Category: Joe Biden

GOP Says Kamala Harris Is MIA On Immigration As She Announces Mexico Trip

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A stunt from House Republican Whip Steve Scalise, involving a milk carton with the vice president’s face on it, didn’t really work out.

House Republican leaders on Wednesday accused Vice President Kamala Harris of being absent on immigration matters ― even showing up to a press conference with a milk carton with Harris’ face on it, declaring her “missing” at the border.

One problem: At the same time, Harris was holding a White House meeting on immigration and announcing her plans to visit Mexico and Guatemala.

With that milk carton in hand, House GOP Whip Steve Scalise (La.) demanded to know why Harris, who President Joe Biden recently tapped to examine the root causes of migration at the Mexican border, wasn’t personally visiting the region.  Continue reading.

Biden lays out plan for Afghanistan withdrawal

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President Biden on Wednesday laid out his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end America’s longest war by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that spurred the conflict.

“War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” Biden said during a speech delivered in the Treaty Room of the White House, where former President George W. Bush announced the start of the war. “It’s time to end the forever war.”

Biden’s deadline, if adhered to, would bring to a close a chapter of U.S. history that saw the deaths of more than 2,300 troops and has cost the country as much as $1 trillion. Continue reading.

Senate confirms Gensler to lead SEC

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Confirmation raises expectations for political spending disclosure

The Senate voted 53-45 Wednesday to confirm Gary Gensler as Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, potentially opening the door to increased political and climate risk disclosures from companies. 

Gensler will lead the agency amid growing calls for more public company disclosures from both Democrats and corporate shareholders. With his arrival, Democrats will have a majority on the commission. 

Mandated corporate disclosure of political spending and climate risk merits a closer look given strong investor interest, Gensler said during his March 2 confirmation hearing. Continue reading.

Biden to say he won’t pass along ‘responsibility’ of Afghanistan War

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President Biden on Wednesday will say that he is refusing to pass the responsibility of America’s longest war to a fifth president as he lays out his plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

Biden will call for an end to the 19-year war while pledging continued U.S. assistance to Afghanistan and support for peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden will say, according to excerpts of prepared remarks released by the White House. Continue reading.

A pair of misleading GOP attacks on Biden’s infrastructure plan

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President Biden has proposed a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, to be financed mainly by increases in corporate taxes. Here’s a guide to two misleading talking points that have already emerged.

“This is a massive social welfare spending program combined with a massive tax increase on small-business job creators.”

— Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), in an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” April 11

Politicians on both sides of the aisle often sing the praises of small businesses. But we were rather surprised to see Wicker claim that increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent would be a burden on small businesses. (Before the 2017 tax law, the corporate rate was 35 percent. Biden argues that the reduction was too steep.)

Wicker’s staff noted that Biden’s tax plan does not include a carve-out for small businesses, so “any business, including a small business, that files as a C-corporation would see their tax rate increase from 21 percent to 28 percent,” an aide said. The aide pointed to a National Federation of Independent Business report that cites “federal taxes on business income” as the third most severe issue facing small-business owners, with 20 percent of respondents finding federal taxes on income to be a “critical” issue in operating their businesses.

‘They didn’t like me’: Trump attacks Pfizer in conspiratorial rant after FDA pauses Johnson & Johnson vaccine

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This Tuesday, the Biden administration recommended a “pause” in using the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after reports of extremely rare blood clots in six people out of approximately 6.8 million doses that have been administered.

Former President Donald Trump took the opportunity to jump on the news, releasing a statement saying the Biden administration “did a terrible disservice to people throughout the world” in calling for the pause, adding that doing so would cause the “reputation” of the vaccine to be “permanently damaged.” 

“The people who have already taken the vaccine will be up in arms, and perhaps all of this was done for politics or perhaps it’s the FDA’s love for Pfizer,” Trump said.  Continue reading.

Biden will withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021

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President Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, U.S. officials said, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that drew the United States into its longest war.

The decision, which Biden is expected to announce Wednesday, will keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country beyond the May 1 exit deadline that the Trump administration negotiated last year with the Taliban, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Tuesday under rules of anonymity set by the White House.

While the Taliban has promised to renew attacks on U.S. and NATO personnel if foreign troops are not out by the deadline — and said in a statement it would not continue to participate in “any conference” about Afghanistan’s future until all “foreign forces” have departed — it is not clear whether the militants will follow through with the earlier threats given Biden’s plan for a phased withdrawal between now and September. The Taliban has conducted sputtering talks with the Afghan government, begun under the Trump deal, since last fall. It was also invited to an additional high-level inter-Afghan discussion in Turkey later this month. Continue reading.

Biden proposes summit, raises Ukraine escalation in call with Putin

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President Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and proposed that they meet for a summit “in a third country in the coming months,” according to the White House.

Why it matters: The call comes amid a Russian build-up on Ukraine’s borders, and after Putin reacted furiously to an interview in which Biden agreed that the Russian president was a “killer.”

  • Biden expressed U.S. support for Ukraine, raised “concerns over the sudden Russian military build-up,” and called on Russia to reduce tensions, per a White House readout. Continue reading.

Senate GOP Memo On Biden Jobs Plan Is Replete With Lies

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A new messaging memo from the Senate Republican Conference to its members’ communications teams frames President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan as a “job-crushing slush fund.”

According to Politico, the memo, dated April 11, dismisses the $2.25 trillion infrastructure package as a “partisan plan to kill jobs and create slush funds on the taxpayer dime.”

The memo is the latest in a series of attempts by Congressional Republicans to dent the bipartisan popularity of Biden’s plan. Recent polling has shown that the vast majority of likely American voters, including 57 percent of Republicans, back the plan to invest trillions of dollars in roads, bridges, broadband, transit, water systems, clean energy, and human infrastructure like child care. Continue reading.

Is broadband infrastructure? Republicans used to think so

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Republicans less sure that providing the service to all Americans is infrastructure, or at least at Biden’s price tag

The debate in Congress over President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan has featured a clean, simple attack line from Republicans: Most of the money wouldn’t really go to infrastructure.

Of course, that depends entirely on how you define infrastructure. For their purposes, Republicans are opting for a classic definition, seeking to limit the scope to things like roads and bridges. Russell Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump, asserted in a recent Fox News appearance that “only 5 to 7 percent” of the plan is actual infrastructure.

And although that assertion was awarded “Three Pinocchios” by a Washington Post fact-checker, one can make an argument that funding in the plan for things like home-care services and electric vehicle purchases isn’t exactly infrastructure. But Republicans’ objection to one piece of the plan, broadband expansion so that households in all parts of the country have access to fast internet service, seems the result of a particularly curious case of political amnesia. Continue reading.