WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden on Friday will temporarily transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris as he is under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced it while talking to reporters. This is a latest addition to Harris’ achievements as she is the nation’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president.
Harris will perform the additional duties from her office in the West Wing while Biden is in the hospital, she said in a statement.
Biden, 79, reached Walter Reed Medical Center Friday morning to get his first routine annual medical check-up since taking office.
Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution says the President can send a letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president pro tempore of the Senate declaring they are “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.”
Biden is the oldest first-term president in the history of the US.
