President Biden muddies waters on pandemic, China, reelection

The pandemic is over. The U.S. is willing to go to war with China and President Joe Biden may not run for reelection in 2024. These and other revelations were made during an episode of 60 Minutes on Sunday.

CBS News Anchor Scott Pelley interviewed President Biden for the segment. A portion of the interview was shot at the Detroit Auto Show, where the president gave his pandemic proclamation.

“The pandemic is over,” Biden said. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it, but the pandemic is over.”

The National Institutes of Health defines a pandemic as: an epidemic of disease or other health condition that occurs over a widespread area and usually affects a sizable part of the population.

So, is the pandemic over?

COVID-19 numbers are down dramatically from their global peak in January, but there are still thousands of new cases detected every day. In some countries, cases of new infection are on the rise again. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased many of its COVID-19-related restrictions but hasn’t declared the pandemic over.

If it is though, as the president said, what does that mean for his executive order forgiving student loan debt?

The order was based on the premise the COVID-19 pandemic was an ongoing national emergency. If the pandemic is over, there’s no national emergency. So, it’s unclear how the executive order will apply moving forward.

Biden also muddied the waters a bit on how the U.S. would respond if China invaded Taiwan.

At one point in the interview, Pelley asked Biden, “So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?”

“Yes,” Biden replied.

A White House spokesperson was quick to walk-back the president’s statement, saying the official U.S. policy regarding Taiwan has not changed and the U.S. would not officially say whether American troops would defend Taiwan.

The most impactful revelation, perhaps, from the 60 Minutes interview was the fact President Biden doesn’t know if he’ll run for reelection.

Biden blamed election rules for why he hasn’t officially announced a reelection campaign, and was non-committal about running again when pressed by Pelley.

“My intention, as I have said to begin with, is I intend to run again,” explained Biden. “But it’s just an intention. Is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen.”