Tag: Biden

The 9 big policy ideas that Biden hit during his speech

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Yet Biden also warned that the job remains half-done, using the address to lay out priorities across several areas that, he argued, would be essential to keeping the U.S. on the right track.
And in a nod to the tougher political landscape he now faces with Republicans in charge of the House, Biden emphasized his openness to compromise. He urged GOP leaders to work with him to strengthen the economy and slash the deficit even as he vowed to pursue his own longstanding cost-cutting policies.
Here are some of the major policy areas that Biden focused on in his speech:
Shoring up the economy
Biden made the state of the economy a central element of his address, reveling in its resilience over the past year despite persistent inflation and widespread predictions the U.S. was bound for a recession.
The president boasted about the roughly 12 million jobs created throughout his administration and an unemployment rate at its lowest point in more than 50 years. He credited a pair of bipartisan laws for spurring a boom in manufacturing investments and infrastructure projects across the country.
And Biden expressed confidence that the inflation that has dampened the White House’s economic record to date would continue to slow.
“Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last several years,” he said. “This is my view and of a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America.”
Maintaining that progress means continuing to bring manufacturing operations back to the U.S. and focus on building out the nation’s middle class, he argued. In that vein, Biden announced that the administration would soon issue guidance requiring that a range of construction materials used in federally funded infrastructure projects be made in America.

Addressing the deficit
The federal deficit fell by roughly $1.7 trillion in Biden’s first two years. On Tuesday, he proposed reducing it further through a pair of populist policies that would tax billionaires and corporate stock buybacks.
The plan Biden laid out is a long shot; it would require Congress to pass legislation unlikely to make it through the GOP-controlled House. It would impose a minimum tax on billionaires to ensure they won’t pay “a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter.” Corporations’ stock buybacks, meanwhile, would be taxed quadruple the current rate as an incentive for companies to make long-term investments.
Biden’s deficit talk came against the backdrop of a looming fight over the debt ceiling, which he noted had been raised three times in previous years “without preconditions or crisis.”
The president reiterated his call for quickly increasing the borrowing limit, calling it a necessary step to prevent an “economic disaster” that would throw the full faith and credit of the U.S. in question.
Even as he sought to reach across the aisle in other areas, Biden couldn’t help but hit Republicans over their suggestions that the debt ceiling is tied to cutting spending on entitlements.
“Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” he said, eliciting boos and finger-waving from GOP lawmakers and prompting a back-and-forth over the prospect of touching the programs.
“So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare, off the books now, right?” a bemused Biden eventually asked, to cheers from both sides of the aisle. “All right. We got unanimity.”
Cutting health care costs
Biden cast health care affordability as a key to his efforts to fight inflation by lowering “every day” costs, highlighting provisions in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act that reduced Obamacare premiums and helped spur record enrollment. The bill also granted Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices and limited the price of insulin for program beneficiaries, fulfilling two of Democrats’ long-held health policy priorities.
But Biden noted the bill failed to expand that insulin price cap to all Americans in the face of Republican opposition. He renewed his call for making the policy universal, challenging Congress to apply the new $35-per-month insulin limit to everyone who needs the medicine.
“There are millions of other Americans who are not on Medicare, including 200,000 young people with Type I diabetes who need this insulin to stay alive,” Biden said. “Let’s finish the job this time.”
Abortion
Despite making the threat to abortion access a key pillar of his midterm message, Biden made only a brief mention of the issue during his address on Tuesday.
Congress must codify Roe v. Wade, he said, mirroring the central argument that his administration has made in the months since the Supreme Court struck down the precedent. He insisted the White House is doing all it can to protect abortion access in the meantime, though he offered few specifics as to what that entailed besides pledging to veto any national abortion ban.
Keeping Covid in check
Biden pointed to Covid’s blunted impact on public health and the economy as confirmation of his administration’s progress in fighting the pandemic, insisting the country has reached a clear turning point where it can live safely with the virus.
He celebrated the planned expiration of the public health emergency for Covid this spring, and declared that the U.S. has “broken Covid’s grip on us.” Biden allowed that the virus is still circulating, and that his administration would continue working to keep it under control.
But in a sign of the pandemic’s shrinking political salience, Biden devoted relatively little time to discussing the next stage of a public health battle that once defined his presidency. He offered little in the way of new federal initiatives that might further suppress Covid’s spread outside of reiterating a monthslong call for more funding.
Defending America’s interests abroad
A year after making a primetime case for defending Ukraine against a just-launched Russian invasion, Biden pointed to the country’s extraordinary resilience in arguing that the U.S. must remain resolute in its support.
The nation’s continued defense of Ukraine, he said, is a testament to the U.S.’s ability to assemble and keep intact a global coalition. In a move that came even as some Republicans’ have grown openly skeptical over continuing to send aid to Ukraine, Biden directly addressed the Ukrainian ambassador, telling her: “We are united in our support for your country. We are going to stand with you as long as it takes.”
Biden also briefly addressed last week’s downing of a Chinese spy balloon, holding it up as a clear message that “if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.”
Guns and policing
In one of the most somber moments of the night, Biden mourned the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers. Acknowledging Nichols’ parents in the audience, Biden lamented there are “no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a child.”
Biden also offered a defense of law enforcement, calling most police “good, decent people.” But he urged Congress to embrace the need for greater accountability and pass a policing reform bill that has now been stalled for two years.
Biden similarly renewed his call for stronger action to curb access to assault weapons, in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings in January. Brandon Tsay, who disarmed a mass shooter at a Lunar New Year festival in California, was one of the president’s guests for the speech.
“Ban assault weapons now. Ban them now, once and for all,” Biden said.
Immigration
Biden batted away criticism of his border policies from Republicans who have vowed a flurry of investigations over the issue, contending that he’s made significant progress in policing human smuggling and fentanyl trafficking across the southern border.
But he also sought help from Congress to take additional action, pleading that if lawmakers won’t “pass my comprehensive immigration reform,” they should at least pass legislation providing the equipment and officers necessary to secure the border.
Biden added that Congress also needed to prioritize a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, farm workers, essential workers and those in the country on temporary status.
Climate
Biden pointed to the IRA in laying out his achievements on the climate, which he hailed as setting the foundation for a green revolution over the next several years. The hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies meant to spur electric vehicle manufacturing and other green technology investments will lead the way to what Biden termed a “clean energy future.”
Still, he linked the need to do more on the climate to his corporate tax proposals, arguing that ensuring the wealthiest corporations pay their “fair share” would be key to funding future investments aimed at preserving the environment.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 8, 2023
Biden calls for ban of online ads targeting children

