President Joe Biden was forced to cancel his schedule Monday – including talks with NATO’s outgoing secretary general – because of an unplanned root canal.
The president first began experiencing pain in a lower premolar on Sunday. His physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said a team from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center performed an exam, including x-rays, and recommended the root canal procedure. The team performed the initial part of the root canal on Sunday.
After “further discomfort this morning,” O’Connor wrote in a memo, the endodontal specialty team planned to complete the root canal procedure at the White House on Monday. O’Connor said the discomfort was expected.
The president’s team was not planning to use general anesthesia for the procedure and the 25th Amendment transferring power to the vice president was not invoked, a White House official said.
The operation is not Biden’s first root canal; when he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, he underwent middle-of-the-night procedures during Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas.
Three decades later, Biden was forced to scrap a series of events Monday to allow for the dental work. That included a ceremony for college athletes on the South Lawn, which was hosted instead by Vice President Kamala Harris, and an evening reception for diplomats.
His meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg was postponed until Tuesday, according to the White House. Hovering over the sit-down will be a personnel issue: Who will replace the outgoing NATO leader when he departs his post later this year?
Biden hasn’t yet settled on a candidate to support to replace Stoltenberg, a senior US official said. The job traditionally goes to a European, but requires the backing of the American president – NATO’s largest and most powerful member….
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