President Joe Biden, who turned 80 in November 2022, is overdue for his annual physical. While White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says it will be complete by the end of the month, which is tomorrow, she can't give a timeline detailing when the American people can expect to see the results.
"We're running out of January, and you had told us that we'd have the physical and the information about the President's physical. Any update on whether that might slide into February now?" a reporter asked during the daily briefing last week.
"I don't have any updates on that at this time. Look, we want to, this is something that we're committed to doing. As I've said, we did it back in 2021 in a very transparent way and shared the doctor's memo to all of you, for you all to review it," Jean-Pierre responded. "And it was very extensive; it was, again, in a transparent form, fashion. And so we're committed to doing that. I just don't have any updates at this time."
In the past the White House has produced memos from Biden's physician to the press, but staff has never made U.S. Army Colonel Dr. Kevin O'Connor available to answer questions directly in the briefing room. When Biden contracted COVID-19 last summer, Jean-Pierre and White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha repeatedly refused to make him available to answer urgent questions about Biden's health.
REPORTER: "Can we get the president's physician here so we can not play the game of telephone?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 21, 2022
KJP: "I don't think this is a game of telephone..." pic.twitter.com/hEoMIWsEUu
Karine Jean-Pierre was NOT happy when National Journal's George Condon said "shield[ing] him from questions would be the least transparency of any WH in 50 years on a presidential illness."
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 21, 2022
KJP: "Wow. I wholeheartedly disagree...We are doing this very differently" from Trump pic.twitter.com/zrkbHQQQYV