White House chief medical adviser provides insight to the Biden administration’s vaccine distribution plan
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo took a rare swipe at his own network Thursday night over its now-debunked report about the Biden administration “starting from scratch” with a coronavirus vaccine rollout plan.
Earlier Thursday, CNN raised eyebrows with its purported “scoop” that quoted unnamed Biden officials alleging, “There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch,” as well as that the new administration would have to start from “square one” since, according to CNN, “there simply was no plan.”
During a White House press briefing later in the day, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was tapped by President Biden during the transition to be a White House adviser, was asked directly by NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker if the new administration was “starting from scratch.”
“We certainly are not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in the distribution,” Fauci responded before elaborating on the Biden administration’s own plan.
Fauci later appeared on “Cuomo Prime Time,” but even the CNN star was heavily skeptical of his network’s reporting.
“Another thing that I don’t buy comes out of our reporting … that people in the administration say they’re starting from scratch with the vaccine. No, they’re not!” Cuomo exclaimed. “You have an infrastructure out there that you’re well aware of that has to be improved. But they shouldn’t get any benefit of a low bar here either. … Are they gonna scrap it or are they going to build on it, make it better?”
“No, no they’re not going to scrap it,” Fauci responded.
“I was involved in the development of that stuff. They were not going to scrap that,” Fauci then chuckled.
CNN heavily pushed the story prior to the briefing. According to Fourth Watch media critic and former CNN producer Steve Krakauer, the anti-Trump network had mentioned its now-disputed scoop “a total of 23 times” before Fauci spoke to the press.
CNN White House correspondent MJ Lee, who authored the controversial report, defended her reporting on social media, characterizing Fauci as “a holdover from the Trump administration.”
Lee also attempted to rely on President Biden’s earlier comments to validate her reporting, tweeting, “In the last hour, Biden said Trump’s vaccine rollout had been a ‘dismal failure.'”
The CNN reporter was mocked by critics for referring to Fauci as a “holdover” from President Trump.
As of early Friday morning, no correction, retraction, or editor’s note has been added to CNN’s original report that was published on its website. A small burb was placed at the bottom of the report reading, “This story has been updated with additional reporting.”
CNN did not previously respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
“These actions are concrete and will provide immediate support to hard-hit families,” Brian Deese, the head of the White House’s National Economic Council, told reporters on a call Thursday evening. But, he added, “They are not enough. And much, much more is needed.”
Through one executive order, Biden will ask the Department of Agriculture to consider increasing food assistance benefits and money to help families with schoolchildren buy groceries. He will ask the Treasury Department to consider taking action to ensure that more Americans who are eligible to receive economic relief checks are able to get them.
And he will call on the Labor Department to clarify guidelines that until now had forced American workers who refused an offer to return to work to lose their unemployment benefits, even if heading back to the workplace would have put them or their families at heightened risk.
The second order is focused on protecting federal workers and contractors, in part by restoring collective bargaining power and worker protections by revoking measures that President Donald Trump had signed. It also eliminates Schedule F, a class of worker that Trump had established that stripped many federal civil service employees of job protections.
It asks agencies to take a look at which federalemployees are earning less than $15 per hour and come up with recommendations to get them above that wage.
The orders are the latest in a blitz of executive actions that Biden has taken since he took office on Wednesday. The more than two dozen measures he has signed have been aimed in part at turning around the pandemic, tackling climate change and reversing some of Trump’s policies, including the so-called Muslim ban on travelers from certain countries.
Deese called on Congress to pass the American Rescue Plan that Biden laid out last week, which proposed $1.9 trillion in additional federal funding to tackle the pandemic, provide another round of direct payments to working families and extend unemployment benefits, among other priorities. But Republicans have panned that proposal, saying it is too expensive and comes too soon after the $900 billion aid package that Congress passed last month.
On Thursday morning, just hours after Mr. Biden’s inauguration, Dr. Fauci spoke to the executive board of the World Health Organization, telling the body that the United States would not be following through with Mr. Trump’s demand to leave the group in the middle of a pandemic.
“The United States stands ready to work in partnership and solidarity to support the international Covid-19 response, mitigate its impact on the world, strengthen our institutions, advance epidemic preparedness for the future and improve the health and well-being of all people throughout the world,” Dr. Fauci said in a video appearance.
During the Trump administration, Dr. Fauci’s appearances in the White House briefing room were often preceded by rambling, contentious meetings in the Oval Office with Mr. Trump and his aides, many of whom pushed rosy scenarios or misleading data.
On Thursday, Dr. Fauci described a different scene.
“One of the things that was very clear as recently as about 15 minutes ago when I was with the president is that one of the things that we’re going to do is to be completely transparent open and honest,” he said. “If things go wrong, not point fingers but to correct them and to make everything we do be based on science and evidence.”
Dr. Fauci paused, as if to marvel at what he had just said.
“I mean, that was literally a conversation I had 15 minutes ago,” he said. “And he has said that multiple times.”
