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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Sam Levin (now), Joan E Greve and Martin Belam (earlier)

Biden pushed on immigration in press conference but provides no clear answers – as it happened

Summary

That’s all for today, thanks for following along. Some key links and developments:

An executive of a pharmaceutical company with ties to New York’s embattled governor, Andrew Cuomo, received special access to Covid testing last year, according to a new report in the New York Times.

At a time early in the pandemic when tests were severely limited, the company, Regeneron, requested tests from the state for its president, George Yancopoulos, and his family, after someone became infected, the paper reports. The state allegedly granted the request. From the Times:

The unusual and preferential treatment granted to Dr Yancopoulos was also extended to Mr Cuomo’s relatives, including his mother, Matilda Cuomo, and brother, the CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, and at least one of his sisters, as well as other influential people, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort.

Revelations that the governor’s family and other influential people were given special access to state-run coronavirus tests early in the pandemic have drawn the interest of investigators in the New York State Assembly.

A Cuomo spokesman told the Times that in the start of the pandemic the state was “absolutely going above and beyond to get people testing”, adding that the effort included “in some instances going to people’s homes” to identify cases and stop the spread.

This latest scandal comes after top Democrats have called on Cuomo to resign. He is already facing an impeachment inquiry and is under investigation for allegedly covering up nursing home Covid deaths and for multiple instances of alleged sexual harassment involving former staff members.

More:

Updated

Georgia lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to legislation to impose sweeping new restrictions on voting access in the state that make it harder to vote by mail and give the state legislature more power over elections.

The measure was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, on Thursday evening. “Significant reforms to our state elections were needed. There’s no doubt there were many alarming issues with how the election was handled, and those problems, understandably, led to a crisis of confidence,” Kemp said during prepared remarks shortly after signing the bill.

It requires voters to submit ID information with both an absentee ballot request and the ballot itself. It limits the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, allows for unlimited challenges to a voter’s qualifications, cuts the runoff election period from nine to four weeks, and significantly shortens the amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot.

The CEOs of America’s biggest technology companies faced a grilling on Thursday from Congress about the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol, as protesters outside the hearing denounced the platforms for playing a role in fueling the violence.

The marathon, six-hour hearing saw the three most powerful men in tech – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – testify before two committees of the House of Representatives on social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation.

The session took place against a backdrop of protests, with demonstrators gathering outside the Capitol building ahead of the hearing, portraying the tech executives as the violent insurrectionists whose images went viral in the days after the 6 January riots. One cutout erected on the grounds showed Zuckerberg as the “QAnon Shaman”, a part-time actor with a horned furry hat who participated in the riot.

“The platforms’ inability to deal with the violence, hate and disinformation they promote on their platforms shows that these companies are failing to regulate themselves,” said Emma Ruby-Sachs, the executive director of SumofUs, the human rights organization behind the protests. “After the past five years of manipulation, data harvesting and surveillance, the time has come to rein in big tech.”

Arkansas enacts anti-trans law

Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson has signed into law legislation banning transgender girls from participating on girls’ sports teams, part of a wave of GOP bills targeting the rights of trans kids.

The Arkansas bill bans trans girls from extracurricular and school sports teams at the elementary, middle, high school and collegiate level. Mississippi’s governor signed into law a similar ban earlier this month, though conservative governors in South Dakota and Utah have rejected parallel proposals. Here’s a Guardian map showing how far the anti-trans sports bills have spread:

Anti-trans measures have been costly to the states that have passed them. Idaho was the first to pass a sports bill last year, but it was suspended in federal court. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) opposed that bill and moved its tournament games out of the state as a result.

When North Carolina five years ago passed a law banning trans people from using the bathrooms that correspond with their gender, sports leagues, corporations and musicians boycotted the state, costing billions of dollars. The law was ultimately repealed.

In the last three months, GOP lawmakers in more than 25 states have introduced anti-trans bills:

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, just announced that he has signed sweeping voting restrictions in his state just an hour after legislators approved the bill.

The legislation requires voters to provide ID information when they vote by mail, limits the availability of absentee drop boxes and gives the state legislature more power to meddle in local election boards, among other measures. It is part of a wave of GOP bills to restrict voting, as my colleague Sam Levine has reported:

Seizing on Donald Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election, Republicans have launched a brazen attack on voting, part of an effort to entrench control over a rapidly changing electorate by changing the rules of democracy. As of mid-February, 253 bills were pending to restrict voting in 43 states. Many of those restrictions take direct aim at mail-in and early voting, the very policies that led to November’s record turnout.

At least 111 Texas residents died during the winter storm in February, according to revised numbers released by the state today, which nearly doubled the initial reported death toll.

Health officials said the majority of people died of hypothermia, but that other causes included “motor vehicle accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning, medical equipment failure, exacerbation of chronic illness, lack of home oxygen, falls and fire”, the Texas Tribune reported.

Texas suffered severe lapses in electrical power because of its mismanaged state-run grid last month. In Austin and Houston, grocery stores started running out of food, water pipes burst in the cold, and people were forced to sleep in their cars.

From our earlier coverage of the disaster:

Georgia approves sweeping voting restrictions

The Georgia legislature has approved new sweeping voting restrictions in the state, sending the GOP-backed bill to the Republican governor.

The legislation would require voters to provide ID information when they vote by mail, limit the availability of absentee drop boxes and give the state legislature more power to meddle in local election boards.

The measure also further allows for unlimited voter challenges, bans providing assistance to voters in line, and empowers the general assembly to take control over the state elections board.

My colleague Sam Levine reported earlier that Georgia activists are calling for a statewide boycott of Coca-Cola as part of an escalating effort to get major corporations to oppose the voting restrictions. For weeks, activists have been placing pressure on Coca-Cola, as well as Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Aflac, UPS, and Southern Company – all based in Georgia – to use their political clout to oppose bills in the legislature.

The major companies have declined to directly oppose bills. The Georgia chamber of commerce released a statement earlier this month saying it had “concern and opposition” to provisions in the legislation. The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce has been a little more specific, saying it was focused on addressing weekend absentee voting, drop boxes and ID requirements. Coca-Cola told the Guardian earlier this month it supported both chambers of commerce and a “balanced approach to elections”.

Earlier, Joe Biden called the voter suppression efforts “sick”:

More from Sam here:

The West Virginia house passed legislation today that would ban transgender students from playing on the sports teams that match their gender, part of a wave of Republican bills across the country that target trans children.

The bill, which heads to the state’s senate, is one of more than 80 proposed bills so far this year that seek to restrict trans rights – most that would limit youth access to sports and block trans kids’ use of gender-affirming care.

Arkansas is close to passing legislation that would outlaw affirming-care for youth and punish doctors who treat trans kids, despite the fact that major medical associations recommend this care as the best practice. That state bill would also prohibit health insurance from covering certain care for all trans people.

