has been detained in Russia since February on cannabis possession charges. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, this month, after she wrote a letter to the White House asking Biden to do more to bring the American basketball player home.

The administration has faced increasing pressure on China, too. Family members last month urged the Biden administration to push the government in China for the release of Americans jailed there.

Dui Hua Foundation, a nonprofit prisoner-release advocacy group, estimates that 200 Americans are arbitrarily detained in China, with as many as 30 who are subject to unlawful exit bans. While administration officials have said that securing their release is a priority, lawmakers and family members have called on the administration to be tougher in its approach — either by brokering Americans’ release through prisoner swaps or by making bilateral issues such as tariffs and trade conditional with their freedom.

The administration noted on Tuesday that the executive order was “informed” by frequent communications with these families and other stakeholders working to secure the release of their loved ones.

Phelim Kine contributed to this report. 

President Joe Biden came face-to-face with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday and exchanged a fist bump with the kingdom’s de facto ruler, marking perhaps the most closely watched moment yet of the American president’s trip to the Middle East this week.

Neither Saudi Arabia’s King Salman nor the crown prince were in attendance at King Abdulaziz International Airport to meet Biden following Air Force One’s landing in the port city of Jeddah. Instead, Biden was received by various other Saudi officials including the governor of the country’s Mecca Province and the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

But upon Biden’s arrival at Al Salam Royal Palace, where he was scheduled to participate in a meeting with the king, the crown prince was on hand to greet the president as he stepped out of his vehicle. Biden and bin Salman then fist-bumped one another before walking inside.

That brief public interaction between the two leaders had been highly anticipated ahead of the Saudi leg of Biden’s Middle East trip. It was all the more notable after White House officials told reporters on Wednesday that Biden would seek to limit his handshaking while abroad as a precautionary measure amid an increase in cases of Covid-19 variants.

Still, Biden shook hands with and embraced several Israeli and Palestinian officials prior to arriving in Saudi Arabia, prompting speculation over how the president planned to address the crown prince — whom Biden pledged to make an international pariah during the 2020 presidential campaign.

Biden has weathered significant scrutiny for his decision to visit Saudi Arabia considering his past criticisms of the kingdom and the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Last February, the Biden administration made public a U.S. intelligence report which found that bin Salman approved the operation that led to Khashoggi’s killing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where Saudi operatives brutally murdered the U.S. resident and dismembered his body.

JERUSALEM — In a small step he hopes pays off big, President Joe Biden has proposed a series of initiatives to mend America’s ties with Palestinians that the Trump administration relished in cutting.

After spending the last two days in Israel, Biden will travel to the West Bank for a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, and to visit a hospital in East Jerusalem.

Former President Donald Trump ended nearly all aid to Palestinians three years ago and fully sided with Israel’s positions in the decades-long dispute over a two-state solution.

That left Biden the enormous task of restoring Ramallah’s faith in Washington while breathing life into a peace process nearing death.

The $316 million in support the White House announced Thursday night is an effort to do both of those things.

A $201 million chunk is for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, which provides refugee services in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and more. Trump ended the decades-long assistance in 2018, which critics at the time argued was decided to place pressure on Palestinians to reach a peace deal with Israelis. The move blew a budgetary hole in the agency as the U.S. accounts for about 30 percent of its funding. But with this new aid, the Biden administration ups its total provided to $618 million since the start of 2021.

The administration also proposed a multi-year contribution of $100 million for the East Jerusalem Hospitals Network, which provides medical care ranging from oncological care to emergency services for 50,000 local patients — though the funding would require authorization from Congress. Israel will also help Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza achieve 4G connectivity by the end of next year, per the fact sheet, while the U.S. will provide $15 million in humanitarian assistance to ward off dwindling food supplies due to the war in Ukraine.

Beyond that, the U.S. aims to build on a call between Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Abbas last week — the first leader-to-leader chat in five years — by fostering closer people-to-people ties. Biden will tell the Palestinian leader that Israel wants to reconvene the Joint Economic Committee, which hasn’t met since 2009, to discuss a slew of issues that affect Palestinians every day, and in addition increase the number of work permits to residents of Gaza. The U.S. will also send over $7 million in grant money to programs that promote Israeli-Palestinian collaboration and exchanges.

While this all falls short of, say, reopening a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem that Trump closed, the moves are the Biden team’s attempt at showing initial good faith. “There was really no connection whatsoever, no discussions with the Palestinians when the new administration team took over, a senior administration official told reporters on a briefing call about the initiatives. “We have worked to re-establish a lot of those connections.”