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He called for similar measures at last year’s State of the Union as well.
Biden’s speech gives significant momentum to Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who plans to reintroduce the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act this Congress.
The bill, which is often referred to as COPPA 2.0, is an update to the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which Markey wrote as a House representative.
Since then, digital privacy concerns for children have grown exponentially, especially as more than half of America’s teens say it’d be difficult to give up social media. Those concerns include the use of targeted advertising geared toward children, and the collection of their data, both of which are bipartisan issues on Capitol Hill.
“This Congress, Senator Markey will continue to prioritize passage of his COPPA 2.0 legislation, which would finally put in place commonsense guardrails to stop Big Tech from tracking, targeting, and traumatizing America’s kids online,” said Rosemary Boeglin, a Markey spokesperson.
The biggest change from the original 1998 bill is that it increases the cut-off age for privacy protections from 13 to 16. Under COPPA, tech companies and data brokers are still allowed to collect and share data belonging to people over the age of 13, as well as target ads to teenagers.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups are concerned this has caused mental health issues for teens, which President Biden raised as a concern in his speech on Tuesday.
COPPA 2.0 would ban targeted advertising to children, aligning with Biden’s remarks on Tuesday night.

The bill also creates a Youth Privacy and Marketing division at the FTC to address issues related to kids’ online privacy.
COPPA 2.0 failed to get a floor vote in the Senate last year after it passed out of committee.
Republicans on the committee largely opposed the bill, arguing that Congress should focus on privacy legislation for all Americans instead. Republicans were also concerned about giving the FTC more rulemaking authority under the bill.
Markey has attempted to pass an update for kids’ privacy regulations since 2011. While he has momentum from the Biden administration, a split Congress could mean a 13th attempt in 2024.
Biden’s focus on online protections for children mustered support from key advocacy groups, which have called for some form of updated measures.
“It’s been 25 years since Congress passed legislation to protect children and teens online, and Congress simply cannot wait any longer,” said Josh Golin, the executive director of Fairplay, which opposes marketing geared toward children.
The tech industry responded Tuesday that strict regulations could hurt competition and innovation. Industry groups such as the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which includes Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, said regulations proposed last year would hamper the tech industry’s ability to compete on a global stage.
“The digital sector is incorporating protective design features into websites and apps, leading the way in raising the standard for teen safety and privacy with new features, settings, parental tools, and protections that are age-appropriate and tailored to the differing developmental needs of young people,” CCIA President Matt Schruers said.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau, which Amazon, Google and Meta are also members of, railed against a blanket ban on ads targeting children, but said the group supports privacy regulations.
“Punishing bad actors is a must, and IAB supports stronger laws to protect kids, but blaming data and technology for complex problems, and restricting or eliminating digital advertising, could severely diminish the benefits of the internet for everyone,” said Lartease Tiffith, the IAB’s executive vice president for public policy.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 8, 2023
Biden urges GOP lawmakers to ‘finish the job’ and takes a few swipes at them too