Mississippi signed a sports ban bill this month, and the legislatures in Tennessee and Arkansas both sent similar proposals to their governors earlier this week.

More reading here on how trans children became the target in the GOP’s culture wars:

And more reading on the proposed healthcare bans:

Updated

Hello - Sam Levin in Los Angeles, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day. My California colleagues Abené Clayton and Lois Beckett, who have been reporting on gun violence for years, have written about all the ways our current gun debate in America is wrong:

The “solutions” offered today would do little to stem the daily death toll. The assault rifle bans and universal background checks reflexively supported by progressives will do little to decrease the bulk of shooting incidents: suicides and community violence. Approaches that have stronger evidence of saving lives, like intensive city-level support programs for the men and boys most at risk of being shot or becoming shooters, hospital-based violence intervention programs, or even more effective policing strategies, rarely get discussed on a national level. Even Democrats seem to prefer fighting a high-profile, losing battle with Republicans over gun control laws, rather than devoting time and focus to less partisan prevention efforts.

More here:

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague Sam Levin will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Joe Biden was grilled on his immigration policies during his first presidential press conference. The president attempted to downplay the recent increase in migrants attempting to enter the US, noting that the country usually sees a seasonal fluctuation in border arrival numbers. However, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said the US is on track to record the highest number of migrant arrivals in two decades. Biden said of his immigration policies, “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better.”
  • Biden pledged to administer 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses over his first 100 days in office, doubling his initial pledge of 100 million doses. The Biden administration hit that initial goal on Friday, weeks ahead of schedule, and the US has administered about 2.5 million vaccine doses a day over the past week. “I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has even come close, not even close to what we are doing,” Biden said. “I think we can do it.”
  • Biden said he expected to run for re-election in 2024. “My plan is to run for re-election,” Biden said. “That’s my expectation.” But when pressed on whether he would commit to running for a second term, the president gave himself some wiggle room, saying he could not predict the future.
  • The president said he expected all US troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by next year. “If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way,” Biden said. “We will leave. The question is when we leave.” When asked if US troops would be in Afghanistan next year, the president replied, “I can’t picture that being the case.”
  • The Boulder shooting suspect made his first appearance in court. The attorney of Ahmad Alissa requested a mental health assessment for her client, who will be held without bail as he faces 10 counts of first-degree murder.
  • The CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter testified before the House for a hearing on online disinformation. The energy and commerce committee hearing marked the first time that the CEOs – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – have testified before Congress since the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Sam will having more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

California expands vaccine access to everyone 16 and older starting April 15

All Californians aged 16 and older will be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine starting 15 April, the state’s governor just announced.

“With vaccine supply increasing and by expanding eligibility to more Californians, the light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter,” Democrat Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

“We remain focused on equity as we extend vaccine eligibility to those 50 and over starting April 1, and those 16 and older starting April 15. This is possible thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration and the countless public health officials across the state who have stepped up to get shots into arms.”

Newsom said that he expected California to be administering more than 3 million vaccine doses a week in the second half of April.

Newsom’s announcement comes on the heels of other states, including Georgia and North Carolina, announcing that coronavirus vaccines will soon be made available to all adult residents.

Joe Biden said earlier this month that he expected all American adults to be eligible to receive a vaccine by 1 May. During his press conference today, the president set a goal of administering 200 million vaccine doses over his first 100 days in office, doubling his initial promise of administering 100 million doses.

Updated

Has the fever in American politics finally broken? After a sickness that lasted four long years, it seems the patient is on the road to recovery.

That was the impression of Joe Biden’s first presidential press conference on Thursday. For a start, there were no lies or insults or speculations about the medicinal benefits of bleach. Sometimes Biden was earnest, sometimes he was dull, sometimes he offered an avuncular chuckle. He was solid.

But equally telling were the questions from 10 reporters in the White House press corps. No look-in for the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed half a million Americans. Not much about the fragile nature of democracy except for Republicans’ assault on voting rights – a phenomenon that predates Donald Trump.

Instead the main focus at the hour-long event were hardy perennials about the US-Mexico border, the war in Afghanistan, relations with China, infrastructure, the next election and the filibuster, a Senate parliamentary procedure unlikely to excite the rest of the world.

In short, it was another victory for Biden in his quest to snap American political life back to normal and create the perception that the Trump years were a nightmare from which America has awoken. He seeks to replace it with a group yawn. That is why cable news ratings and news site traffic have plummeted since January. That is why people in Washington speak of having weekends again instead of jumping at every presidential tweet.

It is not that Biden has been idle. His $1.9tn coronavirus relief package was passed by Democrats in Congress without Republican support and is truly historic. But he has done without shouting from the rooftops or trying to dominate every news cycle.

The White House has formally withdrawn the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

The White House’s statement comes three weeks after Joe Biden announced Tanden’s nomination would be withdrawn, due to bipartisan opposition in the Senate over her past controversial tweets.

Biden has not yet announced whom he will nominate to lead the OMB in Tanden’s place, but many Democrats are pushing him to select Shalanda Young.

Young was confirmed as deputy OMB director earlier this week, and she is now serving as acting director of the agency until a full-time replacement is confirmed.

If she were nominated and confirmed, Young would be the first African American woman to serve as OMB director.

Updated

Biden says he expects US troops to leave Afghanistan by next year

During his first presidential press conference, Joe Biden acknowledged it would be “hard” to meet the May 1 deadline to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, which was set by Donald Trump.

“If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way,” Biden said. “We will leave. The question is when we leave.”

When asked if US troops would be in Afghanistan next year, the president replied, “I can’t picture that being the case.”

When Biden was vice-president, he said US troops would leave Afghanistan by 2014, as an AP reporter noted.

Seven years later, that goal appears to finally be coming to fruition.

As Joe Biden held his first press conference as president, the House energy and commerce committee continued its hearing with the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter.

The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:

After a number of hate crimes against Asian Americans in recent weeks, Democratic representative Doris Matsui of California has directly asked Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg what they are doing to address anti-Asian hate on platforms. She also asked why they took so long to remove racist hashtags that promoted blame for the coronavirus pandemic on Asian Americans, citing the recent attack on Asian women in Atlanta as a consequence of these policies.

‘The issues we are discussing here are not abstract,’ she said. ‘They have real world consequences and implications that are too often measured in human lives.’

She also cited a study that showed a substantial rise in hate speech the week after Donald Trump first used the term China flu in a tweet. Matsui suggested revisiting Section 230 protections.

Dorsey said he will not ban the racist hashtags outright because ‘a lot of these hashtags contain counter speech’, or posts refuting the racism the hashtags initiated. Zuckerberg similarly said that hate speech policies at Facebook are ‘nuanced’ and that they have an obligation to protect free speech.

