‘Feels like the good old days’: Joe Biden welcomes Barack Obama back to White House – live

Joe Biden took to the podium to celebrate the return of Barack Obama to the White House. “It feels like the good old days,” Biden said.

He teased Obama that even though Obamacare has become a throwaway term for the Affordable Care Act, it’s “the most fitting”.

“It’s fitting that the first time you return to the White House is to celebrate a law, a law that has transformed millions of lives because of you,” Biden said. “A law that shows that hope leads to change. And you did that. You did it.”

Barack Obama said the Affordable Care Act was an example of”why you run for office in the first place”.

“For all of us, for Joe, for Harry (Reid), for Nancy Pelosi, for others, the ACA was an example of why you run for office in the first place, why all of you sign up for doing jobs that pay less than you could make some place else, why you’re away from home sometimes, why you miss some soccer practices or some dance recitals,” Obama said. “We’re not supposed to do this just to occupy a seat, or to hang on to power. We’re supposed to do this because it’s making a difference in the lives of the people who sent us here.”

Obama compared the ACA to a starter home: “It secured the principle of universal healthcare, provided help immediately to families, but it required us to continuously build on it and make it better.”

“The reason we are here today is because President Biden, vice-president Harris, everyone who has worked on this thing, knew from the start that the ACA wasn’t perfect. To get the bill passed, we had to make compromises, we didn’t get everything we wanted,” Obama said. “That wasn’t a reason not to do it.”

He invoked a famous Biden moment, in which an aside to Obama was caught on a hot mic during the signing of the ACA into law: “This is a big fucking deal!” Biden excitedly whispered to Obama in 2010. “If you can get millions of people health coverage and better protection, it is, to quote a famous America, a pretty – ” Obama paused “ – big deal.

To the side, Biden crossed himself as the crowd laughed.

Barack Obama began his remarks on the Affordable Care Act by calling Joe Biden by his old title: “Vice-President Biden.”

“That was a joke,” he said, going in to hug Biden amid laughs from the audience. “That was all set up. My president, Joe Biden.”

Vice-president Kamala Harris called on Congress to pass legislation that allows Medicare to directly negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. She also called on Congress to make permanent the Affordable Care Act subsidies included in the American Rescue Plan that are currently lowering insurance premiums – these subsidies expire in December.

More than 60 million Americans are currently enrolled in Medicare, Harris said.

The ex-wife of Eric Greitens – the former Missouri governor and current candidate for senate – said he has become erratic and unhinged since she accused him of abuse earlier, the Associated Press is reporting.

Sheena Greitens said in a March affidavit that her ex-husband was physically abusive and demonstrated “unstable and coercive behavior” so concerning that steps were taken to limit his access to firearms.

Last week, she said in the latest filing that his reaction to the March affidavit was consistent with his past behavior. “When his political future is at risk, he becomes erratic, unhinged, coercive, and threatening,” she said.

Tim Parlatore, Greitens’ attorney, told the Associated Press today that Sheena Greitens’ allegations “are complete and total lies.” The Greitens team has offered her a chance to apologize and resolve their differences in mediation, Parlatore said, “but it seems like she intends to double down instead, which is unfortunate because the only victims of that are the children.”

The Greitens team has repeatedly pushed forth allegations that leading Republicans are working with Sheena Greitens to undermine his senate bid. Sheena Greitens addressed those allegations in last week’s filing.

“Neither Karl Rove, nor Mitch McConnell, nor any other so-called political operatives drafted it for me,” she said.

Sheena Greitens sought divorce from Eric Greitens after the scandal that led to her husband’s resignation as Missouri governor in June 2018. Once considered a rising star in the Republican party, Greitens was indicted on an invasion-of-privacy charge, accused of taking a compromising photo of his St. Louis hairstylist without her consent during a 2015 extramarital affair.

Despite the scandal and now the custody battle, Greitens is still believed to be a top contender in the race for senate, which has attracted a large field of Republican contenders. Many top Republican leaders have voice concerns that Greitens could win the August primary but lose the overall election in November, conceding a senate seat in a decidedly red state.

Sheena Greitens, now a public affairs professor at the University of Texas, is asking the court to move the custody case to the Austin area, in part to spare her children from renewed public attention as her ex-husband tries to mount a political comeback. She has previously accused Greitens of behavior that included physical abuse “such as cuffing our then-3-year-old son across the face at the dinner table in front of me and yanking him around by his hair.”

In 2019, one of her sons came home from a visit with his dad “with a swollen face, bleeding gums and loose tooth,” she said in the March filing. In the latest document, Sheena Greitens said she has “photographic evidence” of the injuries.

Parlatore said the photos instead “demonstrate that clearly there was no abuse.”

“The child was rough-housing with his brother,” Parlatore said. “Her own emails from the time admit this fact, her own statements to the doctors admit this fact.”

Donald Trump has issued a celebratory press release regarding the retirement of congressman Fred Upton, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him for the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. “4 down, 6 to go,” the press release reads.

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