HARRIS 1ST WOMAN TO SERVE AS ACTING PRESIDENT
Physician deems Biden fit after ‘routine physical’
Kamala Harris on Friday became the first woman to serve as acting president of the United States, as President Joe Biden was briefly placed under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy.
Biden underwent the procedure at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Friday morning as part of a physical. Harris was acting president for about an hour and 25 minutes, according to the White House.
Biden was deemed “fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency” by his physician following a “routine physical.”
Biden arrived at the hospital shortly before 9 a.m. and sent the letters to Pelosi and Leahy at 10:10 a.m., according to the White House; he spoke with Harris when he resumed his duties at around 11:35 a.m.
Harris worked “from her office in the West Wing during this time,” the White House said.
At a Friday press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that in selecting a vice president, Biden was “selecting someone who could serve by your side as your partner, but also step in if there was a reason
to.”
“We also know we make history every time they’re working together, every time she’s out there speaking on behalf of the government as the vice president of the United States,” Psaki added. “But certainly, today was another chapter in that history, I think, that will be noted for many women [and] young girls across the country.”
Harris is only the third vice president in U.S. history to serve as acting president.
In July 1985, President Ronald Reagan transferred power to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush for nearly eight hours while he underwent intestinal surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
Then, in 2002 and again in 2007, President George W. Bush briefly transferred power to then-Vice President Dick Cheney while undergoing
a colonoscopy. Cheney was acting president for a little over two hours during each procedure.
While the 25th Amendment allows a president to transfer power during periods of incapacitation, the choice of whether to do so rests with the president.
President Donald Trump, for instance, underwent a “very common procedure” requiring sedation in 2019, according to his press secretary, Stephanie Grisham. The White House did not acknowledge the procedure at the time. But according to CNN, Grisham suggests in a new book that Trump underwent a colonoscopy and did not reveal it because he did not want then-Vice President Mike Pence to serve as acting president while he was sedated.
In a six-page summary of his physical released by the White House Friday evening, Kevin O’Connor — who has been Biden’s primary care doctor since 2009 — observed that Biden “has experienced increasing frequency and severity of ‘throat clearing’ and coughing during speaking engagements,” as well as that Biden’s “ambulatory gait is perceptibly stiffer and less fluid than it was a year or so ago.” O’Connor added that Biden confirmed these observations.
O’Connor concluded that Biden’s coughing and throat clearing — which critics have seized on as a sign that Biden is unwell — are the result of his existing gastroesophageal reflux, and that no additional treatment is needed other than continuing with his current regimen of Pepcid.
O’Connor also noted that Biden’s stiff gait was the result of normal “wear and tear” to his spine, and noted that an “extremely detailed neurologic exam was reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder,” like a stroke or Parkinson’s.
O’Sullivan concluded that Biden remains “a healthy, vigorous, 78-year-old male.”
White House officials have said for months that Biden, who turns 79 today and is the nation’s oldest president, would get an annual physical and be transparent about the results.