Hillary Clinton to Return to White House for Special Event as Jill Biden Battles with COVID
This probably isn’t how she hoped it would happen, but former first lady and two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is headed back to the White House next week.
According to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, Clinton will team up with current first lady Jill Biden to honor this year’s winners of the Praemium Imperiale.
If you haven’t heard of that particular award, neither had I. It’s a annual prize awarded for lifetime achievement by the Japan Art Association — something else I’d never heard of — and apparently President Bill Clinton and his wife were the first White House occupants to invite its recipients to the White House.
All of this is happening, of course, in the context of the news that the current first lady earlier this week had tested positive for COVID (for the second time) despite having been, in the words of her own communications director, “double vaccinated and twice boosted,” according to Yahoo News.
“This evening, the First Lady tested positive for COVID-19,” the White House announced Monday. “She is currently experiencing only mild symptoms. She will remain at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made a similar statement during her media briefing the following day.
“And finally, an update on the President and the First Lady since she tested positive for COVID-19 last night,” Jean-Pierre said Tuesday, according to the official White House transcript of the briefing. “I can tell you that the First Lady is experiencing mild symptoms and will remain in Delaware for the week.
“President Biden tested negative last night for COVID-19 and tested negative again today. He’s not experiencing any symptoms,” she added.
“As far as the steps that he is taking: Since the President was with the First Lady yesterday, he will be masking while indoors and around people in alignment with CDC guidance,” the press secretary claimed.” And as — as has been the practice in the past, the President will remove his mask when sufficiently distanced from others indoors and while outside as well.”
That, however, apparently didn’t last long. By the following evening, President Joe Biden walked into a White House event maskless, according to USAToday.
“President Joe Biden joked about not wearing a mask Wednesday following this week’s positive COVID-19 test of his wife, first lady Jill Biden, sending mixed signals as White House officials insist the president is following CDC guidelines,” the outlet reported.
“Let me explain to the press: I’ve been tested again today. I’m clear across the board,” Biden said, holding a mask in his hand. “But they keep telling me, because this has to be 10 days or something, I’ve got to keep wearing it.
“But don’t tell them I didn’t have it on when I walked in,” he said.
After speaking, he left the room holding the mask again, not wearing it.
All of which may be a moot point anyway, as CNN reported in what it labeled a “developing story” that the first lady had tested negative Thursday.
“Her diagnosis comes as Covid-19 cases have again been on the rise, though still relatively low, in the US,” the outlet said. “Hospitalizations are up 15.7% over the past week, and deaths are up 17.6% over the past week, according to data from the CDC.”
Both Joe and Jill Biden tested positive and were treated for COVID-19 last summer, CNN said.
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