For more updates and analysis from the hearing, follow Kari’s live blog:

Joe Biden sharply criticized Republican legislators attempting to pass voting restrictions after suffering losses in the November elections.

“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is,” Biden said during his press conference. “It’s sick. It’s sick.”

The president also made this confusing comment, comparing the Republican proposals to racial segregation laws: “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.”

The Guardian’s Sam Levine has more details on Republicans’ efforts to curtail voting rights:

Seizing on Donald Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election, Republicans have launched a brazen attack on voting, part of an effort to entrench control over a rapidly changing electorate by changing the rules of democracy. As of mid-February, 253 bills were pending to restrict voting in 43 states. Many of those restrictions take direct aim at mail-in and early voting, the very policies that led to November’s record turnout.

‘The fragility of democracy has been exposed at levels that I think even white America was blind to,’ said [LaTosha] Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter.

During his first presidential press conference, Joe Biden was repeatedly pressed on the situation at the border, where officials have reported an increase in the number of migrants attempting to enter the country.

An ABC News reporter noted one customs and border patrol facility holding unaccompanied migrant children is at 1556% capacity. She asked Biden if he considered that to be acceptable.

“That’s a serious question, right? Is it acceptable to me? Come on,” Biden said. “That’s why we’re going to be moving 1,000 of those kids out quickly.”

The president expressed sympathy with parents who felt their best option was to send children off on the treacherous journey to the US, and he argued that trend demonstrated the need to address the underlying issues fueling this increase in migration.

Biden press conference summary

Joe Biden has just wrapped up his first press conference as president. Here’s what happened:

  • Biden set a new goal of administering 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses over his first 100 days as president. The announcement came a week after the White House announced it had already met Biden’s initial goal of administering 100 million doses over his first 100 days.
  • The president said he planned to run for reelection in 2024. “My plan is to run for reelection,” Biden said. “That’s my expectation.” But when pressed on whether he would commit to running for a second term, the president gave himself some wiggle room, saying he could not predict the future.
  • Biden faced a number of questions about the recent increase in migrants attempting to enter the US. The president attempted to downplay the recent increase, noting that the country usually sees a seasonal fluctuation in border numbers. However, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said the US is on track to record the highest number of migrant arrivals in two decades. At the end of his press conference, Biden said of his immigration policies, “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better.”
  • The president delivered some of his most critical comments yet on the Senate filibuster. Biden reiterated his proposal to reform the filibuster into a “talking filibuster” to discourage its widespread use. But the president then went a step further, telling reporters, “If we have to, if there’s complete lockdown and chaos as a result of the filibuster, then we’ll have to go beyond what I’m talking about.” Biden also said he agreed with Barack Obama’s assessment that the filibuster is a relic of the Jim Crow era.
  • Reporters did not ask a single question about the coronavirus pandemic. Commentators quickly criticized reporters’ oversight, given that the pandemic has already claimed more than 500,000 American lives.

The blog will have more analysis coming up, so stay tuned.

Joe Biden concluded his press conference after about an hour, having taken questions from 10 reporters.

The final question the president took had to do with the situation at the southern border. A Univision reporter noted that US customs and border patrol has not been notifying migrant children’s family members about their arrival to the US in a timely manner.

Biden acknowledged that it will take time for his administration to improve communications and processes within the immigration system.

“I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better,” Biden said.

Asked whether he would be able to work with Republicans on immigration reform, Biden said, “They have to posture for a while. They’ve just got to get it out of their system.”

Joe Biden was asked whether he would take executive action to address gun violence, after the recent mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder.

“It’s all about timing,” the president said of potential executive orders.

Biden then quickly pivoted to discussing infrastructure, saying that would be his next primary focus after signing the coronavirus relief bill.

The president is scheduled to deliver remarks on his “Build Back Better” agenda in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, next week.

Joe Biden was asked about the US-Chinese relationship, and he noted he plans to soon invite an “alliance of democracies” to Washington to discuss matters related to China.

Biden said that Chinese President Xi Jinping “doesn’t have a democratic -- with a small ‘d’ -- bone in his body, but he’s a smart, smart guy.”

The president pledged to continue to highlight human rights abuses in China “in an unrelenting way,” as long as they continue.

A CNN reporter asked Joe Biden whether he agreed with Barack Obama’s assessment that the Senate filibuster is a “Jim Crow relic”.

The president said he agreed with Obama’s view. The reporter then asked, if the Senate filibuster is a Jim Crow relic, why not abolish it?

“Successful electoral politics is the art of the possible,” Biden replied. “Let’s deal with the abuse of the filibuster first.”

Biden says he plans to run for re-election in 2024

Joe Biden was asked whether he intends to run for re-election in 2024. A reporter noted that Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had already announced his reelection campaign by this point in his presidency.

“My predecessor needed to,” Biden joked. He added sarcastically, “Oh, God, I miss him.”

The president said he did currently plan to run for re-election. “My plan is to run for reelection,” Biden said. “That’s my expectation.”

Moments later, a CNN reporter pressed Biden on whether he would commit to running for a second term, but the president said he could not see four years into the future.

Asked whether Kamala Harris would be his running mate if he ran for re-election, Biden said he expected she would be because she has been a great governing partner.

Biden said: ‘My plan is to run for re-election. That’s my expectation.’
Biden said: ‘My plan is to run for re-election. That’s my expectation.’ Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

Updated

Joe Biden said it would be “hard” to meet the May 1 deadline to completely withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, as Donald Trump pledged.

But the president added that he believed all US troops will have left Afghanistan by next year.

“We will leave,” Biden said. “The question is when we leave.”

Joe Biden signaled increased willingness to overhaul the Senate filibuster depending on the level of Republican obstruction in Congress.

The president previously said at his press conference he was open to the idea of introducing a “talking filibuster” to discourage the widespread use of the practice.

Biden added moments ago, “If we have to, if there’s complete lockdown and chaos as a result of the filibuster, then we’ll have to go beyond what I’m talking about.”

Currently, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer does not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster, as Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have said they do not support the idea.

Joe Biden was asked about claims that migrants are arriving at the US-Mexican border in large numbers because they view him as a “nice guy” who is less likely to deport them than Donald Trump was.

Biden said he supposed he should be “flattered” by that idea of him, but he emphasized that such migrant increases are seen at the border every year.

However, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said the US is on track for a two-decade high in migrants attempting to enter the country.

Biden also emphasized his administration is working to strengthen an immigration system that was severely weakened during Trump’s presidency.

Asked about the Senate filibuster, Joe Biden cited statistics showing how the filibuster has come to be used much more frequently in recent years.

The president said he believed the filibuster is “being abused in a gigantic way” to stifle legislation.

