(Headline USA) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tested positive for COVID-19, a day after appearing unmasked at a White House event with President Joe Biden.
On the heels of other high-profile cases among leftist and deep-stat officials, the California Democrat leader’s diagnosis reveals a growing recklessness among those who used the pandemic as pretense to shut down businesses and curtail civil liberties for nearly two years.
It also fuels growing speculation that Democrat operatives may actively be attempting to dispatch with the deeply unpopular Biden by any means necessary.
Pelosi, 82, is currently asymptomatic, her spokesman, Drew Hammill, said in a statement Thursday.
“The Speaker is fully vaccinated and boosted, and is thankful for the robust protection the vaccine has provided,” Hammill claimed.
Pelosi, he said, will “quarantine consistent with CDC guidance, and encourages everyone to get vaccinated, boosted and test regularly.”
The announcement came prior to Pelosi’s weekly press appearance on Capitol Hill, which was abruptly called off. The House is set to start a two week spring recess.
She also postponed a planned congressional delegation trip to Asia she was scheduled to lead.
It is unclear whether the current exposure came as the result of Pelosi’s maskless encounter three weeks ago with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.
After testing postitive during a St. Patrick’s Day banquet, Martin opted to quarantine. But Pelosi, who spent much of the night sitting beside him, did not.
Hammill claimed Pelosi had tested negative earlier this week, but a close political ally and protege of hers, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced earlier in the week that he was among the growing list of powerful Democrat figures to contract the virus.
The White House said Biden and Pelosi—who, herself, is third in line for the presidency—had only “brief interactions over the course of the last two days.”
Officials there said the president was not considered a close contact of the speaker according to the current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It considers “close” contact to be sustained, unmasked contact within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes over a 24-hour period.
“Last night as a part of his regular testing cadence, the President tested negative,” the White House said in a statement. “He will continue to be tested regularly. The President wishes Speaker Pelosi a speedy recovery.”
Nonetheless, Pelosi’s presence at the White House—where Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama also gathered at an unmasked press event this week—suggests that even more widespread transmission may lay ahead.
That is only compounding questions about whether the risks to Biden (who recently received his fourth “vaccine” shot) should be taken more seriously—or if, darkly, Democrats fearful of the disasterous 2022 midterm election may be trying to mitigate the political damage by getting rid of him.
Democrats also may be rooting for another outbreak to help them reassert their previous mask and vaccine mandates and to impose dubious rule for mail-in voting just in time for the primaries.
In recent weeks, several other top left-wing officials have tested positive, including White House press secretary Jen Psaki, CIA Director William Burns and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced positive tests. The officials were among more than a dozen attendees of the Saturday night Gridiron Club dinner to test positive for the virus. Pelosi did not attend the dinner, her spokesman said.
Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also announced Thursday that she tested positive for COVID-19 and would “work at home while following isolation protocols.”
Several lawmakers, including Schiff, have announced positive test results and are isolating.
The Capitol reopened last week to some public tours for the first time since it was shuttered two years ago with the onset of the pandemic.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