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It was a speech that underscored the stark dividing lines that have come to define this presidency, in which pleas for partisan differences to be set aside often clash against the realities of modern politics.
“That’s always been my vision for our country: to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class, to unite the country,” Biden said. “We’ve been sent here to finish the job.”
As he spoke, a symbol of the new fault lines in Washington appeared just over Biden’s left shoulder. He delivered last year’s State of the Union, and 2021’s address to Congress, with Nancy Pelosi seated behind him in her role as House speaker. On Tuesday, Republican Kevin McCarthy was in that perch, with his party having vowed to investigate Biden and his family and block much of his agenda.
Despite the looming gridlock, Biden struck an optimistic tone and pointed to his robust slate of accomplishments from his first two years in office. He cited the nation’s “progress and resilience” on its path or recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6 insurrection, declaring that while the nation “was bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken.”
“The story of America is a story of progress and resilience,” Biden said. “We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it. That is what we are doing again.”

First Lady Jill Biden waves to President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 7, 2023.
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Francis Chung/POLITICO
He repeatedly urged the GOP lawmakers to help him “finish the job” – he used the phrase 12 times in total – in passing a series of bills popular with the American people.
“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress,” Biden said.
Even before speaking, Biden nodded across the aisle, singling out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and needling McCarthy. “I don’t want to ruin your reputation but I look forward to working with you,” he said to the speaker.

Biden painted himself as the adult in the room, a no-drama president who tried to reach across the aisle and restored a sense of normalcy to a Washington left reeling from four tumultuous years of Donald Trump. He made a renewed push on pieces of legislation — including an assault weapons ban, police reform and protections for abortion rights — that polling suggestions are broadly popular with the American people, including the independent and swing voters who usually decide elections.
And while those are items Republicans are likely to oppose in the months ahead, aides felt confident in the approach. It was, they noted, a “unity agenda” similar to the approach that Biden took during his 2020 campaign, where he tried to avoid the daily political firestorms engulfing Trump, pledged to make politics less omnipresent in everyday life, all while allowing his Republican opponent to self-immolate.
The updated version of that strategy — until the Republicans pick their 2024 standard bearer — is predicated on the ascendance of newly prominent faces in the Republican party, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). Another headline-grabbing Republican, Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who faces a House Ethics probe and has been accused of lying about his entire resume, was seen milling about near the aisle.
A year ago, Taylor Greene and Boebert heckled Biden during his speech, and photographs of their angry shouting went viral. Ahead of the speech, McCarthy urged his caucus to avoid repeating such a spectacle. But after Biden suggested that some Republicans wanted to gut Social Security and Medicare, GOP lawmakers erupted in protest. Taylor Greene was spotted standing and shouting at the president again. Later, other Republicans interrupted Biden to shout about the southern border.
Biden has not yet declared his candidacy for re-election, but the State of the Union doubled as a soft launch for it. McCarthy also looms as a political foil. Though some of his criticisms of the GOP were implicit, Biden made direct calls in his speech for partisan politics to be set aside for two important priorities: lifting the federal debt ceiling and continuing to fund Ukraine in its defense against Russia. The new Speaker has already delivered his objections on both, setting up standoffs on issues that Biden has declared essential to the future of democracy at home and abroad.
Biden spoke quickly and forcefully, though stumbling on occasion, as he delivered the 73-minute speech. He touted the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill and saluted the Republicans who supported it. For those in the GOP who didn’t, he zinged: “We’ll still fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.”
There are challenges on the horizon for Biden, including the war in Europe and a special counsel appointed to investigate his handling of classified documents. And Republicans have spent recent days savaging the Biden administration’s response to the Chinese spy balloon that floated in U.S. airspace and gearing up for a year of partisan investigations.
Biden talked tough on China but made only a passing mention of the spy balloon that has dominated the national political discourse for a week, declaring, “As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”
Any State of the Union is of the moment, reflecting a nation’s internal strife. A year ago, in the wake of a surge of violent crime, Biden emphatically declared, “We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police. Fund them.”
But on Tuesday, in the midst of a homeless crisis and the killing of a Black man at the hands of Memphis police, Biden’s tone shifted, calling for “more resources to reduce violent crime and gun crime; more community intervention programs; more investments in housing, education, and job training.”
Biden vowed to veto any efforts to raise the price of prescription drugs, which his Inflation Reduction Act lowered for Medicare beneficiaries. He presented evidence of progress that’s been made in the last year on combating the opioid epidemic, lowering inflation, prioritizing mental health, aiding veterans and reviving his cancer “moonshot.” He pointed to the overwhelming bipartisan support last year for the PACT Act, which directs more healthcare resources to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits in combat.
He also pledged to utilize new technology to better track fentanyl smuggling at the southern border, singling out a New Hampshire father in the audience who lost his high school daughter to drug addiction. But that brought another uproar from Republicans, including a shout at Biden of “it’s your fault” about the fentanyl death.
The State of the Union has been home to many lines intertwined with the identity of their speakers: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s defense of “four freedoms” ahead of World War II, Bill Clinton declaring “the era of big government is over” and George W. Bush condemning “the axis of evil” after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. It is unclear if Biden will reach those rhetorical heights, as hovering over the address will be something he won’t discuss at all: his possible 2024 re-election bid.
The 80-year-old president has said he intends to stand for another term, though his official decision may still be more than a month away. He’ll hit the road this week for a post-speech barnstorming tour — with stops in Wisconsin and Florida — and will consider his political future by making more rounds of calls to his longtime allies, talking through themes and timing, pushed by a belief that he remains the one Democrat who could defeat Trump.
Most close to Biden believe that, soon enough, an official campaign will begin in earnest.
Eli Stokols contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 8, 2023
Marty Walsh to depart from Biden Cabinet for job atop hockey players’ union

