Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 for the second straight day, in what appears to be a rare case of “rebound” following treatment with an anti-viral drug.

In a letter noting the positive test, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, said Sunday that the president “continues to feel well” and will keep on working from the executive residence while he isolates.

Biden tested positive on Saturday, requiring him to cancel travel and in-person events as he isolates for at least five days in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

After initially testing positive on July 21, Biden, 79, was treated with the anti-viral drug Paxlovid. He tested negative for the virus this past Tuesday and Wednesday, clearing him to leave isolation while wearing a mask indoors.

Research suggests that a minority of those prescribed Paxlovid experience a rebound case of the virus. The fact that a rebound rather than a reinfection possibly occurred is a positive sign for Biden’s health once he’s clear of the disease.

“The fact that the president has cleared his illness and doesn’t have symptoms is a good sign and makes it less likely he will develop long COVID,” said Dr. Albert Ho, an infectious disease specialist at Yale University’s school of public health.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden is feeling well and continuing his isolation measures after testing positive for COVID, his physician said in a memo released by the White House on Sunday.

“Given his rebound positivity which we reported yesterday, we continued daily monitoring. This morning, unsurprisingly, his SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing remained positive,” the physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in the memo.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden is feeling well and continuing his isolation measures after again testing positive for COVID-19, his physician said in a memo released by the White House on Sunday.

Biden tested positive for COVID again on Saturday in what the White House doctor described as a “rebound” case seen in a small percentage of patients who take the antiviral drug Paxlovid.

“Given his rebound positivity which we reported yesterday, we continued daily monitoring. This morning, unsurprisingly, his SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing remained positive,” the physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in the memo on Sunday.

Biden tested positive for COVID for the first time on July 21 and previously described his experience with the coronavirus as mild, saying he was able to continue working while in isolation and attributed his relative ease with the disease to vaccines and other treatments.

Biden, 79, had initially emerged from COVID isolation on Wednesday when he tested negative.

After testing positive again, the president had to cancel some trips and events to celebrate recent legislative victories and to help boost his slumping poll ratings.

A small but significant percentage of people who take Paxlovid will suffer a relapse or a rebound that occurs days after the five-day treatment course has ended, studies have shown.

“Biden will continue to conduct the business of the American people from the Executive Residence,” his physician said on Sunday.

The White House had sought to underscore Biden’s ability to work through his illness when he first tested positive, releasing videos of him assuring Americans he was doing fine and of his participation in virtual meetings with White House staff.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic Party on Saturday delayed a decision on potentially reordering its primary calendar for the 2024 presidential election until after November’s midterm elections.

The Democratic National Committee’s rules committee had planned to decide during meetings in Washington beginning next week whether to recommend that presidential voting should continue to begin with Iowa and New Hampshire. That’s amid calls by some party leaders and activists that more diverse states, including the current No. 3 and No. 4, Nevada and South Carolina, should move up.

The committee was also mulling adding a fifth early primary contest prior to “Super Tuesday” when a large number of states traditionally vote.

But rules committee co-chairs Jim Roosevelt Jr. and Minyon Moore wrote in a memo to members that “after speaking with many of you over the past several weeks about the last few steps of this process, it has become clear that the best way to move forward with the final stage of this process is to postpone the committee’s decision on the pre-window rule until after the midterm elections.”

The committee will still meet beginning Friday, but now doesn’t plan to make a decision until after Election Day, Nov. 8 — meaning that the primary calendar decision won’t affect key congressional races. Iowa and New Hampshire had argued that possibly losing their positions going first and second could hurt Democrats in the states’ top races, especially since the Republican Party has already said Iowa will continue to lead off its 2024 primaries.

“Following the midterm elections, we will reconvene to update our evaluation of the applicant pool and work towards a final decision to present to the full DNC for a vote, which DNC leadership has assured us they will make happen as soon after the midterm elections as is possible,” Roosevelt and Moore wrote, adding that “we will continue to work with applicants in the coming weeks to hammer out final details.”

Sixteen states and Puerto Rico made presentations before the committee to be first — or at least in the top five, before the rules committee earlier this summer. The party is considering factors like diversity, electoral competitiveness and logistical feasibility in making its decision.

That means scrutinizing states’ racial and ethnic makeup, union membership rates and how big they are in terms of population and geography, can affect possibilities for direct voter engagement and the costs of travel and advertising.

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By Jarrett Renshaw and Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden again tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday and will cancel two planned trips but is experiencing no symptoms and feels “quite well.”