A reporter noted that Dr. Fauci — who had last appeared in the briefing room in November — had largely disappeared from public view at the end of last year after angering Mr. Trump one too many times.
Are you back now, he was asked.
He smiled and glanced at Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.
South Carolina Republican joins ‘Hannity’ for a one-on-one about looming impeachment trial
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed delaying former President Trump‘s impeachment trial until February so the former president’s new legal team will have time to prepare his defense.
The Democrat-led House rushed a vote last week to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection” after a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and delayed the certification of President Biden’s electoral college win. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she expects to transmit the article to the Senate “soon” to launch a Senate trial.
But McConnell told his GOP colleagues on a call Thursday that a two-week delay would allow Trump to ready his legal defense and ensure due process.
Follow below for updates on Trump’s impeachment. Mobile users click here.
Sen. Bernie Sanders knows how to dress for cold weather, and the world of social media instantly fell in love.
The focus may have been on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who were officially sworn in on Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol, but Sanders’ mittens might have stolen some of their thunder.
Instead of wearing a formal suit, the Vermont senator went with a more casual look, wearing a buttoned-up Burton coat and knit gloves that, according to Ruby Cramer of Buzzfeed News, were made by a teacher in Biden’s home state of Vermont.
It turns out the coveted mittens are made in Sanders’ home state of Vermont, according to Ruby Cramer of Buzzfeed News.
“Bernie’s mittens are made by Jen Ellis, a teacher from Essex Junction, Vt,” Cramer wrote on Twitter. ”She gave them to him 2+ years ago and was surprised when he began wearing them on the campaign trail. They are made from repurposed wool sweaters and lined with fleece made from recycled plastic bottles.”
“People had sent me pictures of Bernie Sanders sitting there in his chair, looking a little grumpy. Then the camera zoomed right in on him and I was like, there he is, he’s wearing my mittens. I was completely surprised and delighted and flattered and good for him,” Ellis told Slate in an interview Wednesday.
Cramer also had details about the manila envelope Sanders was holding, which apparently was what his inauguration tickets came in.
Jane O’Meara Sanders, the co-founder of the Sanders Institute, noted that Sanders’ coat was Vermont-made, as well.
Sanders’ look went viral on social media, and from Twitter to Instagram, there was no shortage of hilarious reactions and memes spawned from his moment in the spotlight.
A close up of Senator Bernie Sanders’ mittens are shown as he attends President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony,AP
And there’s already a bobblehead in the works, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.
The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee announced it would create a bobblehead replica of a viral image of Sanders sitting at the inauguration, cold and somewhat unamused.
The early opposition from Republicans signals that the next round of coronavirus relief will be at least as painful as the last, which took more than six months to clinch in late December. It also means Biden may have to choose between lowering his ambitions in order to follow through on his bipartisan desires or embracing a partisan bill that he says the country desperately needs.
Some House Democrats have mulled a smaller package that links vaccines and larger stimulus checks, although Democratic leaders in both chambers have yet to decide on a path forward.
Biden has pushed a massive plan that includes a $15 an hour minimum wage hike, further boosts in unemployment benefits and $1,400 in direct payments. It also pumps more money into vaccines and testing.
Some of those items can get support from Republicans. But that package as a whole is a “non-starter,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the No. 4 GOP leader.
“We’re ready to look at what it takes to move forward, as effectively and quickly as we can, on vaccine distribution, on securing what we need for the future in terms of CDC,” Blunt said. “There’s some things in there that aren’t going to happen, there’s some things that can happen.”
Even progressives prefer to work with Republicans instead of using reconciliation or changing the Senate’s filibuster rules to ram the relief package through. But they say they will not be stymied by Republicans’ use of the supermajority requirement in getting things done.
“The American people are crying out for help, crying out for action and we’ve got to respond,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “I hope we can get cooperation of our Republican colleagues and that they understand the severity of what’s facing the country. But we need all the tools that we have.”
Sanders is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, which could set the stage for using the procedural tool to skirt a GOP filibuster. Using budget reconciliation, Democrats can pass legislation with just 50 votes and Vice President Kamala Harris breaking any tie. Still, there are some limits to budget reconciliation — and Biden’s big pitch is that he can unite the country and work with Republicans.
There are few takers among Republicans, however, to go as big and bold as Biden wants. And there’s even less enthusiasm to do it now. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, two Republicans that helped marshal the last bipartisan bill into law, both indicated this week that Biden would have to sell them on passing such a large bill now.
“They have to know this is not going to get anywhere,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) of the Biden administration. “It goes nowhere. No, it cannot get 60 votes.”
The Biden administration says the exact opposite is true. In a press briefing on Thursday afternoon, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden “feels that package is designed for bipartisan support.” Also, some business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have endorsed his plan.
Collins and Romney are among a group of 16 senators in both parties set to meet with the Biden administration over the weekend to begin discussing economic issues. It’s just the start of what’s likely to be a long set of talks with the Senate, which is split 50-50 and will take weeks to confirm Biden’s Cabinet and conduct former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial before being able to fully turn to Covid relief.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has listed an aid package as among the Senate’s top three priorities, alongside confirmations and the impeachment trial. On Thursday he said his new majority has to confront “the greatest economic crisis since the New Deal 75 years ago, the greatest health crisis in 100 years.”
