President parties as virus declines
Plunging vaccination rate, variants thwart full success
ZEKE MILLER | Associated Press
WASHINGTON – After nearly six months in office, grappling with a pandemic every step of that way, President Joe Biden was determined to party.
“This is a holiday weekend,” Biden declared on Friday as he parried journalists' “negative” questions about the ongoing U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, “I'm going to be celebrating it.”
Biden wants Americans to celebrate too, after enduring 16 months of disruption in the pandemic and more than 605,000 deaths. The White House encouraged gatherings and fireworks displays all around the country to mark — as though ripped from a Hollywood script – the nation's “independence” from the virus.