The question is if the offerings could lead to renewed peace talks.

Some analysts are skeptical and suggest that the announcements and visits are empty gestures. “The administration has made clear they are deprioritizing the Palestinian issue. The meeting with Abbas is a courtesy call, nothing more,” said Khaled Elgindy, director of the program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. “I don’t see peace talks on the horizon, but I could be wrong.”

One complication is Abbas himself. He hasn’t stood for election since 2006, the year voters put Hamas in power in Gaza, out of fear a similar result could dislodge him. It’s unclear that he could be the one to deliver a set of agreements and compromises that Palestinians would broadly accept.

“Abbas is too weak and lacks the legitimacy to negotiate a conflict-ending peace deal, much less deliver on it,” said Elgindy, who served as an adviser to Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009. “While Abbas could theoretically participate in negotiations” — which he did in 2013-2014 — “he does not have the legitimacy or the capacity to sign a peace deal.”

Furthermore, Israelis are in the midst of more political chaos after the government’s collapse last month. The country is headed for its fifth election in under four years, and the polls show yet another toss-up. That opens the possibility for a return to power for Benjamin Netanyahu, an antagonist to a peace deal that isn’t lopsided in Israel’s favor.

In the meantime, Lapid, the caretaker premier, can’t move the process along unless he wins a strong mandate in the November election. But he did show support for a two-state solution while standing alongside Biden at a Thursday news conference in Jerusalem.

“A two-state solution is a guarantee for a strong democratic state of Israel with a Jewish majority,” Lapid said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has rarely shied away from criticizing the U.S. government and, specifically, President Joe Biden.

That was evident on Tuesday when López Obrador sat next to his American counterpart at the White House and spent nearly 30 minutes rattling off thinly veiled barbs over everything from U.S. immigration policy to gas prices along with “grievances that are not really easy to forget with time or with good wishes.”

Biden acknowledged many of the points López Obrador made. But he also dismissed reports about tension between the two leaders.

“You and I have a strong and productive relationship and, I would argue, a partnership,” Biden told López Obrador.

The exchange was indicative of a U.S.-Mexico relationship that remains strained — even as Biden has opted for diplomacy where his predecessor used insults and threats. During his administration, former President Donald Trump had constantly touted plans to build a border wall and threatened tariffs if Mexico didn’t work harder to stop migrants from trying to cross it. The 45th president regularly showed his disdain for America’s neighbor to the south.

That was then. Now, Biden needs López Obrador’s cooperation to tackle global inflation along with a host of other issues, including addressing the record number of migrants making the trek to the U.S. And the Mexican president seems to know it.

“López Obrador has learned after three and a half years in the presidency what he can get away with in the relationship with the U.S. that shows his distance and yet doesn’t break the relationship,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, emphasizing close cooperation even if the “rhetoric is less warm.”

“And the reality is immigration is a very politically sensitive topic that Biden needs to deal with Mexico on,” he said. “He’s also trying to keep allies close at a time when the world order is shifting because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

López Obrador’s visit to the White House came a month after the Mexican president, known by his initials AMLO, snubbed Biden by boycotting the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles because the U.S. did not invite the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Several Central American leaders followed suit and did not attend the summit either.

Just last week, the Mexican leader said he would campaign to tear down the Statue of Liberty if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was extradited and convicted of criminal charges by U.S. authorities. He’s also previously called U.S. support for Ukraine in the war with Russia a major mistake.

On a policy level, the relationship between the two neighboring countries has gotten more complicated under Biden. Selee explained that Trump’s priority was always clear: for Mexico to stop migrants before they got to the border. Under Biden, however, the two countries have discussed a “more nuanced set of policy objectives” with Biden asking for help stopping migrants while also stressing the need for humanitarian protections and ways to tackle the pressures that force people to migrate.

Still, like Trump, the president has leaned on Mexico in efforts to curb the number of migrants heading to the border. In the first quarter of 2022, the Mexican government detained almost double the number of migrants as it did in the same time period last year.

Some of the concrete outcomes from the meeting included commitments to launch a working group on labor migration pathways and worker protections and establish a task force to “disrupt the flow of fentanyl into our countries,” according to a joint statement from Biden and López Obrador. The administration also touted a commitment from Mexico to invest $1.5 billion on border infrastructure over the next two years.

López Obrador, for his part, said he was happy to return to the White House, and that the U.S. could “count on our support and solidarity always.” The Mexican leader had his first face-to-face meeting with Biden in November as part of the North American Leaders’ Summit.