He and Biden also have to confront a recalcitrant Republican Party that thinks it has already spent too much money.
“We’ve already given $5 trillion,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “It’s too high. It’s too vague … I don’t want to just throw money out there.”
Some Democrats acknowledge what Biden is presenting will not be embraced by the Republican Party and say his proposal is just the first step toward an eventual compromise with the GOP. The alternative is to scrap efforts at bipartisanship and try and pass Biden’s first legislative agenda item unilaterally, which could always be a fallback plan.
“Some of the elements will draw very strong bipartisan support,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a close Biden ally. “What we need to do is just work hard to find a good principled compromise.”
The nation’s capital was hard to recognize on Inauguration Day this year. In response to the Capitol Hill siege on Jan. 6, thousands of police and National Guard troops were sent on the streets of Washington, DC, where they manned checkpoints and set up barriers.
In Portland, Black Lives Matter-Antifa made good on their pre-announced “J20” (January 20) riot. Around 150 Antifa dressed in black shut down traffic as they marched unimpeded to the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Oregon. They held a large banner showing a Kalashnikov and the text, “WE DON’T WANT BIDEN—WE WANT REVENGE!”
They destroyed the offices by smashing its windows one-by-one using hammers and metal batons. They dragged dumpsters on the street and started a fire. Their comrades shielded them from cameras with large black umbrellas.
Mugshots of Antifa protesters arrested by Portland Police.Portland Police
When Portland Police responded, they confiscated knives, batons, a crowbar, pepper spray and homemade firebombs from Antifa. However, most of them quickly dispersed into the neighborhood in small groups. Police only made eight arrests. Four of them had been arrested at Antifa riots in 2020.
Later that night, Antifa regrouped in southwest Portland where they chanted, “F– Joe Biden” while marching to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Dressed in riot gear, they brandished shields, batons and rocks. Federal officers used flash bangs and tear gas to disperse the rioters. Portland Police arrested seven, three of whom were also charged over riots last year.
For example, Justin Bowen, who was charged with reckless endangerment, attempted assault on police and other riot-related crimes, was arrested for the fourth time overnight. All his charges were dropped by morning.
It wasn’t only Portland that experienced Inauguration Day rioting. In Seattle, hundreds of Antifa shut down traffic in downtown as they trashed roads and started street fires. They smashed up numerous businesses and the William Kenzo Nakamura Court House. They assaulted a citizen on the street. Like their black-clad brethren in Portland, they used umbrellas to shield one another. Around 7 p.m., they marched to Seattle’s iconic Pike Place Market, where they proceeded to vandalize and loot the original Starbucks, a popular tourist attraction. Police only managed to arrest three suspects.
The planned political violence in Seattle and Portland on Wednesday should have generated front-page headlines. The state headquarters of a governing political party was severely vandalized in broad daylight — the second attack on a Democrat Party building in Portland since November. But because the attackers espoused the right politics from the left, they are conveniently ignored by mainstream media and politicians.
Some believe Antifa would fade away after Biden’s electoral win. They’re wrong. With the convenient excuse of resisting “Donald Trump’s fascist regime” no longer applicable, Antifa are just getting started.
Andy Ngo is author of the upcoming book “Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.” Twitter: @MrAndyNgo
Seven Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) over their Jan. 6 objections to the November presidential elections.
Andrew Harnik/AP
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Seven Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) over their Jan. 6 objections to the November presidential elections.
Andrew Harnik/AP
A group of Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz over their objections to the Jan. 6 certification of the presidential election results that coincided with the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.
By objecting to the certification, Cruz, and Hawley, “lent legitimacy” to the violent mob of pro-Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol, the letter sent to incoming Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Chris Coons, D-Del., and Vice Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla., said.
The letter, spearheaded by Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, asked for an investigation into the two members to “fully understand their role” as it relates to the attack on the Capitol and to determine if disciplinary action is needed.
Whitehouse and the six other Democrats who signed the letter want information on whether Hawley, Cruz or their staffers were in contact or coordinated with the organizers of the rally; what the senators knew about the plans for the Jan. 6 rally; whether they received donations from any of the organizations or donors that funded the rally, and whether the senators “engaged in criminal conduct or unethical or improper behavior.”
Until those questions are cleared up, “a cloud of uncertainty will hang over them and over this body,” the letter said. Sens. Ron Wyden, Tina Smith, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Tim Kaine and Sherrod Brown also signed.
Hawley, of Missouri, and Cruz, of Texas, have defended their actions by saying they were raising objections to what they saw as election irregularities in states that voted for Biden. There has been no proof for such claims.
Hawley said Thursday that Biden and the Democrats are “trying to silence dissent.”
He added that the request for an investigation “is a flagrant abuse of the Senate ethics process and a flagrant attempt to exact partisan revenge.”