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A former union official who previously headed up the Building and Construction Trades Council in Boston, Walsh is set to return to his roots in organized labor after giving some consideration to making another run at elected office in his home state of Massachusetts.
News of Walsh’s move was first reported by The Daily Faceoff. It was not immediately clear what his exit day would be, and neither the White House nor the Labor Department immediately returned requests for comment.
Walsh played a high-profile role in several of the administration’s interactions with organized labor. He brokered an eleventh-hour compromise between freight rail carriers and unions in September and visited the West Coast as port workers renegotiated their contract with employers. But it’s a mixed track record: Congress eventually had to weigh in on the railroad dispute, and West Coast port talks remain ongoing.
His departure would leave Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su, who oversaw the rollout of California’s divisive gig work law, as the agency’s acting head. That law, AB 5, established a new three-part test that redefined many of the state’s gig workers as employees.
Already, a coalition that represents gig companies like Uber and Lyft are taking shots at Su over her tenure as the head of California’s labor agency.
“Secretary Walsh recognized gig workers as an important part of the workforce with a unique need for flexible work,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “It’s critical that the next Labor Secretary recognize the value of gig work. Unfortunately, Deputy Secretary Su’s history in California raises questions about whether she would respect the will of gig workers who wish to remain independent.”
However Su has several vocal proponents in Congress, particularly among Democratic members who have taken issue with the amount of Asian American Pacific Islander representation — or lack thereof — in the upper echelons of the Biden administration. The deputy secretary is the child of Chinese immigrants.
Some lawmakers want Biden to draft her for the permanent position.

“I think he should” nominate her, said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “I hope he does. I will be very happy to support her because I have talked with her and as I said she and Marty really made a very good team.”
With much of Biden’s pro-union reform concentrated in the White House, Walsh is set to leave with several pivotal regulations still in the works at the Labor Department. Those include a proposed rule, initially expected months ago, that would expand the number of workers eligible for overtime pay, and a final rule redefining which workers qualify as independent contractors. The latter carries significant ramifications for gig work companies, whose profit models are dependent on how they qualify their workforce.
Given Republican control of the House, Walsh would have faced significant congressional oversight from newly installed House Education and Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx. The North Carolina Republican said in an interview last month that she’s centering her agenda on “trying to monitor what the Department [of Labor] is doing” and “calling the department’s hand.” She cited Walsh’s visit to Kellogg picket lines in October, among other things.
Just hours after the first reports of Walsh’s impending departure, Foxx sent a letter to DOL Solicitor General Seema Nanda demanding information about what precautions the labor secretary took while pursuing the NHLPA job.
“The American people deserve to know that Secretary Walsh met his ethics obligations while searching for employment outside of the federal government,” Foxx wrote.
Walsh, a personal friend of Biden’s, beat out several candidates for the Labor job in 2021, including Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), former Deputy Labor Secretary Seth Harris, Su and AFL-CIO Chief Economist Bill Spriggs. He enjoyed more bipartisan support than many other Biden nominees, leaning on his track record as Boston mayor to win over corporate America and even some congressional Republicans, who saw him as the friendliest option.
The former Boston mayor left toward the end of his second term to join the Biden administration but never moved to Washington, D.C., instead footing the bill to commute between his home in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood and his job.
By taking the players’ association gig, Walsh is now in line for a massive pay bump. Walsh makes a little over $200,000 as labor secretary. The current NHLPA executive director reportedly makes about $3 million.
Walsh had been regularly talked about as a future candidate for office in Massachusetts. But he passed on running for the state’s open governor’s seat last year, unwilling to get involved in a primary against Democrats’ heir apparent, now-Gov. Maura Healey. In addition, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have both pledged to seek reelection to their Senate seats in 2024 and 2026, respectively.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 7, 2023
US teams deploying quickly to support Turkish rescue efforts: Biden