Biden reiterated what he said in a recent interview, that he endorses returning to a “talking filibuster,” which would require lawmakers to keep talking to filibuster a bill rather than just filing a motion to do so.

The first question of the press conference went to the Associated Press, and an AP reporter asked Joe Biden if he was confident he could advance his legislative agenda given Republican opposition in Congress.

The president said he was committed to tackling the issues confronting the US, and he said it was up to Republicans to decide whether they “want to work together” or “divide the country”.

Biden’s comments come as Democrats have face increased pressure from their base to eliminate the Senate filibuster in order to lower the number of votes needed to pass legislation through the upper chamber from 60 to 51.

Joe Biden noted that data released this morning showed weekly initial jobless claims had fallen to the lowest level since the start of the pandemic.

But the president cautioned that the job market has still not sufficiently recovered, creating financial problems for millions of American families.

“There are still too many Americans out of work, too many families hurting,” Biden said. “But I can say to you the American people, help is here and hope is on the way.”

Biden announces goal of 200 million vaccine doses over his first 100 days

Joe Biden is now holding his first press conference as president, appearing in the White House’s East Room to take questions from reporters.

Biden began his press conference by announcing his administration’s new goal for the distribution of coronavirus vaccines.

The president is now aiming to have 200 million vaccine doses administered by the time he hits the 100-day mark of his presidency late next month.

“I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has even come close, come close to what we are doing,” Biden said.

Biden initially pledged to administer 100 million vaccine doses over his first 100 days as president, but the US hit that goal on Friday, weeks ahead of schedule.

Some public health experts had criticized the goal of 100 million doses as too modest, considering the US population of about 330 million.

The White House coronavirus response team said yesterday that the US administered an average of 2.49 million vaccine doses a day over the past week, meaning the country is on track to meet Biden’s new goal.

Updated

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Georgia lawmakers on Thursday advanced the latest version of a bill that would impose significant new hurdles on voters who want to cast a ballot in the state.

The measure, which passed on a party-line vote, requires voters to provide identification information both when they request an absentee ballot and when they submit the ballot, a departure from the state’s current practice of verifying signatures.

The measure also restricts the number and location of absentee ballot drop boxes, allows for unlimited voter challenges, bans providing assistance to voters in line, and empowers the general assembly to take control over both the state elections board and meddle in local boards as well.

A bill with similar provisions passed earlier this month, but Georgia Republicans have since backed away from one of the most controversial provisions in the bills that would have limited weekend early voting to just two days during the early voting period (counties can currently offer up to four). Voting rights groups singled out that provision as clearly targeting Black voters, who are more likely to cast their ballots on Sundays than white voters.

The new version of the bill that passed Thursday requires an additional day of weekend early voting and allows counties to offer two Saturdays. It does not have requirements for weekend voting during runoff elections, however, which the legislation would shorten from 9 weeks to 4.

The measure will now head to the Georgia senate, where lawmakers will hash out remaining disagreements in the bill. Final passage is expected next week.

As we wait for Joe Biden to hold his first press conference as president, a swift look at an Axios scoop of the highly pleasing kind – highly pleasing if like me you love American history enough to repeatedly fall asleep this week with David S Reynolds’ monumental Abe, about Abraham Lincoln, in your hands.

Hosting historians around a long table in the East Room earlier this month, President Biden took notes in a black book as they discussed some of his most admired predecessors. Then he said to Doris Kearns Goodwin: “I’m no FDR, but …”

Why it matters: He’d like to be. The 2 March session, which the White House kept under wraps, reflects Biden’s determination to be one of the most consequential presidents.

Biden is regularly said to have taken office facing challenges unmatched by any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who arrived at the White House in 1933 faced by the crushing weight of the Great Depression. FDR was eventually elected to a fourth term and only death cheated him of leading the free world to victory in the second world war as well. As the saying goes: aim high.

As Axios reports, “The session was organized by Jon Meacham, the presidential biographer and informal Biden adviser who has helped with big speeches … and serves as [Biden’s] historical muse.

“Besides Goodwin, participants included Michael Beschloss, author Michael Eric Dyson, Yale’s Joanne Freeman, Princeton’s Eddie Glaude Jr, Harvard’s Annette Gordon-Reed and Walter Isaacson.”

Goodwin has achieved fame as a biographer of FDR and Lincoln and has regularly discussed her own work at the White House for Lyndon Johnson, who oversaw the civil rights reforms of the 1960s but also met, as it were, his Waterloo in Vietnam. Among the other authors who met Biden, Freeman is the author of The Field of Blood, a magnificent book on violence in Congress in the years leading up to the civil war which makes for fascinating reading in the aftermath of the Capitol riot.

A last detail for all you history lovers out there. Axios reports that “beyond the icons (Lincoln, LBJ), the conversation got as granular as the Jay Treaty of 1794” – which aimed to resolve outstanding issues from the revolutionary war between the US and Britain but, alas, wasn’t very popular with the American public.

Here, for some reading while we wait for Biden, is an interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin from back when the former guy was president, about how the former guy measured up to the great presidents. In short, she thinks, he didn’t:

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Joe Biden will hold his first press conference as president in about an hour. Reporters had pressed the White House for weeks on when Biden would hold his first press conference, given that Barack Obama and Donald Trump had both already held solo press conferences by this point in their presidencies.
  • The Boulder shooting suspect made his first appearance in court. The attorney of Ahmad Alissa requested a mental health assessment for her client, who will be held without bail as he faces 10 counts of first-degree murder.
  • The CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter are testifying before the House for a hearing on online disinformation. The energy and commerce committee hearing marks the first time that the CEOs – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – have testified before Congress since the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

House holds hearing with Facebook and Twitter CEOs on disinformation

The House energy and commerce committee is now holding a hearing on online disinformation with the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google.

The hearing marks the first time that the CEOs – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – have testified before Congress since the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol.

The executives are expected to be grilled on how their platforms have helped amplify misinformation about coronavirus vaccines and the “big lie” of widespread fraud in the presidential election.

The Guardian’s west coast tech reporter, Kari Paul, is live-blogging the hearing. Follow along here:

Updated

Senator Joe Manchin has released a statement signaling he will not support Democratic efforts to advance the For the People Act unless there is bipartisan cooperation.

The election reform bill is a top priority for congressional Democrats, but Republicans have signaled strong opposition to the legislation.

In his statement, Manchin said the bill includes important provisions that would help strengthen US election systems, but he expressed concern that a party-line vote on the issue could do further harm to American democracy.

“Pushing through legislation of this magnitude on a partisan basis may garner short-term benefits, but will inevitably only exacerbate the distrust that millions of Americans harbor against the US government,” the West Virginia Democrat said.