Both Hawley and Cruz, along with six other senators, have faced bipartisan criticism for voting against certification in Arizona and Pennsylvania. They maintained their position even after several of their fellow senators withdrew objections after Congress was forced to evacuate due to the mob attacking the Capitol building.
Congressional discipline
If an investigation goes forward and the committee finds any wrongdoing by the two senators, they could face discipline from the Senate. Under the Constitution, Congress has the exclusive power to discipline its members –though it is rare for members to face punishment.
The Senate can expel or censure its members. Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote in the chamber. Censure requires a majority vote.
But according to Senate.gov, only 15 U.S. senator have been expelled since 1780 — all for disloyalty to the U.S. Most of them were removed for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War.
The Senate has censured nine of its members between 1811 and 1990 for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.” The majority of the most recent cases have involved senators who were found to improperly accept gifts or used campaign funds for their personal benefit.
The seven Democrats who drafted the letter to the Ethics Committee believe Hawley and Cruz violated the Code of Ethics for Government Service, which requires elected officials to “[p]ut loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department” and “[u]phold these principles, ever conscious that public office is a public trust.”
Sen. Smith, D-Minn., said Thursday that she believes Hawley and Cruz should be removed from the Senate.
“Sens. Cruz and Hawley deserve a fair process and a chance to explain themselves and their role in the January 6 Capitol siege,” Smith wrote in a tweet. “But unless we learn something new, based on what we’ve seen so far, I don’t believe they deserve to remain in the Senate.”
One order calls on the health and human services secretary and the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator to re-evaluate the federal government’s Covid-19 data-gathering systems and issue a report on their findings. It also calls on the heads of “all executive departments and agencies” to gather and share coronavirus-related data.
The Trump administration struggled last year to settle on a centralized system, pitting competing programs at the Department of Health and Human Services and the C.D.C. against one another. Alex M. Azar II, the former health and human services secretary, ordered hospitals to send daily reports about virus cases to a private vendor that transmitted them to a central database in Washington, instead of the C.D.C., which had previously housed the data. The decision, which remains in effect, angered C.D.C. scientists.
Establish a health equity task force.
Another order creates a Covid-19 “health equity task force,” which will recommend how to carve out more funding for parts of the population particularly hard hit by the virus, analyzing needs by race, ethnicity, geography and disability, among other factors. Mr. Biden said on Thursday that the task force would address hesitancy toward taking the vaccines.
The panel, housed at the Department of Health and Human Services, is part of a larger effort by the Biden administration to draw more attention to persistent racial and ethnic disparities in health care access, as minorities have been hospitalized and died from Covid-19 at substantially higher rates. Mr. Biden appointed Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, an associate professor of internal medicine, public health and management at Yale, to lead the task force.
Publish guidance for schools and workers.
Mr. Biden issued an order meant to protect the health of workers during the pandemic, telling the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to release new guidance for employers. The order also asks the agency to step up enforcement of existing rules to help stop the spread of Covid-19 in the workplace.
The president also directed the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services to issue new guidance on how to safely reopen schools — a major source of controversy over the summer when White House and health department officials pressured the C.D.C. to play down the risk of sending students back.
Anthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases expert in the US, spoke on Thursday of a “liberating feeling” of being able to speak scientific truth about the coronavirus without fear of “repercussions” from Donald Trump.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, endured a tortuous relationship with the former president and was increasingly sidelined from public briefings.
But the 80-year-old returned to the White House podium on Thursday after Joe Biden released a national Covid-19 strategy and signed 10 executive orders to combat a pandemic that has now claimed more than 400,000 lives in the US.
“One of the things that we’re going to do is to be completely transparent, open and honest,” Fauci told reporters. “If things go wrong, not point fingers, but to correct them. And to make everything we do be based on science and evidence.
“That was literally a conversation I had 15 minutes ago with the president and he has said that multiple times.”
Asked if he would like to amend or clarify anything he said during the Trump presidency, Fauci insisted he had always been candid, noting wryly. “That’s why I got in trouble sometimes.”
Fauci and other public health advisers were forced to walk a delicate line as the president used coronavirus taskforce briefings to downplay the virus, push miracle cures and score political points. On one occasion Trump mused about injecting patients with disinfectant but the response coordinator Deborah Birx remained silent.
Fauci’s frankness did not go unnoticed. During the election race in October, Trump reportedly told campaign staff: “Fauci is a disaster. If I listened to him, we’d have 500,000 deaths.” At a rally in early November, as crowds chanted “Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!”, the president suggested he might do just that.
At Thursday’s briefing, Fauci was asked how it feels to no longer have Trump looming over him. “Obviously, I don’t want to be going back over history but it’s very clear that there were things that were said – be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine [pushed as a treatment by Trump] and things like that – that really was uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact.
“I can tell you, I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president, so it was really something that you didn’t feel that you could actually say something and there wouldn’t be any repercussions about it. The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is and know that’s it, let the science speak, it is something of a liberating feeling.”