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Washington: US President Joe Biden spoke to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and reaffirmed the US’ readiness to provide “any and all” needed assistance to Turkey in the wake of devastating earthquakes.
In a statement, the White House said Biden “noted that US teams are deploying quickly to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and co-ordinate other assistance that may be required by people affected by the earthquakes, including health services or basic relief items”.
President Biden also expressed condolences on behalf of the American people to those who were injured or lost loved ones in the earthquakes.
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February 7, 2023
Biden to push for universal insulin price cap in State of the Union

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“The President will call on Congress to extend this commonsense, life-saving protection to all Americans,” the fact sheet said.
Democrats had originally planned to pass a universal insulin price cap last year as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed along party lines last August. But the policy was scaled back after Republicans successfully challenged its inclusion. Democrats since then have vowed to continue to push for its passage, arguing that it’s broadly popular and crucial to ensuring that people can afford essential medicines.
Still, Biden’s fresh support for expanding the price cap is unlikely to result in much concrete progress. Republicans remain opposed to the measure, and are unlikely to even allow a vote on it in the House now that they control the chamber.
Biden during his State of the Union speech is also expected to highlight a handful of other health care accomplishments, including landmark legislation granting Medicare the right to negotiate drug prices and cap certain out-of-pocket pharmacy costs. He will celebrate the three latest states to expand their Medicaid programs, while urging Congress to pass legislation that would close coverage gaps in the 11 holdout states that have yet to expand Medicaid.
The president also plans to call for continuing to lower health insurance costs, pointing to expanded Obamacare subsidies that the administration estimates lowered customers’ premiums by an average of $800 per year and pushed the nation’s uninsured rate to an all-time low.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 7, 2023
Biden, the balloon, and the age of anti-China one-upmanship

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The single missile fired by an F-22 Raptor brought a swift end to an international incident that captured the country’s attention, and underscored the growing bipartisan consensus that when it comes to politics, it pays to be tough on China.
Republicans spent days assailing the White House over the balloon, filling the vacuum created by its deliberations with accusations that the administration had gone soft on a geopolitical foe. Democrats, alarmed by China’s brazenness and under pressure to stake out their own hardline stance, had begun to join in on the calls for aggressive action.
And when Biden got the go-ahead on Saturday, he dispatched the balloon in an overwhelming show of force, sending several fighter jets after the spy craft as it floated out to sea.
The White House has since gone out of its way to emphasize that Biden had planned a violent end to the incursion from the beginning. Senior officials said the president ordered it shot down as early as Tuesday, shortly after learning it had entered American airspace. They noted that Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a scheduled trip to China. But even supportive voices wanted more.
Brett Bruen, director of global engagement under former President Barack Obama, said Biden should recall his ambassador to China Nicholas Burns for consultations and throw out the head of Chinese intelligence at their embassy in Washington. He added that he believes individual sanctions need to be imposed on those involved.
“I would recommend Biden get Xi [Jinping] on the line and read him the riot act,” Bruen said. “He should threaten that the next time an incident of this nature takes place we will release sensitive secrets that Beijing’s leaders would rather not be exposed.”
The hostile one-upmanship aimed at China over the intelligence-gathering balloon served as just the latest example that lawmakers across the political spectrum see a clear benefit in taking a hawkish stance toward the global power. Even as China remains a crucial trading and economic partner, Republicans and an increasing number of Democrats are positioning the country as a key political concern — and thus a domestic and geopolitical battering ram.