“We can and we must reform our federal elections together – not as Democrats and Republicans, but as Americans to restore the faith and trust in our democracy.”

As of now, Senate Democrats do not have the votes to pass the For the People Act because of the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass most bills. Manchin’s statement seems to indicate that he would not support the bill in a party-line vote even if Democrats eliminated the filibuster.

Updated

Biden to announce goal of 200 million vaccine doses in 100 days – report

Joe Biden will announce at his press conference that his administration is aiming to administer 200m vaccine doses by the 100-day mark of his presidency, according to a new report.

CNBC reports:

Biden plans Thursday to announce a new goal of 200 million Covid vaccination shots being given within his first 100 days in office, a White House official told NBC News.

As of last Friday, the United States had 100 million coronavirus vaccinations conducted. That benchmark — which was Biden’s original target — was reached on his 59th day in office.

Biden is set to discuss the new target Thursday afternoon at his first press conference as president.

Biden had initially said he hoped to administer 100m doses over his first 100 days as president, but his administration met that goal weeks ahead of schedule.

While celebrating that achievement on Friday, Biden raised the possibility of doubling his initial goal to 200m doses, but the White House has not yet made that official.

During a briefing yesterday, the White House coronavirus response team said the US has administered an average of 2.49m doses a day over the past week, meaning the country is on track to hit 200m doses by Biden’s 100-day mark.

Updated

The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said that he would meet with the Democratic senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal this afternoon to discuss gun legislation.

Murphy and Blumenthal, the two senators of Connecticut, have been very actively involved in advocating for stricter gun laws since the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in their state.

Schumer has pledged to bring a universal background checks bill to the floor of the Senate, but it currently seems very unlikely that such legislation will attract the 60 votes needed to pass with the filibuster in place.

Updated

Schumer on eliminating the filibuster: 'Everything is on the table'

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer was once again asked whether he believes the filibuster should be eliminated in order to more easily advance Joe Biden’s agenda.

“I believe that big, bold action is an imperative,” the Democratic leader said. “And we would prefer our Republican colleagues to work with us on these things.”

Schumer noted that some of Biden’s proposals are bipartisan, in the sense that they are supported by a broad majority of the American people, and thus Republicans should feel inclined to work with the Democratic majority.

Schumer said, “But if they don’t, our caucus will come together, and we will discuss the best way to produce that big bold action.”

The leader reiterated that “everything is on the table” when it comes to advancing Biden’s agenda. As of now, Schumer does not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster, as two Democratic caucus members -- Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema -- have said they want to keep the filibuster.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is now holding a press conference on Democrats’ accomplishments so far, as the upper chamber prepares to recess for the next two weeks.

Schumer noted that Democrats took the majority in January with three tasks ahead of them: holding Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, passing another coronavirus relief bill and approving Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees.

The impeachment trial successfully showed what a “despicable man” Trump is, Schumer said, and it resulted in the most bipartisan vote in the history of presidential impeachment trials, even though the 57 votes for conviction fell short of the two-thirds majority needed.

The Senate has also passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill and approved the president’s cabinet nominees, albeit at a slower rate than with past administrations.

“It’s been a busy two months, but we’re just getting started,” Schumer said.

A senior White House official shared a photo of the set-up in the East Room, where Joe Biden will hold his first press conference as president in a couple of hours.

Boulder shooting suspect makes first court appearance

The Boulder shooting suspect, Ahmad Alissa, made his first court appearance, and his lawyer requested a mental health assessment for her client.

The AP has more details:

Kathryn Herold, the lawyer for suspect Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, provided no other details about what he might suffer from.

During the brief hearing, Alissa appeared in court wearing a mask. He didn’t speak other than to say yes to a question from the judge and did not enter a plea to the charges.

Alissa, 21, remains held without bail on 10 charges of first-degree murder and a prosecutor said that authorities planned to file more charges.

A law enforcement official briefed on the shooting had previously said the suspect’s family told investigators they believed Alissa was suffering some type of mental illness, including delusions.

The court is expected to hold a status hearing in the case in about 60 to 90 days, followed by a preliminary hearing.

Alissa, who received a gunshot wound to the leg amid the Monday shooting, sat in a wheelchair as his lawyer spoke for him. He was wheeled out of the courtroom after the judge gaveled out the proceedings.

Although Joe Biden will hold his first formal press conference as president today, the White House is always quick to note that he has held dozens of quick question-and-answer sessions with reporters since taking office.

Reporters are often let in at the start of the president’s closed-door meetings, and they can sometimes ask Biden a question or two before being escorted out by his staffers.

Of course, those sessions are not nearly as lengthy or in-depth as a solo press conference.

According to Martha Joynt Kumar, the director of the White House transition project, Biden has held 42 of these short questioning sessions as of about two weeks ago. That is more than any other recent president except Bill Clinton.

The gun safety group Everytown is launching a seven-figure TV and digital ad campaign to urge the Senate to pass background checks legislation.

The campaign, which is called “More Than Thoughts and Prayers,” will begin in early April with national cable ads and continue over the coming months.

“We need more than thoughts and prayers right now –– we need action, and that means passing lifesaving background check legislation into law,” John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown, said in a statement.

“The Senate is now the most important battleground in America in the fight for gun safety, and we’re going to stop at nothing until we get this critical legislation to President Biden’s desk.”

The Senate is scheduled to start a two-week recess later today, and as of now, Democrats don’t appear to have the 60 votes needed to pass the two background checks bills approved by the House earlier this month.

Boulder shooting suspect scheduled to make first court appearance

The Boulder shooting suspect is scheduled to make his first court appearance this morning, after being charged with ten counts of first-degree murder.

Ahmad Alissa, 21, was briefly hospitalized after the Monday shooting, due to a gunshot wound to the leg. The wound was treated, and Alissa was then jailed for investigation of murder.

The court will read Alissa’s pending charges and his rights as a defendant, but the suspect will not be able to enter a plea today.

Alissa is expected to appear in person in the courtroom, unless he waives his right to do so in writing, and the courtroom has been closed to the public.

Alissa’s first court appearance comes a day after Boulder held a candlelight vigil for the 10 victims of the shooting: Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Officer Erc Talley, 51; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

Joe Biden will hold his first formal press conference as president today at 1:15 pm in Washington.

The event comes after weeks of reporters pressing the White House on when Biden will do a press conference, given that Barack Obama and Donald Trump had already held pressers by this point in their presidency.

To preview the event, the Washington Post has some details on Biden’s relationship with the press:

Over his decades of public life, Biden has generally seemed to enjoy the give-and-take with reporters. But his press handlers enjoy them less and often try to shut them down as quickly as possible.

It’s a long-running joke among Biden advisers how hard he can be to control. His time as a senator yielded endless jokes about his loquaciousness, his gaffes and the perils of coming between him and a TV camera.