Biden, who tested positive for the disease nine days ago but then tested negative twice earlier this week, “will isolate at the White House until he tests negative” and is cancelling travel in the coming days to Delaware and Michigan, the White House said Saturday.

Biden had planned the Michigan trip to tout Thursday’s passage of legislation to boost the semiconductor chips industry, which the White House announced earlier Saturday.

Biden’s positive test is believed to be “rebound” positivity experienced by some COVID patients, according to White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

Biden tweeted about his positive case, saying it can happen to a “small minority of folks.”

“I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon,” he tweeted.

O’Connor said Biden, who is 79, tested negative for the last four days, and there is no plan to reinitiate treatment given his lack of symptoms.

Biden previously described his experience with COVID as mild, saying he was able to continue working while in isolation and attributed his relative ease with the disease to vaccines and other treatments.

O’Connor had previously said Biden would be tested regularly to watch for a potential “rebound” COVID-19 case, which can be experienced by some patients who have been treated with Paxlovid, the drug the president received.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder, David Shepardson and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 again Saturday, slightly more than three days after he was cleared to exit coronavirus isolation, the White House said, in a rare case of “rebound” following treatment with an anti-viral drug.

White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a letter that Biden “has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and continues to feel quite well.” O’Connor said “there is no reason to reinitiate treatment at this time.”

In accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, Biden will reenter isolation for at least five days. He will isolate at the White House until he tests negative. The agency says most rebound cases remain mild and that severe disease during that period has not been reported.

Word of Biden’s positive test came — he had been negative Friday morning — just two hours after the White House announced a presidential visit to Michigan this coming Tuesday to highlight the passage of a bill to promote domestic high-tech manufacturing. Biden had also been scheduled to visit his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sunday morning, where first lady Jill Biden has been staying while the president was positive. Both trips have been canceled as Biden has returned to isolation.

Biden, 79, was treated with the anti-viral drug Paxlovid, and tested negative for the virus on Tuesday and Wednesday. He was then cleared to leave isolation while wearing a mask indoors. His positive tests puts him among the minority of those prescribed the drug to experience a rebound case of the virus.

White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told reporters on July 25 that data “suggests that between 5 and 8 percent of people have rebound” after Paxlovid treatment.

“Acknowledging the potential for so-called ‘rebound’ COVID positivity observed in a small percentage of patients treated with Paxlovid, the President increased his tested cadence, to protect people around him and to assure early detection of any return of viral replication,” O’Connor wrote in his letter.

O’Connor cited negative tests for Biden from Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning and Friday morning, before Saturday morning’s positive result by antigen testing. “This in fact represents ‘rebound’ positivity,” he wrote.

Both the Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer point out that 1% to 2% of people in Pfizer’s original study on Paxlovid saw their virus levels rebound after 10 days. The rate was about the same among people taking the drug or dummy pills, “so it is unclear at this point that this is related to drug treatment,” according to the FDA.

While Biden was testing negative, he returned to holding in-person indoor events and meetings with staff at the White House and was wearing a mask, in accordance with CDC guidelines. But the president removed his mask indoors when delivering remarks on Thursday and during a meeting with CEOs on the White House complex.

Asked why Biden appeared to be breaching CDC protocols, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “They were socially distanced. They were far enough apart. So we made it safe for them to be together, to be on that stage.”

Regulators are still studying the prevalence and virulence of rebound cases, but the CDC in May warned doctors that it has been reported to occur within two days to eight days after initially testing negative for the virus.

“Limited information currently available from case reports suggests that persons treated with Paxlovid who experience COVID-19 rebound have had mild illness; there are no reports of severe disease,” the agency said at the time.

When Biden was initially released from isolation on Wednesday, O’Connor said the president would “increase his testing cadence” to catch any potential rebound of the virus.

Paxlovid has been proven to significantly reduce severe disease and death among those most vulnerable to COVID-19. U.S. health officials have encouraged those who test positive to consult their doctors or pharmacists to see if they should be prescribed the treatment, despite the rebound risk.

Biden is fully vaccinated, after getting two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shortly before taking office, a first booster shot in September and an additional dose March 30.

While patients who have recovered from earlier variants of COVID-19 have tended to have high levels of immunity to future reinfection for 90 days, Jha said that the BA.5 subvariant that infected Biden has proven to be more “immune-evasive.”

“We have seen lots of people get reinfected within 90 days,” he said, adding that officials don’t yet have data on how long those who have recovered from the BA.5 strain have protection from reinfection.