Over just the last couple of years, lawmakers have blamed Beijing for worsening the spread of Covid and exacerbating supply chain shortages. Senior officials in the Biden administration and on Capitol Hill have raised national security concerns tied to Chinese apps like TikTok, and hardened their rhetoric over the independence of Taiwan.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made her final international pilgrimage as speaker to the island nation and current Speaker Kevin McCarthy has signaled that he too will visit there as a sign of solidarity against China.
The president himself has swept up competition with China into his broader rhetoric about an epic clash unfolding globally between democracies and autocracies.
And while the administration waited days before shooting down the balloon, it notably chose to publicize its existence and bring it down rather than keep the matter out of public view. A senior Defense Department official noted on Saturday that several similar balloons had been spotted during Donald Trump’s administration with no public outcry.
Chinese officials condemned Biden’s reaction to the surveillance balloon as “excessive,” and asserted that they retain the right to “respond further.” But domestically, Biden faced pushback for not moving more aggressively.
GOP leaders, including Trump, fanned fears over the potential intelligence risks while taking political shots at Biden.
“Biden is letting China walk all over us,” tweeted former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is on the verge announcing her 2024 presidential bid. “It’s time to make America strong again.”
Former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is also eyeing a presidential run, tweeted a video portraying him aiming his own gun at the balloon and boasting that he “took many shots at the CCP” during the Trump era.
Several Democrats took a similarly hard line against the violation of U.S. airspace, demanding decisive action even as most defended the White House for its prudence in waiting to down the balloon so that the falling debris did not hurt people on the ground.
“We have a real problem with China on a number of issues, from their human rights violations to their violations of international business law, to even the challenges we’ve had with them on overt spying,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I’m grateful that the military took decisive action when they did and how they did, but we obviously have issues here.”
Biden, meanwhile, has appeared to relish the opportunity to talk tough on China, casting himself as a fighter for America’s global dominance and bulwark against Chinese efforts to expand its sphere of influence.
“As I point out to our friends in the [European Union], don’t get angry we’re going to be [at] the beginning of the supply chain,” he said during a fundraiser on Friday, referring to foreign criticism over his economic policies. “Because that’s the only guarantee you’ll have access.”
That confrontational attitude represents a significant departure from Democrats’ stance toward China just a few decades ago. During Bill Clinton’s administration, the party’s predominant thread of concern about China was centered on humanitarian grounds.
The White House itself sought to pursue a policy of “constructive engagement” with the Chinese government, eager to see the economic spoils of a more open relationship. They were cheered on by Wall Street Republicans and self-described foreign policy realists who felt that engagement with the communist nation was a strategically smarter way to defang it.
But the relationship grew strained as China’s ambitions widened throughout the Obama and Trump eras. And lawmakers and voters became more critical about jobs being lost and national security being compromised.
Bruen said taking a harder line on China has become broadly popular because the world has witnessed so many egregious acts over the last several years — whether it’s genocide against the Uyghurs, the violent repression of peaceful protesters in Hong Kong or the lack of transparency on Covid.
“But unlike our response to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s aggression, we need to act faster and put in place more deterrents, whether from launching balloons or invasions,” Bruen told POLITICO. “This moment should refocus leaders not only on strong statements and symbolic acts, but to develop a real strategy for countering Chinese aggression.”
Biden himself has yet to weigh in on how the incident will shape his own approach toward China. But hours before shooting the balloon down, the president couldn’t help but let slip his enthusiasm for the chance to send a strong message to his critics at home and rivals in Beijing.
“We’re gonna take care of it,” he said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 5, 2023
Trump wouldn’t beat Biden, Sununu says