But after nine weeks, White House advisers concluded they could not put off Biden’s first news conference any longer.

The press conference will kick off in a few hours, so stay tuned.

David Litt writes for us this morning, arguing that the McConnell filibuster is not the same as the Jim Crow filibuster – it’s much worse:

Just as was the case 75 years ago, the filibuster makes it impossible to pass meaningful civil rights laws. But unlike the Jim Crow filibuster, the McConnell filibuster makes it impossible to pass nearly all other meaningful laws as well.

There are a few exceptions, such as the once-a-year reconciliation process which allowed Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and Biden’s 2021 Covid relief to pass via up-or-down vote. But these outliers only underscore the way in which the McConnell filibuster is an act of legislative self-immolation. What is supposed to be the world’s most august lawmaking body has rendered itself able to pass major legislation either once a year or not at all. The Jim Crow filibuster’s great shame was that it divided America into two separate and unequal nations – one a functional democracy, the other a racist apartheid regime. The McConnell filibuster’s great shame is that it does away with functional democracy nationwide.

And while the Jim Crow filibuster was more morally reprehensible, McConnell’s is a far greater threat to our republic. The institutions essential to our democracy – from our courts to our voting systems to the peaceful transition of power – are under unprecedented assault. As long as the 60-vote threshold remains in place, the Senate provides no meaningful way to protect those institutions. Instead, senators will find themselves trapped in a vicious cycle: it takes a supermajority of senators to defend democracy, yet those attacks make a supermajority of pro-democracy senators ever harder to obtain.

Read more here: David Litt – The McConnell filibuster is not the same as the Jim Crow filibuster – it’s much worse

Here’s the thoughts of Rick Klein from ABC News on the prospect of the first Joe Biden press conference this afternoon. Klein writes:

The last few weeks have been both heady and humbling for the Biden White House. And a wide-ranging news conference means headlines are virtually guaranteed to be made that go beyond messaging plans.

Biden is likely to be pressed for answers on immigration, taxes, guns and the filibuster. Perhaps his biggest challenge will be to assert control over events that have spiraled around him and the nation just in the week-plus since the news conference was announced.

The president and those around him continue to think big, with major legislative packages that carry deep structural reforms on the wish list. Competing dynamics among both Republicans and some Democrats are pushing him to aim smaller.

Two months into his presidency, Biden remains more popular than not, though that doesn’t necessarily translate into political sway. He gets to tell his story on Thursday, just not entirely on his own terms.

Michael Sainato reports for us today on the impact of the pandemic on the homeless in the US:

Homelessness has been a significant problem in America during the pandemic. Homeless people are at significant risk for coronavirus, and these populations have almost certainly grown amid mass job losses. After the 2008 economic recession, US cities experienced significant increases in homeless populations, estimated at 3% between 2008 and 2009.

According to a report this month provided to Congress by the US housing department, 580,466 Americans experienced homelessness on any given night in 2020, a 2.2% increase from 2019. Rates of unsheltered individuals increased by 7% and chronic homelessness increased by 15%, based on surveys conducted before the pandemic in January 2020.

A report in January by non-profit research organization Economic Roundtable warned homeless population increases would be twice as high as the increases experienced after the 2008 recession.

“Most jurisdictions feel that unsheltered homelessness has gone up,” said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “It could be that they’re just more visible, but the sense is that it’s growing.”

Coronavirus outbreaks overwhelmed homeless shelters in places like Los Angeles, and other cities have continued sweeps of homeless encampments despite CDC guidance not to do so unless housing units are available for the homeless.

In Dallas, a woman who requested to remain anonymous has lived in her car since November after escaping domestic violence at home. A significant portion of US homeless people identify as domestic violence survivors.

She says she spends the majority of her time trying to find day passes for local gyms to be able to shower, or going to a local library to charge her phone and use the internet. If she can’t find free food, she relies solely on fast-food dollar menus, and buys a $1 large soda from McDonald’s every day to have a cup to use to pee in.

Read more of Michael Sainato’s report here: ‘I’m not sure where we go from here’: pandemic fuels rise in US homelessness

The number of people making new weekly claims for unemployment benefits has fallen to its lowest number since the Covid pandemic began.

Claims for the week ending 20 March came in in at a seasonally adjusted 684,000.

The figure was a 97,000 drop from the revised 770,000 a week earlier. It was lower than expectations, and the first time they’ve fallen below 700,000 for a year.

You may recall from the dog days at the end of the Trump presidency, that the then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo unleashed a wave of social media activity on his official US government account posting what looked like nothing less than the start of a Pompeo 2024 campaign. He’s back on Twitter campaigning this morning, mask-free and eschewing social distancing, this time for Sarah Huckabee and her run for Governor of Arkansas

One of the things that we’re going to have to do in this country, to create an economy that works for all is to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

That’s the video message from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders this morning, who has just posted a six minute clip talking about the American economy.

Sanders says that “There are a lot of problems facing our country and facing our economy. If you were to ask me what the most serious problem is, it is that in the richest country in the history of the world, over half our people are living paycheck to paycheck.”

He goes on to elaborate:

That means people are working hard, forty to fifty hours a week, but at the end of the week, they haven’t saved any money. And if their car breaks down, or if their kid gets sick, they’re into a financially disastrous moment. They borrow money, maybe sometimes from payday lenders.

You can watch it here:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this morning that cooperation between allies was more important than at any time in recent history and that relations with Nato and the European Union would be crucial to overcoming challenges.

Robin Emmott reports for Reuters that on the last day of Blinken’s three-day visit to Brussels, he continued what many European officials said was a charm offensive to win back the support of allies sidelined during four abrasive years under the presidency of Donald Trump.

“I came here very much with one particular focus in mind, and that was to make clear the United States’ determination to revitalize our alliances and partnerships,” Blinken said. “There’s a greater premium than any time since I’ve been involved in these issues, on finding ways to work together, again.”

“A basic tenet of the Biden-Harris administration is consulting with our friends, early and often,” Blinken added. Joe Biden will address EU leaders via video conference later today.

Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Sophie Wilmes (L) welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a meeting in Brussels this morning.
Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Sophie Wilmes (L) welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a meeting in Brussels this morning. Photograph: Benoît Doppagne/BELGA/AFP/Getty Images

Citing the “devastating” Covid-19 pandemic, Blinken also promised to work with the EU and NATO on the global distribution of safe and effective coronavirus vaccines, and to ensure they are prepared for future pandemics.

China’s decision on Monday to retaliate strongly against Western sanctions over human rights abuses has appeared to bring Europe and the United States closer together. European governments have summoned Chinese envoys to explain measures against EU nationals that were seen as going far beyond what Brussels imposed.