Trump departs after addressing the coronavirus task force daily briefing with Dr Anthony Fauci, 26 March 2020. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Although Biden had just condemned vaccine distribution under the Trump administration as a “dismal failure so far”, Fauci said the new team is “not starting from scratch” as it tries to get shots in arms more quickly. “I believe the goal that was set by the president, of getting 100 million people vaccinated in 100 days, is quite a reasonable goal.”
He added: “If we get 70% to 85% of the country vaccinated, let’s say by the end of the summer, middle of the summer, I believe, by the time we get to the fall, we will be approaching a degree of normality.”
Possible US plateau
Fauci told the briefing that, based on seven-day averages, the coronavirus may be plateauing in this US but warned that there can always be lags in data reporting. “One of the new things about this new administration: if you don’t know the answer, don’t guess,” he said.
After Fauci’s return to the west wing, Nicole Wallace, a former White House communications director, told viewers of the MSNBC network: “It seems like this briefing will forever be remembered as the one where Tony Fauci got his groove back.”
The executive orders signed by Biden establish a Covid-19 testing board to increase testing, address supply shortfalls, establish protocols for international travelers and direct resources to hard-hit minority communities. They also require mask-wearing in airports and on certain public transport, including many trains, planes and intercity buses.
Fauci was followed at the restored daily White House briefing by the press secretary, Jen Psaki. She confirmed that the new administration would seek a five-year extension of the New Start treaty with Russia that limits the arsenals of both countries to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads each.
The 2010 treaty, the last remaining arms control treaty in the wake of the Trump administration, is due to expire on 5 February, but an extension would be feasible if Russia agrees, even in the remaining two weeks. Vladimir Putin has signaled he is open to an extension.
“The president has long been clear that the New Start treaty is in the national security interests of the United States, and this extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is adversarial as it is at this time,” Psaki said. “New Start is the only remaining treaty constraining Russian nuclear forces, and is an anchor of strategic stability between our two countries.”
But she added that the administration would “hold Russia to account for its reckless and adversarial actions” and that US intelligence would assess the Solar Winds cyber-attack last year, the attempted murder of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and reported Russian bounties for the killing of US soldiers by extremist groups in Afghanistan.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, took to Twitter Thursday night to call on President Biden to condemn Inauguration Day protests turned violent riots in Portland and Seattle.
More than a dozen people have been arrested in the two North West cities, according to police reports Thursday, after anti-Biden demonstrators targeted government buildings and the Oregon Democratic Party building in Portland.
Biden as of Thursday evening had not commented on the Portland and Seattle protests.
Portland police reported that roughly 75 people marched up to the Democratic Party headquarters and vandalized the building with spray paint and broke windows.
The city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency branch was then targeted by a group of 150 people, who also vandalized the building with anti-Biden and anti-police messages – forcing police to call an unlawful assembly and use tear gas to break up the crowds.
“I’m waiting for Pres Biden to condemn violence/looting/arson last two days in Oregon & Washington state,” Grassley said Thursday.
Fox News could not immediately reach the Iowa Republican for comment on how he would like to see Biden tackle the recent unrest.
The protests that proceeded Wednesday’s inauguration were reminiscent of the violent protests carried out last summer.
Police officials have not said who they believe were behind the protests Wednesday evening, though videos of the events showed people largely dressed in black with helmets.
The Portland Police Bureau also noted that many of them came prepared with shields and gas masks.
Spray painted messages left behind on the vandalized buildings left messages, such as “F-Biden” and the anarchy sign.
Images circulated on social media showing protestors walking with signs that read “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge” and “We are ungovernable.”
Security officials were on high alert across the country following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump supporters on Jan. 6 – though protests across the country on Inauguration Day remained minimal despite concerns.
Biden addressed the nation in his first speech as president calling for unity.
“Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path,” Biden said during his inaugural address Wednesday. “Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for a total war, and we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated, and even manufactured.”
“My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. America has to be better than this. And I believe America is so much better than this,” he added.
(NEXSTAR) – The furniture and artwork may be largely the same, but one ornament has apparently quickly disappeared from the White House Oval Office following the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
In the early days of the Donald Trump administration, reports surfaced that the 45th president used a red button atop a small wooden box to summon his caffeine fix.
“With the push of a red button placed on the Resolute Desk that presidents have used for decades, a White House butler soon arrived with a Coke for the president,” the AP wrote in a 2017 profile.
Later reports confirmed the box’s purpose but suggested the president was actually a Diet Coke man.
It appears getting rid of the so called “Diet Coke button” was part of President Joe Biden’s day-one agenda, as media images have surfaced of the 46th president doing business without the handy button or a can of Coke.
Social media users were quick to reiterate the point made by the Associated Press, that the button itself predated President Trump, and presumably has uses other than beverage delivery.
The button apparently received plenty of use over the last four years. According to a 2017 New York Times report, Trump would regularly consume as many as 12 Diet Cokes per day while doing business in the Oval Office.