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“It can’t get done. He could get the nomination, but he can’t get [it] done,” Sununu said of the former president.
Sununu, who offered pointed criticisms of Biden’s handling of the economy, said Republicans need to nominate the most electable conservative they can find.
He said that a solid GOP field was shaping up and that he was also “thinking about it” when it comes to entering the race himself.
“Definitely thinking about it, having those conversations,” Sununu said, “but at the end of the day, you’re going to have a lot of Republicans that get in that race. They’re all really good people; they’re really good candidates. You have Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo and Governor [Ron] DeSantis and a lot of folks who are going to get in.”
Speaking later on the same program, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie agreed with Sununu that Trump was unlikely to defeat Biden.
“I don’t think so,” he said during a panel discussion.
The Post-ABC poll gave Trump a 48-44 edge over Biden. But it also showed that a majority of Democrats do not want Biden to be the Democratic nominee in 2024 and that a plurality of Republicans feel the same way about Trump. The poll, released two days before Biden’s State of the Union address, was conducted Jan. 27-Feb. 1 among a national sample of 1,003 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 5, 2023
Flexing his wins and eyeing a 2nd term, Biden will lay out contrasts with GOP in State of the Union

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Though Biden won’t mention them by name, aides believe the presence of newly prominent House Republicans in the chamber will underscore his arguments. A year ago, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) heckled Biden during his speech, and photographs of their shouting went viral. White House aides privately admit that they wouldn’t mind that happening again this time, creating a contrast between rabble-rousing in the crowd and steady leadership on the dais.
“The theme of a State of the Union is always ‘Who are we, who do want to be? What do we stand for, what do we want to believe?’” said Jen Psaki, Biden’s former press secretary. “That is not to ignore or deny huge problems in the country but to say ‘I will work with people to take them on.’”
But the subtext of the address will not be the lawmakers in the seats but the campaign ahead. Biden has not yet declared his candidacy but the State of the Union could very well double as a soft launch for a 2024 bid. The president has said he intends to stand for re-election, though some of his closest advisers caution that a final decision has not yet been made. In somewhat classic Biden fashion, the timeline for an announcement has shifted, according to four people familiar with the decision.
Originally pegged to March or April, in part for fundraising purposes, there had been talk of moving an announcement up to late February. That now may have slipped again as the White House grapples with the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the discovery of mishandled classified documents at Biden’s Delaware home and former office.
Biden advisers have downplayed the impact of the discovery — pointing to his unchanged approval rating in the face of the controversy. They believe the Democrats’ triumphs in November squelched any talk of an intra-party challenger and bought the 80-year-old president time to make his decision.
Still, Biden faces challenges heading into Tuesday’s address.
A divided Washington and a growing array of challenges could define his presidency in the months ahead. House Republicans are ramping up their investigations. The battle for Ukraine continues to rage. And in just the last fortnight, the nation has been left reeling by video of a brutal deadly assault of a Black man at the hands of police.
Biden is expected to rally Americans on Tuesday with the notion that the nation is at an inflection point as it emerges from the COVID pandemic and the trials put forth by Donald Trump’s time in office.

A year ago, Biden delivered his first State of the Union just days after Vladimir Putin sent his Russian forces over the Ukrainian border. The fate of Kyiv hung in the balance and Biden used a sweeping portion of his speech to argue that the defense of Ukraine was a defense of democracies around the globe.
Now, the case will be different. Ukraine has shown remarkable resilience, repelling much of Russia’s aggression, but the war has settled into a grinding slog with Kyiv clamoring for more weapons to defend itself for months if not years. Biden, aides said, will outline to the public why continued, sustained American involvement is needed. He will urge Republicans to ignore the voices in their own party who want to curtail funding to Ukraine.
Another standoff with Republicans will also be central to Biden’s pitch: the need to lift the nation’s debt ceiling. He will make clear that he will not negotiate on the country’s fiscal future, connecting it to his stewardship of the economy. Though inflation remains high, it has begun to cool, and the president is expected to point to historically low unemployment, strong jobs numbers and a growing feeling among economists that the nation could avoid a recession.
“There should be a focus on tone: be firm without [being] combative,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who was a senior adviser on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “And there has to be an acknowledgment of the pain inflation has caused. It can’t just be ‘happy talk’ about what they’ve done on the economy. You run the risk of looking out of touch.”
Any State of the Union is of the moment, and reflective of the challenges facing the country when it is delivered. In recent days, Biden aides have inserted sections into the speech on the collective traumas suffered by the nation last month.
In the wake of several mass shootings, including two in California just days apart, Biden will again call for a ban on assault weapons, an idea that has little chance of receiving Republican support. And he will likely mourn with the nation over Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died at the hands of Memphis police officers last month, trying to thread the needle of showing support for law enforcement while also advocating for police reform.
Even if some legislation — like the George Floyd Policing Bill and the assault weapons ban — have little chance of becoming law, there is still value in the president proposing something that polls show is popular with most Americans, aides said.
Some of Biden’s speech will be backward-looking, reflecting the political reality of a divided Congress unlikely to pass meaningful legislation against a backdrop of GOP probes into the president’s administration and family. But White House aides believe that could be to their advantage, allowing the president to blame the GOP for gridlock while he can extoll the accomplishments of the last two years.
One example will be infrastructure. Aides plan for Biden to highlight the projects underway thanks to the $1 trillion in federal funding and point to last week’s schedule — the president visited one project in Baltimore and another in New York City — as a preview of the year ahead. Biden will start criss-crossing the country to tout work funded by his administration, beginning with a post-speech barnstorming tour across the Midwest later this week.
The president, always deliberative, will consider his political future by making more rounds of calls to his longtime allies, talking through themes and timing, pushed by a belief that he remains the one Democrat who could defeat Trump. Most close to Biden believe that, soon enough, an official campaign will begin in earnest.
“He should focus attention on … big legislative achievements, the national pandemic emergency ending, the economy stabilizing and still growing, and how the midterms went very well for his party,” said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. “If this was any other president, without the age issues or concerns about what the Republican campaign might look like, this would be a message to launch 2024.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 5, 2023
Biden brought down a Chinese spy balloon. But he hasn’t tanked bilateral ties