While insisting the Europe did not have to choose between the United States and China, Blinken insisted throughout his trip that the West must show authoritarian states that democracy is a superior system, to stand up for liberal values.

Democrats are renewing their efforts to make the biggest overhaul to US elections in a generation and safeguard voting rights, setting up a battle with Republicans, who at a state level are making a huge effort in the opposite direction to reduce voting rights.

Democrats and Republicans both see the proposed federal legislation, which touches on nearly every aspect of the electoral process, as fundamental to their parties’ political futures. The Senate bill, similar to a version passed by the House earlier this month, could shape election outcomes for years to come, striking down hurdles to voting, requiring more disclosure from political donors, restricting partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts and bolstering election security and ethics laws.

The debate over who has the right to vote, and how elections are conducted, will play out for months, if not years. Democrats say they are trying to rebuild trust in the ballot after two tumultuous election cycles. Republicans charge the bill would strip power from the states and cement an unfair political advantage for Democrats.

Mary Clare Jalonick writes for the Associated Press that with Republicans unanimously opposed, the legislation presents a crucial test of how hard Biden and his party are willing to fight for their priorities, as well as those of their voters. Unless they unite around changing Senate rules, which now require 60 votes for most bills to advance, their chance to enshrine expansive voting protections could quickly slip away.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday it took “mighty movements and decades of fraught political conflict” to achieve the basic dignities of current election laws and “any American who thinks that the fight for a full and fair democracy is over, is sadly and sorely mistaken.”

Democrats see the measure as a forceful response to voting rights restrictions advancing in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s repeated, baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election.

“In the end, that insurrection was about an angry mob working to undermine our democracy,” Sen Amy Klobuchar said yesterday. “And it reminds all of us how very fragile our democracy truly is, and how it is on all of us to not just protect that democracy, but to ensure that it thrives.”

The Senate legislation would create automatic voter registration nationwide, allow former felons to vote, and limit the ways states can remove registered voters from their rolls. It would expand voting by mail, promote early voting and give states money to track absentee ballots.

The bill would increase oversight for election vendors and boost support for state voting system upgrades after Russia attempted to breach some of those systems in the 2016 election. It would overhaul federal oversight of campaign finance and encourage small donations to campaigns, while requiring more disclosure of political donations. And it would require states to adopt independent redistricting commissions to draw congressional districts and give more teeth to federal ethics enforcement.

The legislation is meant to counter the more than 250 bills have have been introduced in 43 states that would change how Americans vote. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell however described the proposed move in Congress a “clearly an effort by one party to rewrite the rules of our political system,” McConnell said.

She’s being somewhat disingenuous to suggest that Joe Biden has been hiding – he’s been on trips outside Washington DC to promote his Covid-19 relief plans, has done a national prime time TV address and set-piece TV interviews – but former Donald Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is enjoying a moment back in the spotlight today to talk about the Biden press operation.

Trump aide concealed work for PR firm and misled court to dodge child support

Murray Waas reports for us this morning about a scandal developing around Jason Miller and his relationship with a firm called Teneo:

A top aide to Donald Trump was secretly re-engaged by a leading political strategy firm after being forced to step down after a social media scandal, the Guardian can reveal. The company, Washington-based Teneo, wanted access to top Republicans in the then president’s inner circle, and to conceal his ongoing work.

Jason Miller – who remains close to Trump, and who today serves as a senior adviser to the former president – also later appears to have misled a Florida court about this employment status, asserting in a sworn statement that he could no longer comply with a court order requiring him to pay child-support payments because of an alleged “major financial setback” and was effectively out of work.

Miller cited his termination as a reason he could not meet court-mandated payments – even though he had secretly agreed to a new contract with Teneo that meant doing the same work for the same fee.

Miller resigned as a managing editor of Teneo, the powerhouse corporate advisory firm, on 21 June 2019, after posting a series of obscenity-laced tweets about Democratic congressman Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee.

“I have parted ways with Teneo by mutual consent and look forward to … my next move,” Miller said in a statement he provided to the New York Times and other news outlets.

But Miller’s departure from Teneo was a sham. Previously undisclosed confidential records from inside Teneo show that on the same day Miller signed a formal “separation agreement and general release” from Teneo, he signed a new contract with the firm, whereby Teneo agreed to secretly engage Miller as a consultant, through a hastily formed LLC, at the very same base compensation of nearly $500,000 doing the very same work.

Only three days after his resignation and the signing of his new employment agreement with Teneo for the same base pay, according to state court records in Miami-Dade county, Florida, Miller asked the court to “abate and modify” his support payments and swore he could no longer make his child support payments because the “petitioner’s unemployment is public knowledge”.

Read more of Murray Waas’ report here: Trump aide concealed work for PR firm and misled court to dodge child support

Haiti deportations soar as Biden administration deploys Trump-era health order

The Biden administration has so far deported more Haitians in a few weeks than the Trump administration did in a whole year, with the use of a highly controversial Trump-era public health order denying asylum seekers basic legal rights, according to a new report.

The report, The Invisible Wall, due to be published today by a coalition of immigrant rights groups, focuses on Title 42, part of the 1944 Public Health Service Act invoked a year ago by the Trump administration as grounds for summary expulsion of migrants because of the supposed health risk they posed during the Covid pandemic.

The Biden team has sought to place a moratorium on deportations of immigrants already in the country (though that moratorium has been blocked by a court order), but it has not stopped Title 42 expulsions of newly arrived migrants. The report found the pace of deportation flights to Haiti in particular had increased dramatically.

“More Haitians have been removed to Haiti in the weeks since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office than during all of fiscal year 2020,” according to the Invisible Wall report, published by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, the Quixote Center, and the UndocuBlack Network.

In part at least, the rise in expulsions mirrors an increase in arrivals of Haitians at the border, misled by rumours and deliberate disinformation from people smugglers, that the Biden administration had relaxed the regime at the border. Most of the new arrivals have been waiting in Mexico for months hoping for a change in the rules affecting Haitians. Some of the deportees may also have been held in detention centres in the US.

The department of homeland security did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. The new administration has said it will take time to repair the Trump-era degradation of infrastructure for holding immigrants pending asylum requests.

Read more of Julian Borger’s report from Washington: Haiti deportations soar as Biden administration deploys Trump-era health order

Gun control will no doubt be a topic at Biden’s press conference today. Ed Pilkington writes for us, saying that gun reform laws eluded Biden in 2013. Could this showdown with the NRA be different?

In April 2013, Sandy Hook father Mark Barden stood beside Barack Obama in the Rose Garden of the White House hours after the US Senate had voted down a bill that would have introduced universal background checks on all gun sales.