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By Jarrett Renshaw and Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden again tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday and will cancel two planned trips but is experiencing no symptoms and feels “quite well.”

Biden, who tested positive for the disease nine days ago but then tested negative twice earlier this week, “will isolate at the White House until he tests negative” and is cancelling travel in the coming days to Delaware and Michigan, the White House said Saturday.

Biden had planned the Michigan trip to tout Thursday’s passage of legislation to boost the semiconductor chips industry, which the White House announced earlier Saturday.

Biden’s positive test is believed to be “rebound” positivity experienced by some COVID patients, according to White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

Biden tweeted about his positive case, saying it can happen to a “small minority of folks.”

“I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon,” he tweeted.

O’Connor said Biden, who is 79, tested negative for the last four days, and there is no plan to reinitiate treatment given his lack of symptoms.

Biden previously described his experience with COVID as mild, saying he was able to continue working while in isolation and attributed his relative ease with the disease to vaccines and other treatments.

O’Connor had previously said Biden would be tested regularly to watch for a potential “rebound” COVID-19 case, which can be experienced by some patients who have been treated with Paxlovid, the drug the president received.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder, David Shepardson and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Alistair Bell)

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Harry Wait was so determined to show Wisconsin’s election system is vulnerable to fraud that he logged onto the state website, requested an absentee ballot in the state Assembly speaker’s name and had it delivered to himself. Then he ran to a sheriff to tell him that he had committed fraud.

Now Wait faces the possibility of criminal charges in a strange new chapter in a chaotic, seemingly endless fight over election administration in the key battleground state.

The fight began after Joe Biden won the state in 2020, defeating former President Donald Trump by nearly 21,000 votes. Trump has refused to accept the loss, insisting the election was marred by fraud. Multiple reviews and court decisions have upheld Biden’s victory, but Trump’s supporters have spent the months since promoting his baseless claims that Biden somehow stole the election.

Republican state Rep. Tim Ramthun has centered his gubernatorial campaign around decertifying Biden’s win in the state. GOP legislators passed sweeping election law changes earlier this year only to see Democratic Gov. Tony Evers veto the package. The conservative-controlled state Supreme Court in July outlawed absentee ballot drop boxes.

That’s not all. A Republican sheriff last year called for charging elections officials for refusing to send special assistants into nursing homes to help residents vote absentee at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. And under pressure from Trump, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos launched an investigation into voter fraud last summer that has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars but so far turned up nothing.

It hasn’t been nearly enough for the state GOP’s hardliners. Nine Republican legislators, including Vos and state Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, face primary challengers who say the incumbents haven’t done enough to bolster election security.

Enter Harry Wait. He’s the president of the Racine-based group HOT Government, which has alleged fraud in the 2020 election. He told The Associated Press that he visited the state’s election website and ordered what he says were 10 absentee ballots in the names of other people, including Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason, and had them delivered to his own address.

He quickly contacted Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling and told him all about it, saying he had proven the state’s system is vulnerable to fraud.

Wait wasn’t alone. Adrianne Melby, of Burlington, told the AP that she decided to see if she could get an absentee ballot sent to a different address. She had a friend visit the website, order a ballot in Melby’s name and have it sent to the friend’s address. Melby told Schmaling what she had done as well.

Wisconsin law prohibits people from making false statements to obtain an absentee ballot and from impersonating a voter. Penalties can include fines of up to $10,000 and three-and-a-half years in prison. Wait and Melby told the AP that Schmaling promised he wouldn’t arrest them or refer charges.

“I asked him if he was going to arrest me and he said no,” Wait said. “The conversation was fairly short. He was glad that I had opened this up and revealed it.”

Melby, for her part, said that Schmaling told her that neither she nor her friend committed a crime because Melby gave her friend consent to obtain a ballot in her name.

Schmaling is a Republican activist who called for prosecutors to charge five of the state Election Commission’s six members over their decision in March 2020 — when COVID-19 was rampant and before vaccines were available — not to send special voting deputies into Wisconsin nursing homes to help residents vote. No one was ultimately prosecuted and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul called Schmaling’s demands a “disgraceful publicity stunt.”

Schmaling didn’t reply to a message left at his office on Friday. Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson also didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

Vos, whose district includes Racine County, said what Wait did amounts to voter fraud.

“His actions are sad,” Vos said. “If election integrity means anything, it means we all have to follow the law — Republicans and Democrats alike.”

The state Election Commission, made up of three Democrats and three Republicans, held an emergency meeting on Thursday night to address Wait’s and Melby’s activities.

