Joe Biden admits voice sounding different is ‘just a cold’

President Joe Biden’s voice sounded noticeably different as he cast the US’s disappointing November jobs report in an optimistic light. Asked about his voice, the president admitted that he had a cold but not the new Omicron variant or any strain of the coronavirus.

‘I’m OK,’ Biden told reporters after his formal remarks on Friday morning. ‘I have a test every day to see, a Covid test, I’ve been checking for all the strains.’

The president said the reason was a family member.

‘What I have is a one-and-a-half-year-old grandson who had a cold who likes to kiss his pop,’ Biden said, as some reporters laughed. ‘And kissing… uh, anyway, it’s just a cold.’

Biden appeared to be referring to his son Hunter’s youngest child, Beau Jr, according to the Daily Mail.

The US created far fewer jobs last month than expected – nonfarm payrolls according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics rose by 210,000, well below the Dow Jones estimate of 573,000 new jobs. It signals that companies remain cautious as the pandemic continues.

November’s figure was much lower than October’s job gain of 531,000. Still, Biden urged Americans to look at the big picture.

The president said: ‘235,000 jobs were created in the private sector and when they went back and recalibrated, they found the job growth over the prior two months actually created 82,000 more jobs than had previously been reported, which means that we’ve averaged nearly 400,000 new jobs over each month.’

Biden also focused on the unemployment rate falling from 4.6% to 4.2%. In addition, the labor force participation rate in November rose to 61.8%, which is the highest since March 2020 when Covid-19 became widespread.

‘Our economy is markedly stronger than it was a year ago and today (there’s) incredible news that our unemployment rate has fallen to 4.2%,’ Biden said. ‘Simply put, America is back to work and our job recovery is going very strong.’

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