Standing in the Rose Garden directly behind Obama and Barden was the man entrusted with driving gun reform on to the statute books: Joe Biden. After the slaying of the school kids, Obama had given Biden the job of coming up with a plan for substantial legislation that would help prevent Sandy Hook happening again.

So what went wrong? Why didn’t Biden achieve meaningful reform at a time when the nation was deeply traumatized by a horrifying slaughter of its children?

A clue to what happened was given in one of the first of many meetings that Biden held with interested parties to discuss his proposals. The encounter, held at the White House, was with the lobby group that posed the greatest threat to his efforts: the National Rifle Association.

At the time the NRA, with more than 4m members and an iron grip on lawmakers whom it ranked according to their voting records, was widely feared as the most powerful gun lobby in the world. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice-president, had just days before issued his response to Sandy Hook, proposing in typically acerbic fashion that the way to prevent further mass shootings was to place armed guards in all schools.

“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said. In the ensuing months, gun sales soared. By all accounts, Biden’s head-to-head with the NRA did not go well. The White House, the lobby group hissed, had “an agenda to attack the second amendment … We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen.”

Read more of Ed Pilkington’s report here: Gun reform laws eluded Biden in 2013. Could this showdown with the NRA be different?

If you wanted to know how unusual it is for a US president to have waited this long to give an open press conference, then Paul Farhi at the Washington Post has you covered. A couple of weeks ago he pointed out:

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both did their first one after just nine days in office. Barack Obama waited 20 days. And Donald Trump had been president for only a week before giving his first news conference, where he fielded questions alongside then-British prime minister Theresa May.

But Joe Biden still hasn’t had a formal news conference since his inauguration on 20 January. The stretch is the longest a new president has gone without meeting the press in the past 100 years, dating back to when Calvin Coolidge, a man known as “Silent Cal,” was president, according to research by the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

White House hoping to use first Biden press conference to celebrate passage of Covid-19 relief bill

You can imagine that the intention will get swept away in questions on guns and immigration, but the White House is hoping that President Joe Biden today will be able to tout his success in getting the Covid-19 relief bill through Congress so early in his administration.

Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller write for Associated Press that he is the first chief executive in four decades to reach this point in his term without holding a formal question-and-answer session. He’ll meet with reporters for the nationally televised afternoon event in the East Room of the White House.

“It’s an opportunity for him to speak to the American people, obviously directly through the coverage, directly through all of you,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday. “And so I think he’s thinking about what he wants to say, what he wants to convey, where he can provide updates, and, you know, looking forward to the opportunity to engage with a free press.”

Biden’s conservative critics have pointed to the delay to suggest that Biden was being shielded by his staff. West Wing aides have dismissed the questions about a news conference as a Washington obsession, pointing to Biden’s high approval ratings while suggesting that the general public is not concerned about the event.

Behind the scenes aides have taken the event seriously enough to hold a mock session with the president earlier this week. And there is some concern that Biden, a self-proclaimed “gaffe machine,” could go off message and generate a series of unflattering news cycles.

Firmly pledging his belief in freedom of the press, Biden has rebuked his predecessor’s incendiary rhetoric toward the media, including Donald Trump’s references to reporters as “the enemy of the people.” Biden restored the daily press briefing, which had gone extinct under Trump, opening a window into the workings of the White House.

Biden will point to a surge in vaccine distribution, encouraging signs in the economy and the benefits Americans will receive from the sweeping stimulus package.

But his appearance will come just a day after he appointed vice president Kamala Harris to lead the government’s response to the situation at the US-Mexico border, where the administration faces a growing humanitarian and political challenge that threatens to overshadow Biden’s legislative agenda. Pressure has mounted on the White House to back tougher gun measures ,and the White House has struggled to blunt a nationwide effort by Republican legislatures to tighten election laws.

Here’s how Maeve Reston and Stephen Collinson at CNN are teeing up Joe Biden’s first press conference today:

President Joe Biden’s first two months in power went remarkably smoothly considering he took office amid a once-in-a-century pandemic, a consequent economic crisis and his predecessor’s refusal to recognize his victory.

Biden is expected to highlight blasting through his 100 million doses in 100 days timeline and the passage of his $1.9 trillion Covid-19 rescue bill, which, along with other social legislation in the planning stages, suggests that he is in the process of shaping the most progressive and ambitious Democratic presidency in decades.

But the 78-year-old commander-in-chief can expect a grilling on a fast-expanding front of tough issues coming at his administration on all sides, which shows how quickly unforeseen events can challenge a president. A surge in border crossings by migrant children appeared to catch a White House focused on the pandemic off guard and offered Republicans an opening as they seek to slow his momentum – and build their 2022 attack lines against Biden’s narrow Democratic congressional majority.

Biden is also under pressure to explain how he can make good on his calls for sweeping gun control reforms after two mass shootings in a week and while opposing a rewrite of Senate filibuster rules, which appears the only way for Democrats to get new laws on the books amid staunch GOP opposition.

Read more here: CNN – Biden to highlight gains and face tough scrutiny in first formal news conference

Welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Thursday. Here’s where we are, and what we can expect to see today.

  • Joe Biden will give his first press conference as president today at 1.15pm (1715 GMT). There have been a lot of Republican barbs about this event coming later in his presidency than it has for any other recent incumbent.
  • Biden will also make a virtual appearance at 3.45pm (1945 GMT) in a meeting with the European Council in Europe. Secretary of state Antony Blinken is over in Brussels making a current round of diplomacy with Nato and EU officials.
  • The president has put Kamala Harris in charge of stemming migrant numbers at the US-Mexico border. The vice-president will collaborate with Mexican and Central American officials as White House faces intense criticism over its border operations.
  • There were 85,748 new cases of Covid in the US yesterday. The nation will almost certainly surpass 30 million total cases in the next 24 hours. 85.5 million have had at least one dose of a vaccine.
  • With gun control high on the agenda in the wake of the mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, data shows that while the pandemic may have curbed such incidents, the US saw an estimated 4,000 extra murders in 2020 amid a surge in daily gun violence.
  • Virginia became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty.
  • North Korea test fired two ballistic missiles. The projectiles are believed to have landed in the sea outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, in a display likely to challenge Biden’s Asia-Pacific policies.
  • The Senate confirmed Rachel Levine as assistant health secretary, making her the first openly transgender person the Senate has confirmed. Also today the Senate confirmed David Turk as deputy energy secretary.
  • Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, nominated state assemblymember Rob Bonta for state attorney general, a position left vacant when Xavier Becerra was confirmed as secretary of health and human services.
  • Peter Buttigieg testifies before the House transportation committee on transportation priorities at 10am (1400 GMT).
  • Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testify before a joint House Energy and Commerce subcommittee virtual hearing on combating online misinformation and disinformation at noon (1600GMT). In the wake of the 6 January Capitol insurrection, that is likely to be testy.
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