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This latest incident hits home in the U.S. — literally — because the nonstop coverage of the balloon’s presence in American airspace and its destruction captured on live video made the China threat real for many.
“This was a pretty big hit for the [public] trust factor in U.S.-China relations — Chinese spying has never been so front and center in the American public consciousness,” said Lyle Morris, former country director for China at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “If there were any people still on the fence about a China threat or not, that’s pretty much been foreclosed.”
In the short term, GOP lawmakers are arguing that Biden needs to get tougher on China. A senior State Department official sounded a similar stern line on Beijing by calling the balloon’s incursion “a clear violation of our sovereignty” and declaring that it was “unacceptable”in a press briefing on Friday.
China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Saturday protesting Biden’s decision to shoot down the surveillance balloon. The ministry called the downing of the airship “a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice” and warned that China reserved the right “to make further responses if necessary.”
But the incident will likely only further bruise, rather than break, the bilateral relationship.
Regardless of rampant political rhetoric about economic decoupling, the two countries are too interdependent to opt for a drastic downgrade in bilateral ties. Both the Biden administration and senior Chinese officials, including paramount leader Xi Jinping, have recently emphasized the need to improve the tenor in the U.S.-China relationship. And historically, other U.S.-Chinese incidents that have roiled the relationship eventually faded in favor of resumed, if strained, ties.
In recent weeks, Xi and his aides have launched a charm offensive aimed at easing tensions with Washington as they struggle with a Covid outbreak and an economic downturn. The Chinese government was even preparing to welcome Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a now-postponed visit in which he would potentially have met with Xi.
And because the discovery of the airship is an untimely embarrassment for Xi, he may keep China’s response to the downing limited. In fact, Beijing signaled its desire to prevent the balloon incursion from rupturing ties by issuing a rare expression of “regrets,” although it also claimed the object was a weather balloon that went off course.

In comments Saturday to reporters, Biden said he ordered on Wednesday that the balloon be shot down “as soon as possible.” Ultimately, authorities decided to wait until the object was over water to avoid “doing damage to anyone on the ground,” the president said.
Biden did not answer a question about how the decision would affect U.S. relations with China. Foreign affairs observers, however, predicted that both Beijing and Washington would try to minimize the fallout.
“The Biden administration has already signaled that it will seek to reschedule the Blinken visit when conditions allow,” noted Daniel Russel, a former senior Asia hand in the Obama administration who has close ties to Biden aides. “If this closes the book on the incident, the two sides can get back to work. If, instead, the Chinese elect to play the aggrieved victim or to retaliate, we may find ourselves back climbing the escalation ladder.”
Should the United States recover the remnants of the balloon and prove that it is a spy contraption and not a weather tracker, that could further embarrass Xi and lead him to back down. Biden could use that wreckage “to humiliate China or as a bargaining chip in private discussions,” said Yun Sun, China program director at the Stimson Center.
The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The United States and China have a history of recovering from relation-disrupting incidents that initially outraged the other.
On May 7, 1999, for instance, a U.S.-led NATO air campaign bombed China’s embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists and wounding 20 other Chinese citizens. Though the United States insisted the bombing was a mistake, to this day it is a source of sore feelings in China, where one state media account in 2021 called it “barbaric.” Still, the incident hasn’t prevented efforts to improve relations.
In 2001, a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea and landed in China’s Hainan island. China detained the U.S. plane’s 24-member crew for 11 days, during which the fighter jet pilot was said to have died. After several days of tense negotiations, the two countries brokered a deal hinged on a U.S. expression of regret for the incident.
Even years of rising tensions over Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island that Beijing claims as its own, have not severed ties. In 2013, when Biden was vice president, Beijing declared the launch of an “air defense identification zone” in the East China Sea. Biden went to China with the message that Washington would not recognize the zone; U.S. military planes were already flying through it without Chinese permission.
Biden has also repeatedly said the administration will send U.S. troops to help Taiwan if China attacks, although official U.S. policy is more ambiguous.
And when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, the Chinese government reacted furiously, conducting days of live fire military drills around the island. Beijing also suspended bilateral military dialogues and joint efforts in China’s role in the U.S. opioid crisis.
But three months later, Biden met with Xi on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Indonesia, and both pledged to try to ease tensions in order to “manage this competition responsibly.” The Chinese government has also recently shifted to a softer diplomatic tone — an effort by Beijing to reduce U.S.-China tensions while it grapples with a disastrous Covid outbreak and an economic downturn.
The balloon incident is likely to reverberate strongly on Capitol Hill, where there is a bipartisan consensus that China poses a long-term threat to U.S. power.
“Congress will almost certainly hold hearings about the administration’s response, which will extend this story’s shelf life and raise important questions about the efficacy of the Biden administration’s China policy,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The possibility of Blinken going ahead with the trip to China was considered before it was ultimately postponed after administration officials realized the visit would be overshadowed by questions about a balloon that could still be hovering over U.S. soil.
“The objective of the trip was to seek a ‘floor’ in relationship and explore potential areas of cooperation in mutual interest,” a U.S. official familiar with the issue said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The balloon, however, “would have dominated all the conversations,” the official said. “It was better to postpone for a better time, and the interagency all agreed with that.”
It’s not clear when Blinken will reschedule his trip. Whether Chinese officials agree to host him fairly soon could be a sign of how quickly they want to put the balloon incident behind them.
Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 5, 2023