President Joe Biden briefly moved power to Vice President Kamala Harris; Harris became the first woman with presidential power

President Joe Biden on Friday briefly moved power to Vice President Kamala Harris while he was under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy for one hour and 25 minutes, as indicated by the White House.

The country’s first female, first Black, and first South Asian VP broke one more barrier when she briefly stepped into the acting role. Harris worked from her office in the West Wing while Biden was under anesthesia, as indicated by Psaki.

The White House declared that Biden, 78, would be going under anesthesia to get a colonoscopy at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, making Harris the first woman to hold powers of the presidency.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki released a statement Friday morning with the declaration, expressing that Harris would work from her office in the West Wing while the president was quieted.

“@POTUS spoke with @VP and @WHCOS at approximately 11:35 am this morning. @POTUS was in good spirits and at that time resumed his duties. He will remain at Walter Reed as he completes the rest of his routine physical,” Psaki tweeted.

Biden, who turns 79 on Saturday, showed up Friday morning at Walter Reed Medical Center to go through his first routine annual physical since getting down to the office.

The White House said Biden officially submitted letters to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., president ace Tempore of the Senate, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi informing them regarding the transfer of power at 10:10 a.m., and continued his duties at 11:35 a.m.

As indicated by Psaki, the president is “in good spirits” and will stay at Walter Reed as he finishes the physical.

Psaki said that the White House would release a “comprehensive written summary” of Biden’s physical later Friday afternoon. ​

After her historic 85-minute spell, Harris went from Washington, D.C., to Columbus, Ohio, where she was scheduled to give remarks promoting the bipartisan infrastructure deal that Biden signed into law earlier this week.

It’s routine for a VP to expect presidential powers while the president goes through a medical procedure that requires anesthesia. Then, at that point, Vice President Dick Cheney did as such on various events when then, at that point President George W. Bush went through routine colonoscopies.

To officially move the presidential powers to Harris, Biden sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the president pro tempore of the Senate, at 10:10 a.m. ET before going under anesthesia.

The letter reads: “Today I will undergo a routine medical procedure requiring sedation. Because of present circumstances, I have determined to transfer temporarily the powers and duties of the office of President of the United States to the Vice President during the brief period of the procedure and recovery.”

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 pronouncing proclaiming 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.”

To move the powers back to Biden, a different letter was sent after the procedure.

“Per the provisions of section 3 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, I hereby transmit to you my written declaration that I am able to discharge the powers and duties of the Office of the President of the United States and that I am resuming those powers and duties,” the letter, which was sent to both Pelosi and Leahy, reads.

Recently, previous President Donald Trump’s ex-press secretary Stephanie Grisham intensely suggested that Biden’s predecessor went through a colonoscopy in a mysterious visit to Walter Reed in 2019, however kept it calm to try not to move presidential power to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

In her book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now,” Grisham doesn’t use the term colonoscopy however vigorously infers that is the thing that the trip was for. She says Trump’s hospital visit, which stirred weeks-long speculation about his health was a “very common procedure,” during which “a patient is put under..” She likewise composes that Bush had a comparable procedure while in office. Grisham composes Trump didn’t want then-Vice President Mike Pence to be in power while he was quieted, which was part of the reason he kept his visit private. He moreover “did not want to be the butt of a joke” on late-night TV, composes Grisham.

Biden is the oldest first-term president in US history, and the last comprehensive update on Biden’s medical history came almost two years prior when his presidential campaign released a three-page summary of his medical history in December 2019.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s primary care doctor starting around 2009, portrayed Biden as “a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male,” at the time.

The 2019 summary showed Biden was being treated for non-valvular atrial fibrillation, or AFib – an irregular heartbeat that O’Connor said Biden experiences no symptoms of. He was taking Crestor to bring down cholesterol and triglyceride levels, as well as Eliquis to prevent blood clots, Nexium for acid reflux, and Allegra and a nasal spray for seasonal allergies.

The most significant medical event in Biden’s history, O’Connor composed, was when Biden suffered a brain aneurysm in 1988. He was serving in the Senate at the time. During surgery, doctors found a second aneurysm that had not bled, which they likewise treated.

While in the hospital after that surgery, Biden suffered deep vein thrombosis and a pulmonary embolism. Doctors at the time embedded an “inferior vena cava filter,” which would prevent future blood clots from arriving at the heart and lungs, and treated him with an oral anti-coagulant for several months.