Biden says COVID to keep him at home ‘for next 3-4 days,’ jeopardizing sit-down with Netanyahu

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

US President Joe Biden meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
US President Joe Biden meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden says he will be “out of people’s hair for the next three-four days” due to COVID, in what could jeopardize chances for his scheduled White House meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A hoarse Biden makes the revelation while phoning in to a campaign event for the new Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris. These are his first public comments since he published a letter about his decision to not seek re-election on X, where he subsequently endorsed his vice president.

Netanyahu’s office early last week announced that the prime minister would depart Israel on Sunday in order to meet Biden at the White House on Monday. But Biden tested positive for COVID-19 last Wednesday, leading Netanyahu’s office to push his departure until Monday morning, while declaring that the White House meeting would take place on Tuesday.

Biden still needs to test negative for COVID, though, and will not return to Washington until he does.

Given that Biden was still in Delaware Monday evening, Netanyahu’s office acknowledged to reporters that the Tuesday meeting was likely in jeopardy.

The White House has never announced a time for the meeting, even as Netanyahu’s office continues doing so. The Biden administration sufficed with saying that the president planned to meet Netanyahu while the prime minister is in town. It said Vice President Kamala Harris would also meet with Netanyahu but that sit-down hasn’t been finalized either.

The three to four day timeframe that Biden offered would mean he wouldn’t be available until Thursday or Friday. Netanyahu had planned to return to Israel on Thursday evening after giving his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday afternoon.

However, the premier is also trying to schedule a meeting with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who Politico reports will likely not be free until after a own campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday evening.

It’s unclear where that meeting would be held if Trump agrees, but a sit-down with both the Republican nominee and Biden on the same day might be difficult to organize for both scheduling and political reasons, as Netanyahu seeks to avoid alienating either Republicans or Democrats.

Because he doesn’t fly over the Sabbath, the prime minister will have to stay in the US for through at least Saturday if he doesn’t leave for Israel by Thursday night, in what would make this a nearly weeklong trip abroad in the middle of a war.

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