President Joe Biden tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday as he was about to deliver a speech to the Latino civil rights organization Unidos.
“President Biden has just tested positive for Covid,” announced CNN senior White House correspondent Kayla Tausche in a breaking news segment on Wednesday evening. “That according to the president of Unidos, the leader of the organization that was set to host President Biden here in Las Vegas this afternoon, amid a flurry of outreach that the president was doing to Black voters and Hispanic voters as he tried to shore up support from critical constituencies.”
Tausche reported:
He was just at a local restaurant earlier this afternoon filming an interview with a local Latino media outlet, and it was shortly after that that word began spreading here in the ballroom that the president would not be attending this event to deliver his remarks that at this point have now been delayed considerably throughout the afternoon. There was an audible gasp in the ballroom when that news was delivered, but as the leader of Unidos explained that President Biden planned to address the group at some point in the future and said that they will continue to support the president in his policies and his efforts, there was some applause that broke out among the crowd.
In a statement, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced that the fully “vaccinated and boosted” Biden had experienced “mild symptoms” before testing positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday evening, and would subsequently return to Delaware “where he will self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully.”
The president’s doctor further revealed that Biden had been experiencing “upper respiratory symptoms,” including a runny nose, cough, and “general malaise.”
Biden addressed the positive test result in his own statement, writing on social media, “I’m sick.”
I’m sick
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 17, 2024
This story is developing.
Watch above via CNN.