Biden’s approach toward Mexico — with his diplomatic tone and longer list of policy priorities — has largely differed from Trump.

Following his election in 2018, López Obrador had surprised many by forging a seemingly positive relationship with Trump, in spite of his repeated threats and criticism of Mexico. The Mexican leader went so far as to call Trump a friend. He was one of the last foreign leaders to congratulate Biden after the 2020 election.

But while Biden certainly needs López Obrador to address irregular migration, the Mexican leader needs Biden, too, note former U.S. officials and experts on the region.

“López Obrador isn’t doing us any favors. It’s in his interest, too,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the think tank Council of the Americas. “It’s not a good look for Mexico that everyone is trying to leave the country. And it’s not a good look that Central Americans are traveling through Mexico unhindered to get to the U.S. What does that say about your security activities and your ability to control your territory?”

Farnsworth added that Biden is facing a balancing act in how to respond to López Obrador’s criticism, noting that both countries need to always maintain close cooperation but letting repeated slights pass sends the wrong signal to the region. Multiple diplomats throughout Latin America have taken notice of how Biden has responded to leaders who have been vocally critical of him, Farnsworth added.

It sends the message that “the best way to get the U.S.’ attention is to treat us poorly and then you’ll get an invitation to the White House,” Farnsworth said. “That’s the wrong incentive.”

A left-wing group that worked in 2020 to persuade progressives to support President Joe Biden is now preparing to turn on him, organizers told POLITICO, with plans to launch a public pressure campaign to block his renomination in 2024.

The effort, by RootsAction.org, is the latest sign of unrest among Democrats about Biden, whose job approval rating has cratered during a punishing midterm election year. RootsAction, with an email list of about 1.2 million people in the United States, said it plans to spend six figures on a “#DontRunJoe” campaign, with digital ads starting in early nominating states on Nov. 9, one day after the midterm elections.

Though prominent Democrats have said they will support Biden if he seeks reelection — as Biden has said he plans to do — rank-and-file Democrats appear far less unified, roiling the party halfway through the midterm year. According to a New York Times/Sienna College poll released on Monday, nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters say they want someone else to be the party’s nominee in 2024.

“Unfortunately, President Biden has been neither bold nor inspiring,” RootsAction said in a prepared statement shared first with POLITICO. “And his prospects for winning re-election appear to be bleak. With so much at stake, making him the Democratic Party’s standard bearer in 2024 would be a tragic mistake.”

It’s possible that Biden, if he runs in 2024, would quickly coalesce support from throughout the party. He accomplished that in 2020, largely winning over progressives after defeating Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), among other liberals, in the primary. Sanders, the progressive icon RootsAction initially supported, has said he will support Biden if he runs again.

But Biden appears far weaker today than he did following his defeat of Donald Trump. His job approval rating has fallen below 39 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average, worse than Trump’s at this point in his presidency. And confidence in Biden has been waning among young voters and people of color, key Democratic constituencies.

Manuel Oliver, the father of a victim of a mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., interrupted President Joe Biden on Friday during a White House speech marking the passage of the first major gun legislation in more than a decade.

“You have to do more,” Oliver could be heard shouting from the audience during Biden’s remarks celebrating the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which provides funding for crisis intervention and mandates due process procedures for states with red flag laws.

Manuel, who lost his 17-year-old son Joaquin Oliver in 2018, called on the president to open a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and appoint a gun czar.

“You have to open an office in the White House. Name a director,” he can be heard saying. Much of his shouting was inaudible at the outdoor event hosted on the White House’s South Lawn.

The president responded to Oliver’s demands, responding that “we have one” in response to the call for a federal office dedicated to gun violence. But the president acknowledged that more needs to be done to prevent mass shootings and said “let him talk” before Oliver was escorted out by White House security.

“This legislation is real progress but more has to be done. The provision of this new legislation is going to save lives and it’s proof that today’s politics we can come together on a bipartisan basis and get important things done. Even on an issue as tough as guns.”

Oliver has been on the front lines of gun-control activism since losing his son in 2018, and was among other gun control activists who criticized the bill, arguing it does not go far enough to prevent mass shootings.

“It’s been a while that I’ve been calling out that using the words ‘celebration,’ getting together, it’s like we’re going to a party, to a wedding today, you know, we all received invitations. And meanwhile, you can see these mothers in Uvalde that just saw how their kids were massacred inside a school,” Oliver said in an interview with CNN on Monday.

“I really wish there was more in this package of bills and I will do everything whatever I can to get more in this package of bills. … We are celebrating and getting together in the White House. There’s no space for that word.”