President Joe Biden's expected trip to Chicago has been rescheduled for this week, according to the White House.
The president is set to arrive in the city Thursday, resuming his plans to tout vaccine mandates after the trip was postponed last week.
"The President will travel to the Chicago, Illinois area to highlight the importance of COVID-19 vaccine requirements," the White House said in a release Monday.
The president had been slated to visit the city last Wednesday, but the trip was canceled one day before his scheduled visit as negotiations over key legislation were underway.
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“In meetings and calls over the weekend and through today, President Biden has been engaging with members of Congress on the path forward for the Build Back Better Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal," an official with knowledge of the situation told NBC News' Geoff Bennett and Kelly O'Donnell at the time. "He will now remain at the White House tomorrow to continue working on advancing these two pieces of legislation to create jobs, grow the economy, and make investments in families, rather than failed giveaways to the rich and big corporations."
According to a White House official, Biden's trip to Chicago was always set to be rescheduled.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker have both praised area businesses requiring vaccinations for customers in both the city and state, though they have stopped short of issuing mandates citywide or statewide. Certain groups are required to get vaccinated in the state, however, including health care workers, teachers and higher education students.
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"I applaud those venues requiring vaccination proof or a negative test to get admittance," Lightfoot said in September. "I think we'll see more of that. This is a conversation happening across every industry sector, and we support it.”
New York City, San Francisco and New Orleans are among the cities that have started requiring proof of vaccination for public indoor spaces.
Biden last month month unveiled a so-called “action plan" aimed at confronting the COVID-19 surge being driven by the spread of the delta variant, which will require vaccinations for millions of workers across the country.
The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.
Biden is also requiring vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. That covers several million more workers.