Administrator Meagan Wolfe told commissioners that the website is no more vulnerable to fraud than a traditional mail request for an absentee ballot. She also stressed that the state’s voter registration database would flag anyone who tried to vote using another person’s absentee ballot. The commissioners ultimately voted to discuss referring charges to prosecutors at a future meeting, perhaps as early as next week.

“People who think it’s cute to commit a crime to undermine elections, that needs to be stopped and it needs to be stopped now. And waiting implies there’s something appropriate about it,” Democratic commissioner Ann Jacobs said during the meeting.

The commission also decided to send postcards to about 4,000 voters who requested their absentee ballots for the 2022 election be sent to addresses that aren’t their own, in order to verify their intent. Spokesman Riley Vetterkind said that’s not an indication of fraud, as voters often ask to have ballots sent to vacation homes or other places they stay.

Wait told the AP that he knew what he did was a crime but that he did it “for the good of the republic.” The commission is coming after him because he exposed its inability to protect elections, he said.

Melby said that if what she did was illegal, prosecutors should go after all ballot harvesters in the 2020 election. Pressed for details on who was harvesting ballots, Melby told a reporter to watch “2,000 Mules,” a pro-Trump documentary that falsely alleges widespread voter fraud.

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political scientist Anthony Chergosky said Wait’s and Melby’s actions were “extremely irresponsible.” They showed fraud is possible but not that it occurs on a scale that can affect election results, he said.

They also demonstrated the extent of Trump’s influence on the Republican Party and unending efforts to undo the 2020 election, he said.

“It’s a logical outcome of the rhetoric President Trump and others in his party have engaged in,” Chergosky said. “The practical purpose of this is to sow distrust in the outcome of the 2020 election. The Republican Party is not ready to turn the page on it.”

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By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Friday nominated a lawyer who represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to become a federal appeals court judge.

Biden’s latest slate of nine new judicial nominees included Julie Rikelman, an abortion rights lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights whom the president picked to serve on the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The nomination, which Republicans are likely to oppose in the narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate, came a month after the conservative-majority Supreme Court overturned Roe, which for nearly five decades had guaranteed women nationally a constitutional right to obtain abortions.

Rikelman had argued against such a ruling in representing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization – Mississippi’s only abortion clinic – in challenging a Republican-backed law that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The clinic has since closed, after a near-total ban in Mississippi sprang into effect following the decision by the United States’ highest court. About half of the 50 U.S. states have banned or are expected to ban or restrict abortions following that ruling.

“Julie Rikelman brings exactly the kind of experience with reproductive rights we desperately need on the courts,” Christopher Kang, chief counsel of the progressive group Demand Justice, said in a statement.

Conservative opposition is expected in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats are facing pressure from progressive activists to speed up judicial confirmations before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when they risk losing control of the chamber to Republicans.

“This nominee is a radical, left-wing abortion activist who has no business being on any court, let alone a federal appellate court,” said Mike Davis, who heads the conservative judicial advocacy group the Article III Project.

Rikelman is one of two new appellate court nominees by Biden. He also nominated Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Maria Araujo Kahn to the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Biden’s latest nominees continued the White House’s push to diversify the federal bench. They include Daniel Calabretta, a California state court judge nominated to become the first openly LGBT federal judge in the state’s Eastern District.

Myong Joun, a state court judge in Boston, was picked to become the first Asian American man on the federal bench in Massachusetts, where Biden also nominated Julia Kobick, a deputy state solicitor in the state attorney general’s office.

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman was nominated to be a federal judge in Washington, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffery Hopkins would if confirmed by the Senate become a district court judge in Southern Ohio.

Biden also nominated Araceli Martinez-Olguin of the National Immigration Law Center and Superior Court Judge Rita Lin to be federal judges in California’s Northern District.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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MCDONOUGH, Ga. (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday took aim at the “Biden recession” and tacked the blame on Democrat Stacey Abrams, becoming one of many Republicans to seek to weigh down their rivals with voters’ worries about the economy.

How voters see the economy will be key in November’s elections nationwide. Currently, Democratic President Joe Biden has rock-bottom approval ratings, and the looming possibility of a recession is compounding political woes brought on by high inflation.

But while the argument against Democrats and the economy is straightforward for Republicans including Georgia’s Herschel Walker, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, it’s trickier for Kemp.

Along with other Republican governors seeking reelection, such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Ohio’s Mike DeWine, Kemp has to make a double argument that also defends his economic record. Kemp at times contends that Georgia’s economy is good and the national economy is bad, even though Georgia voters only experience one economy.

