The president is sick
THE NEW YORK TIMES – The president has mild symptoms of Covid, according to his doctor, including a stuffy nose and a cough.
After he landed in Delaware on Wednesday night, the president paused, waved and said: “I am doing well.” Mr. Biden has begun taking Paxlovid, a treatment that may lessen the symptoms of Covid.
Here’s the latest on the Democratic campaign.
President Biden isolated with Covid at his beach house in Rehoboth, Del., on Thursday as the crisis engulfing his presidency intensified and he began to confront polling that suggests he can no longer defeat former President Donald J. Trump in November.
Mr. Biden hunkered down, with no public schedule, after the Democratic leadership in Congress — his most loyal allies — presented him with dire polling and told him privately that lawmakers are deeply concerned about his chances in November. New polls showed him losing badly in all of the battleground states. And his top Hollywood fund-raiser told him bluntly that big donors have stopped giving.
The political drama surrounding Mr. Biden’s future deepened even as Mr. Trump prepared for his coronation on the final day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Given the president’s illness, his campaign gave no indication of when his events would resume, and the White House issued notice at 9:40 a.m. on Thursday that he would have no public appearances for the day.
Here’s what else to know:
More receptive: Democrats briefed on the conversations Mr. Biden has had in recent days said he has become more receptive to hearing arguments about why he should drop his re-election bid.
Mr. Biden has not given any indication that he is changing his mind about staying in the race, the Democrats said, but has been willing to listen to rundowns of new and worrying polling data and has asked questions about how Vice President Kamala Harris could win.
Deep concern: Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the two top Democrats in Congress, each told Mr. Biden privately over the past week that their members were deeply concerned about his chances in November …
