‘I’m not walking anything back’: Biden defends comment that Putin can’t stay in power – US politics as it happened

The press briefing wrapped pretty quickly, with Bates asking reporters to send any further questions by email. He did not answer shouted questions about why national security advisor Jake Sullivan didn’t attend the briefing as the White House said he would.

Young was reluctant to expand on efforts to revive Biden’s domestic policy agenda, but said the president’s budget included a “reserve” to account for a possible policy agreement on Capitol hill. So far, such a consensus has eluded lawmakers.

Asked whether the emphasis on deficit reduction was aimed at wooing moderates, Young said this was a feature of both of Biden’s budgets.

“This is a classic Joe Biden budget,” she said. It seeks to create a tax system that is “fair” and seeks to lower the deficit.

Rouse again said that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will have an impact on both energy and food prices.

“We do expect inflation to ease this year into next year,” she said.

Young outlined the president’s budget proposal, emphasizing again that a budget is a reflection of the president’s priorities. Rouse then offered the White House’s assessment of the economy.

“In many ways the forecast looks healthier today than it did when we locked it all the way back last November,” Rouse said. “The economy has created on average 600,000 jobs per month since then, including through the omicron wave and the unemployment rate has fallen an additional 0.8%.”

Citing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she warned that inflation could get worse before it gets better. The war, she said, “may put upward pressure on energy and food prices. That in turn could reinforce inflation, which was already an issue.”

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates is at the podium for his first press briefing, after White House press secretary Jen Psaki and White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tested positive for covid-19.

Psaki, he said, shared that she is “feeling stir crazy and will be back soon.”

He is joined by Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Cecilia Rouse, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.

“Be nice to the newbie,” Young said with a hearty laugh.

Now he’s being asked about the Supreme Court. He declined to say whether he thinks Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from all matters related to the January 6th assault on the US capitol. He said that was a matter for the Congressional committee and for the Justice Department, not him.

Democrats have implored Thomas to recuse himself after it was revealed that his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, exchanged text messages with Donald Trump’s chief of staff supporting efforts to overturn the election results. She also attended the rally that preceded the violence.

On the matter of his supreme court nominee, Biden said he did not have a chance to watch the hearing but dismissed the conservative criticism of judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Look, this is one of the most qualified nominees ever nominated for the supreme court, in every respect…a woman who is totally, thoroughly qualified,” he said.

Defending the line items that would deliver more funding for law enforcement, Biden said the US is “more prosperous, more successful, and more just when it is more secure.

“We’re in a different world today,” he said, once again emphasizing that the answer to tackling rising violent crime rates was to “fund police” not to defund the police. Republicans have sought to tar Democrats as “soft on crime” by tying Biden and the broader Democratic party to calls by activists to defund the police. Most Democrats have not embraced the slogan and there is a range of views on what such a proposal would look like.

He also outlined many of his domestic policy proposals related to child care, health care, drug pricing and education.

“We give hardworking parents raising children tax relief to give them just a little bit of breathing room and lower child poverty,” he said. “We can give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. This will bring down the cost for seniors and reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. Congress can do this this all right now are debating it now.”

Outlining his budget, Biden said it makes headway “cleaning up the mess I inherited” and “returning our fiscal house to order.” This is a nod to moderates and conservatives who have accused Biden of prioritizing progressive spending policies without regard to the national deficit.

Throughout his remarks, Biden assailed his predecessor, blaming the “Trump tax cuts” for ballooning the deficit and helping top earners.

He repeated his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 per year.

“It’s my hope that Congress enacts this law,” he said. There are few signs that Congress will take up Biden’s budget. But it’s a messaging tool that Democrats can point to as they face a difficult election cycle this November.

Here’s Joe Biden and Shalanda Young, the director of the the Office of Management and Budget, outlining the president’s budget for the 2023 fiscal year.

“Budgets are value statements: they’re about the kind of country we want to be and the type of future we want to leave our kids,” she said, introducing Biden.

Stepping up to the podium, Biden said his new budget “sends a clear message to the American people.”

He outlined three priorities of his new budget blueprint:

1. fiscal responsibility
2. safety and security at home and around the world
3. investments to “build a better America”

Here are the details of the opinion poll mentioned earlier that deals with US public anxiety over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has most Americans at least somewhat worried that the US will be drawn directly into the conflict and could be targeted with nuclear weapons, with a new poll reflecting a level of anxiety that has echoes of the cold war era, the Associated Press writes.

