History will be made on Friday as the United States is governed, for the first time in its history, by a woman. With President Joe Biden to undergo a routine colonoscopy as part of his annual check-up, Vice President Kamala Harris will receive presidential power as part of White House protocol.
“The Vice President will work from her office in the West Wing during this time,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Biden arrived on Friday morning at the Walter Reed Medical Center to undergo his annual physical, which will include a colonoscopy for which he will require anaesthesia.
The transfer of power is a routine one when the president is undergoing a medical procedure requiring anaesthesia. During George W. Bush’s two terms, then Vice President Dick Cheney twice received presidential power as a result.
Former US President Donald Trump, however, may have broken with this convention. In her book I’ll Take Your Questions Now, former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Trump’s 2019 visit to Walter Reed saw him “put under” [anaesthesia], but that he did not publicise the incident in order to avoid transferring presidential power to then Vice President Mike Pence.