It’s not entirely clear why Mr. Biden would have had such a magical button removed. According to a 2020 Washington Post examination of his food habits, then-candidate Biden himself requested a pantry stocked with Diet Coke and Coke Zero.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will stay at Blair House while repairs at Naval Observatory are underway. | Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images
Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will stay at Blair House while repairs at Naval Observatory are underway, Harris’ adviser and spokesperson Symone Sanders told POLITICO Thursday.
Harris’ office had announced their move to the official vice presidential residence would be delayed Wednesday, citing household maintenance and repairs to the chimney. The office had previously declined to say where she would be staying in the mean time due to security concerns.
Harris had purchased a condo in a luxury high-rise just north of Washington Circle, but the heightened security led to added inconveniences for the residents there, The Wall Street Journal reported. Secret Service agents swept packages and cars entering the building, and concrete barricades were installed outside.
National Wildlife Federation Vice President Tracy Stone-Manning said she expected Biden to make good on his campaign promise to end leasing altogether, or at least impose a long-term moratorium on any new issuances.
“The Biden administration has made a commitment to driving down carbon emissions. It makes sense starting with the land that we all own,” she said. “We have 24 million acres already under lease. That should get us through.”
Oil and gas extracted from public lands and waters account for about a quarter of annual U.S. production. Extracting and burning those fuels generates the equivalent of almost 550 million tons (500 metric tons) of greenhouse gases annually, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a 2018 study.
Under Trump, Interior officials approved almost 1,400 permits on federal lands, primarily in Wyoming and New Mexico, over a three-month period that included the election, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data. Those permits, which remain valid, will allow companies to continue drilling for years, potentially undercutting Biden’s climate agenda.
Fox News contributor Joe Concha reacts to critics slamming the media coverage of President Biden.
CNN is under fire for publishing an anonymously sourced “scoop” that the Biden administration will have to “build everything from scratch” because there was no Trump plan to distribute coronavirusvaccines, when reality tells a far different story.
A CNN producer pushed the story from reporter MJ Lee as a “great SCOOP” on “how bad this situation is with vaccine distribution.” The story quoted anonymous figures with knowledge of the administration’s COVID-related work as saying there was “nothing for us to rework” and there was no plan at all: “just further affirmation of complete incompetence.”
Politico editor Sam Stein said the assertions in the story were “not true,” as a distribution plan was part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed.
“Biden folks are spinning here or trying to lower the bar strategically,” he tweeted. “There was, indeed, a plan from Trump. I listened in on govs calls on vaccine distribution. The plan had obvious shortcomings. but to say there’s nothing to rework is not true.”
The Washington Post’s Dan Diamond linked to the piece and called it an apparent “gambit to lower expectations,” noting that Trump, while “dangerous” on his response to coronavirus, had set up a system that’s distributed 36 million doses to the states.
The Trump administration fell well short of its initial goal of getting 20 million Americans vaccinated by the end of 2020, but the rate of Americans vaccinated per day has ramped up in the new year.
CNN also reported, “The Biden administration has promised to try to turn the Covid-19 pandemic around and drastically speed up the pace of vaccinating Americans against the virus.”
Biden has called for vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of his administration, which would be one million per day. Bloomberg Business data indicates that rate had already been reached as Trump left office.
“Either the situation on the ground is better than team Biden acknowledges, or Biden’s target is less ambitious than it seems,” Diamond wrote.
Other critics called the story an example of CNN framing a favorable narrative for the new White House.
“This is a very weird story to base entirely on anonymous sources,” Andrew Egger of the conservative Dispatch wrote. “Of course Team Biden is going to favor a narrative that Team Trump did none of the vaccine distribution legwork.”
“This is a lie,” the Washington Examiner’s Becket Adams tweeted. “CNN is allowing itself to be used as a PR shop to spin events in Biden’s favor.”
“Why is CNN granting anonymity to whoever gave them these quotes?” Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer asked. “The Trump Admin is gone. No one will lose their job. The info is not classified. If the media wants more credibility, make these sources go on the record.”
National Affairs founding editor Yuval Levin criticized the posturing by the Biden administration and also noted the pace of vaccinations already underway was near one million per day. Biden may be following in the wake of a “terribly incompetent” president, Levin wrote, but he said this “spin just won’t cut it.”
“This is presumably another public-relations tactic, meant to lower expectations and let the new administration achieve a not-so-ambitious target that it describes as very ambitious … They are very far from starting from scratch, and they, along with state officials and countless others around the country, have a lot to work with toward doing better. Let’s recognize the silly early-days kabuki for what it is, and get serious about that work,” he wrote.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci threw cold water on the notion the Biden administration was starting from scratch.
Mainstream media outlets were previously criticized for their highly positive reaction to Biden’s inauguration Wednesday, with even Politico and Washington Post columnists admonishing the press to tone it down.
Chief among the cheerleaders were CNN figures like political director David Chalian, who compared coronavirus memorial lights in Washington, D.C., to “Biden’s arms embracing America.” CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter also warned that “anti-Democratic” media outlets would attempt to “muddy” Biden’s first week with “faux-scandals.”