The AP further reports:

Close to half of Americans say they are very concerned that Russia would directly target the US with nuclear weapons, and an additional 3 in 10 are somewhat concerned about that, according to the new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his country’s nuclear forces on high alert shortly after the 24 February invasion.

Roughly nine in 10 Americans are at least somewhat concerned that Putin might use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, including about 6 in 10 who are very concerned.

“He is out of control, and I don’t think he really has concern for much of anything but what he wants,” said Robin Thompson, a retired researcher from Amherst, Massachusetts. “And he has nuclear weapons.”

Seventy-one percent of Americans say the invasion has increased the possibility of nuclear weapons being used anywhere in the world.

The poll was conducted before North Korea test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday but also shows 51% of Americans saying they are very concerned about the threat to the US posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. An additional 29% expressed moderate concern.

In the recent AP-NORC poll, close to half of Americans say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned that the US might be drawn into a war with Russia. Roughly four in 10 Americans said they are “somewhat” concerned.

The findings reflect not just anxiety about what seems like a proxy war with Russia, even if the US isn’t directly involved in the conflict, but also the unprecedented saturation coverage of the war through traditional news outlets and social media.

“We are seeing almost moment by moment what’s happening to these poor people,” said Linda Woodward, a retired phone company technician from Hot Springs Village, Arkansas.

The concern about nuclear war cuts across party lines and even resonates with some young adults who were born after the cold war.

You can read AP’s full report on its poll here. For round-the-clock Guardian global blogging on the war itself, please click here.

Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, moments ago, that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity to school children in kindergarten through third grade (ages five to eight, approximately) – a policy that has drawn intense national scrutiny from critics arguing it is an attempt to marginalize LGBTQ people.

The bill was passed by the state’s Republican-led senate earlier this month.

Since its inception, the measure has drawn intense opposition from LGBTQ+ advocates, students, Democrats, the White House and the entertainment industry, amid increased attention on Florida as Republicans push culture war legislation and DeSantis ascends in the GOP as a potential presidential candidate.

The legislation has pushed Florida and DeSantis, an ascending Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, to the forefront of the country’s culture wars, with LGBTQ advocates, students, Democrats, the entertainment industry and the White House denouncing what critics have called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

The Associated Press writes:

DeSantis and Republicans have repeatedly said the measure is reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children.

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said before he signed the bill into law. He and other speakers stood at a podium affixed with a placard reading Protect Children/Support Parents.

Critics say the bill is so vaguely worded that speech could be muzzled throughout public schools.

The bill states: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Parents would be able to sue districts over violations.

DeSantis signed the bill after a news conference held at the Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill, about 46 miles north of Tampa. The school was founded by Anne Corcoran, wife of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, according to The Gainesville Sun.

Federal prosecutors plan to finish presenting evidence this week in the trial of four men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer.

An undercover FBI agent known as “Red” is due to appear today at the trial in Grand Rapids, the Associated Press writes.

The AP further reports:

Red joined key members of the group on a 2020 trip to Elk Rapids to take a look at Whitmer’s vacation home and a nearby bridge that could be blown up to distract police during her kidnapping, according to evidence.

Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are charged with conspiracy. Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, two other men who were also arrested in October 2020, have pleaded guilty and were critical witnesses for the government last week.

Authorities said the men were armed extremists who, after weeks of training, were trying to come up with $4,000 for an explosive. They practiced that summer in Wisconsin and Michigan by dashing in and out of crude structures built to resemble a house or office.

Garbin testified last week that Whitmer’s kidnapping could ignite a U.S. civil war involving antigovernment groups and possibly prevent Joe Biden from winning the presidential election.

Fox talked about snatching the governor “every time I saw him,” Franks said.
Defense attorneys deny there was an actual plan to get Whitmer, claiming the men were improperly influenced by undercover agents and informants, and exchanged wild talk while often smoking marijuana.

Whitmer rarely talks publicly about the case, though she referred to “surprises” during her term that seem like “something out of fiction” when she filed for reelection on March 17.

She has blamed former president Donald Trump for fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn right-wing extremists like those charged in the case.

Whitmer has said Trump was complicit in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection by thousands of his extremist supporters who sought to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory over the Republican at the November 2020 election.

As you’ll have seen from this blog today and dozens of Guardian stories, the insurrection is still very much in the news , with a special House panel investigating and hundreds charged with crimes relating to the attack on the Capitol.