NEW: Kamala Cancels Trip As Reports About Biden’s Rapid Health Decline Escalate

Vice President Kamala Harris announced the cancellation of a major domestic trip on Friday, raising concerns about how far she can travel following a bombshell report on the declining health of President Joe Biden.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported on what was long alleged by conservatives: President Biden, at 81 years old, is no longer fit to lead the nation without relying heavily on aides who say they are witnessing his mental deterioration grow with each passing day. Harris had been set to travel to Los Angeles from Washington, D.C. to attend a family Christmas gathering. Guidance from her office stated Harris would instead “receive briefings and conduct internal meetings with staff” according to the Daily Mail, leading to speculation that she can’t afford to leave Biden in charge at the White House on the eve of a potential government shutdown.

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Social media users speculated that the president’s declining personal health is at play. The Journal’s report detailed how the Democrat’s public events have grown shorter and more scripted, and how staffers are now acting as go-betweens if Biden must converse with other high-ranking leaders or make decisions presented to him. One person who witnessed Biden’s “hand holding” said it had reached a level they had never seen with other recent presidents. Biden and his family returned to the White House on Thursday after holding a private ceremony in Delaware honoring the death of his first wife and daughter in a traffic accident 52 years ago.

The failure of multiple stopgap spending bills also underscores Harris’s need to remain in Washington in case she must break a tie in the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Friday presented his third iteration of a bill to prevent the government from shutting down, but he faces deep skepticism among conservative members in his own party and a blue wall of Democrats uninterested in bailing him out unless Johnson includes more spending priorities, a nonstarter for Republicans. Biden, who has kept a low profile throughout the debate, would need to be on hand to sign that package into law.

“President Biden supports the bipartisan agreement to keep the government open, help communities recovering from disasters, and lower costs—not this giveaway for billionaires that Republicans are proposing at the 11 hour,” the White House said in a statement Thursday evening.

How Harris spends her final weeks in the White House may portend her future plans and to what degree she will lean into her time working beneath a deeply unpopular incumbent. Aides suggested that she could be interested in returning to California and running for governor, a contest that takes place in 2026, or returning to the private sector in a bid to maintain her lifestyle built up after decades in public office.

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