Biden continued to criticize the vaccine distribution to date from the White House on Thursday, calling it a dismal failure. He grew frustrated with a reporter who wondered if he should set his sights higher on the vaccination rate.
“When I announced it, you all said it’s not possible,” he said. “Come on, give me a break, man.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she would send the Senate an article of impeachment charging former President Donald Trump with inciting an insurrection “soon,” but Republicans are suggesting a delay until February.
“I’m not going to be telling you when it is going,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday, while negotiations continued over a trial. “The other questions are about how a trial would proceed. We are ready.”
A source familiar with the plan, but not authorized to speak on the record, said the article could be sent Friday, setting the stage for a trial Monday. The plan may be subject to change, the source said.
But Republicans are urging a delay in the start of the trial until February, to give Trump time to develop his defense. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., proposed the delay, but said late Thursday he hadn’t received a Democratic response.
“At this time of strong political passions, Senate Republicans believe it is absolutely imperative that we do not allow a half-baked process to short-circuit the due process that former President Trump deserves or damage the Senate or the presidency,” McConnell said in a statement.
The timing of the trial has been uncertain because the Senate trial may distract the chamber from confirming President Joe Biden’s nominees and debating his legislative agenda. But Democrats are also eager to put the trial behind them.
Pelosi declined a chance to be more precise about timing on Thursday, saying she would meet with House members who will serve as prosecutors, called managers.
“It will be soon,” Pelosi said. “I don’t think it will be long. But we must do it.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said a delay makes sense.
“The president was shut out in the House so his team needs some time to prepare,” Graham said. “I think it’s fair to everybody.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he has been meeting with McConnell to reach a bipartisan agreement about how to conduct the trial.
“But make no mistake about it,” Schumer said. “There will be a trial, there will be votes up or down on whether to convict the president.”
Trump is charged with encouraging rioters who laid siege to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and then stormed through the halls, smashing doors, windows and antiques along the way.
Trump has said his speech that morning encouraged peaceful protest as Congress counted the Electoral College votes confirming Biden’s victory. But lawmakers experienced the result firsthand, evacuating their chambers and then picking through the wreckage afterward. Members of both parties have blamed Trump for the riot.
Pelosi said the crimes in the latest impeachment were more obvious than in Trump’s first impeachment, which dealt partially on the interpretation of a phone call he had with the Ukrainian president.
“He roused the troops, he urged them on to fight like hell, he sent them on their way to the Capitol, he called upon lawlessness, he showed a path to the Capitol, and the lawlessness took place,” Pelosi said. “This year, the whole world bore witness to the president’s incitement to the execution of his call to action and the violence that was used.”
But Graham suggested that Trump should make an argument that the trial is unconstitutional because he’s no longer in office. Graham also said wasn’t sure the Senate could hear evidence that wasn’t present for the House so it should be “a quick trial.”
“I don’t think he believes he played a role in the defiling of the Capitol,” Graham said. “I think the argument that the election was stolen was overdone and got people ginned up, I think he’s responsible for that, but people’s decision to come here and take over the place, that lies with them.”
Once the article arrives, the trial becomes the Senate’s first order of business. But the Senate must decide how to hold the trial.
McConnell suggested a timeline of having House prosecutors present the article of impeachment on Jan. 28, with Trump’s team having until Feb. 4 to respond. Trump would then have until Feb. 11 to submit his pre-trial brief and House prosecutors would have two days to rebut it by Feb. 13.
One option is to hold an expedited trial without witnesses. But even that could take weeks. Rushing a trial too quickly raises qualms even among Democrats about giving Trump enough opportunity to defend himself.
“That final decision isn’t even close,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the assistant majority leader, told reporters Thursday.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Trump’s lawyers and House prosecutors could agree to most of the facts of the case and debate the legal questions entirely.
“We’re free to set our own standards of proof,” Coons said of the Senate. “The rules of evidence are not the standard court rules of evidence. It’s a sort of neither fish nor fowl.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said “it would be great” if there were witnesses and more evidence. Manchin also said Trump must be allowed to defend himself properly.
“The bottom line is you better make sure that the president’s able to have a robust defense for himself,” Manchin said. “If they try to rush it through I think it’d be a big mistake. I think it should be done in a very deliberate manner to make sure everyone on both sides can have their position.”
Republicans also contend that no trial is needed because Trump has left office and already suffers the shame of being impeached twice.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told reporters Tuesday that it would be magnanimous to avoid a trial because removing Trump is no longer necessary. He said Democrats have already made an emphatic statement by impeaching him twice.
“I do not at this point see an impeachable offense that would rise to the constitutional level that we’ve looked at,” Wicker said.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said a trial would only further divide the nation.
“We need to start healing,” she said.
But Pelosi said abandoning a trial wouldn’t promote unity because it would offer any future president a get-out-of-jail-free card to do whatever they want during the final months of a term.
“Just because he’s gone – thank God – you don’t say to a president do whatever you want in the last months of an administration,” Pelosi said. “I think that would be harmful to unity.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said another important prospect from the trial – if Trump is convicted – is to potentially block him from holding future office.