“Georgians know that our economy is fighting through the Biden-Abrams agenda, despite what’s going on nationally,” Kemp told reporters in the Atlanta suburb of McDonough, arguing Abrams bears blame for “runaway spending and disastrous policies” because she campaigned for Biden and even sought to be his vice president.

Abrams said Thursday that Kemp’s division between Georgia and the national economy is “mathematically and economically impossible,” and that Kemp has “woefully underperformed” at helping people.

“He has done very well for those who are already doing well,” Abrams told reporters after a speech in the north Georgia town of Clayton. “But if you were struggling in Georgia, Brian Kemp has done absolutely nothing to help you move forward.”

The economy also is central in Georgia’s closely contested Senate race. Warnock couches many proposals as meant to fight higher prices, including seeking a suspension of the federal gas tax and price limits on insulin. Walker focuses on increasing domestic oil production and attacks Warnock as a rubber stamp for Biden.

In reality, the economy is “a mixed bag,” said Emory University finance professor Tom Smith. Georgia has record low unemployment and more people working than ever before. Smith said the worst of inflation may be over. Gas prices have fallen by more than 50 cents a gallon in Georgia during July, according to AAA. But Smith said the economy is showing wobbles, and that a recession may have been going on for months. He said it’s unrealistic to expect office seekers to portray that whole picture.

“Politicians are going to say political things,” Smith said.

On McDonough’s courthouse square, some voters said Friday that they’re weighing the economy.

Times are good for Keith Sweat, who owns an art gallery and framing business. He said his business “skyrocketed” when the COVID-19 pandemic made people focus on beautifying their homes, and hasn’t slowed down.

“People ware wary, but they haven’t stopped spending, and that is unusual,” said Sweat. He said he’s not aligned with either party.

Karen Denegall of Ellenwood was helping her sister relocate her coffee shop. She writes off fluctuations of gas prices to the war in Ukraine, but said she’s feeling the pain of high food prices.

“What can we do to make groceries go down?” asked Denegall. A medical worker, she said her own finances are OK, but said she expects some Democrats to defect to Republicans.

Kemp on Friday again said that his decision to quickly remove pandemic restrictions was a key driver of prosperity. He pledged further actions in coming months to help voters. He’s already pushed through more than $1 billion in tax rebates and has suspended the collection of Georgia’s gas tax since March, at the cost of roughly $150 million a month.

Abrams has called on Kemp to suspend the gas tax through the end of the year and wants to issue another round of income tax refund checks using billions in state surplus funds. She says Democrats, including Warnock, should get credit for the “resources that have poured into the state” through COVID-19 relief, fattening its coffers and goosing the job market.

Abrams has put forth a housing plan that she ways would improve affordability and reduce costs. She also argues that expanding the state-federal Medicaid health insurance plan to all adults would reduce costs for Georgians.

In the Senate race, Walker argues Warnock shares blame with Biden for every economic ill.

“Why has my opponent not voted that we can continue to have an economy that’s going to be flourishing?” Walker said at a recent campaign stop in north Georgia.

Warnock, for his part, counters by highlighting any aspect of his work in Washington that aligns him with “ordinary people” and “working-class Georgians.”

“People are still struggling,” he acknowledges in his standard campaign speech.

While Warnock doesn’t openly embrace Biden, he touts the American Rescue Plan. Biden’s massive pandemic-related spending plan passed without any Republican votes and included a tax cut for lower-income workers.

“If you’re going to give a tax cut — and I believe in tax cuts — you ought to give a tax cut to those who actually need it,” Warnock said while campaigning in Atlanta.

He’s pushed his work on the so-called CHIPS bill that passed the Senate this week with 17 Republican votes. The plan, which still requires a House vote, would jumpstart microchip production in the United States, and Warnock emphasizes specific benefits for Georgia firms.

Warnock also highlights Georgia projects in a sweeping infrastructure plan that garnered some GOP support, along with proposals to lower insulin costs for diabetics and his call to suspend the federal gas tax. Warnock unfurled the latter proposal in February, ahead of many other Democrats, including Biden. And, in another move that shows a fault line between himself and the White House, Warnock emphasizes that he’s “pushing” the White House to be more aggressive in forgiving student loan debts. Biden has said he expects to make a decision on any widespread aid in August.

All those proposals and actions are aimed at reaching voters like Denegall, who said she’s undecided right now.

“I’ve got until November to see how things are going,” she said.

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Barrow reported from Atlanta

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Follow Jeff Amy at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.

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