“Whether somebody resigns, or runs out the clock it makes no difference,” Blumenthal said. “They can still be held accountable and there’s nothing in the spirit, or the letter of the impeachment provisions in the Constitution that argues against it.”
Another question is whether the Senate could hold the trial for part of each day and then review nominees and legislation during other parts of each day.
“My clear preference is to leave room for nominations and legislation,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told reporters Tuesday.
But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has said the trial will be the only Senate business because it would require unanimous consent – which is unlikely – to conduct other business.
“That’s not going to be possible,” Cornyn told reporters Tuesday.
White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said he took “no pleasure” in contradicting former President Donald Trump on the Covid-19 pandemic and feels more liberated being able to discuss the science without facing backlash from the new administration.
“The idea that you can get up here and you can talk about what you know, what evidence, what the science is, and know that’s it – let the science speak. It is somewhat of a liberating feeling,” Fauci said Thursday in his first White House press briefing in months.
Fauci, who’s now advising President Joe Biden, said he took no pleasure in contradicting Trump, who often made false claims about the severity of the pandemic as well as drugs being developed to fight it.
“It was very clear that there were things that were said, be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that really [were] uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact,” Fauci said. “I can tell you, I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president, so it was really something that you didn’t feel that you could actually say something and there wouldn’t be any repercussions about it.”
He said it’s “somewhat of a liberating feeling” to talk about science and “that’s it.”
Throughout the pandemic, Trump repeatedly criticized the government’s top coronavirus advisor and even suggested firing him. Meanwhile, Fauci has taken issue with a number of Trump’s comments, including his repeated assertions that the U.S. fight against the virus was “rounding the turn” when in fact tens of thousands of people were being infected daily.
Fauci took a not-so-subtle dig at his former boss, when he was asked how the pandemic might have played out differently if a team like Biden’s had been in place from the very start. “One of the things that we’re going to do is to be completely transparent, open and honest,” Fauci said. “If things go wrong, not point fingers, but to correct them and to make everything we do be based on science and evidence.”
Fauci said he had discussed those very priorities with Biden about 15 minutes before he entered the briefing room.
Trump, in contrast, had consistently downplayed the threat of the virus. He regularly disputed any criticism of his administration’s approach to the pandemic and asserted that the U.S., which holds the highest Covid death toll of any country in the world, had responded to the virus better than nearly any other nation. While Fauci and Trump’s coronavirus task force held daily briefings near the start of the outbreak, those regular updates were eventually scrapped after Trump asked scientists if they could inject disinfectants or light in the body to kill the virus.
The press briefing Thursday came after Fauci told the World Health Organization earlier in the day that the U.S. would remain a member of the international agency under Biden. In May, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the WHO, but the process wasn’t expected to be finalized until this July.
Fauci said the Biden administration planned to work with the other 193 member states to help “strengthen and reform” the United Nations’ health agency.
A demonstrator throws a tear gas canister back at law enforcement officers during a rally for the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Portland, Ore., Jan. 20.
Photo:
lindsey wasson/Reuters
President
Trump
has left office, but peace and harmony have not descended upon the land. Left-wing rioters rampaged in the streets of Portland, Ore., and Seattle on Wednesday, no matter
Joe Biden’s
unity plea.
In Portland, rioters smashed the windows of the Democratic Party headquarters and scrawled graffiti on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. Demonstrators carried signs reading “we are ungovernable” and “we don’t want Biden—we want revenge! For police murders, imperialist wars, and fascist massacres.”
Portland police say some rioters carried “pepper ball guns, electronic crowd control weapons similar to Tasers, large fireworks, shields and rocks” and that “weapons were seized including Molotov Cocktails, knives, batons, chemical spray and a crowbar.” No doubt mostly peaceful protesters, as CNN likes to describe this sort of thing.
In Seattle, protesters burned an American flag outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, and rioters shattered windows at the federal William Kenzo Nakamura courthouse, an AmazonGo store, and the Pike Place
Some chanted at the police, “We protect people, you protect property,” according to the Seattle Times. Law enforcement arrested three people for property damage, burglary and felony assault.
The rioters in both cities identified themselves as anarchists or Antifa members who claimed to be protesting racism, fascism and police brutality. Yet in damaging a federal courthouse and Democratic headquarters, they attacked the judiciary and democratic institutions.
A spokesperson for Seattle Mayor
Jenny Durkan
told us she “has consistently denounced individuals who are targeting small businesses and government facilities,” adding that property destruction was “unacceptable.” Portland Mayor
Ted Wheeler’s
spokesman said he “condemns all forms of violence, intimidation and criminal destruction.” Yet both had blamed Mr. Trump as the cause of their urban violence, and both cities have imposed restrictions that hamper the ability of police to respond to violent protests and have emboldened rioters.
Prosecutors are rightly throwing the book at those on the right who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. The same should apply to those on the left who wreaked havoc Wednesday. When political violence is tolerated, it inevitably spreads.
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