Jen Psaki reiterated Joe Biden’s comments yesterday that Republican attacks on voting rights are “un-American”.
“It is not something that should be a part of society in any regard,” the press secretary said. “We will certainly continue to vocalize that.”
Psaki noted Biden met with voting rights leader Stacey Abrams when he traveled to Georgia last week, and she said the president will continue to engage with members of Congress to help move voting rights legislation forward.
Jen Psaki was asked for Joe Biden’s reaction to the arrest of Park Cannon, the Georgia state legislator who was handcuffed while trying to watch Governor Brian Kemp sign the controversial voting bill into law.
“Anyone who saw that video would have been deeply concerned by the actions that were taken by law enforcement to arrest her,” Psaki said.
CBS News (@CBSNews)
Psaki’s response to Georgia state Rep. Park Cannon being arrested in Georgia’s Capitol for protesting new voting restrictions: “Anyone who saw that video would have been deeply concerned by the actions that were taken by law enforcement” https://t.co/uE5ayLOjCJ pic.twitter.com/pacFXRyQyK
March 26, 2021
The press secretary added, “The largest concern here, obviously beyond her being treated in the manner she was, which is of course of great concern, is the law that was put into place. … It should not be harder, it should be easier to vote.”
Psaki said the president will release a statement on the Georgia voting law later today.
Joe Biden still intends to sign executive orders to address gun violence, but he has not yet determined when he will do so, Jen Psaki said.
The press secretary said the president still believes there are opportunities to engage with Congress when it comes to passing stricter gun regulations.
Biden has come under increased pressure to take executive action on gun violence since the mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder.
Jen Psaki was asked about Joe Biden’s opinion on the comments from Dr Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Redfield recently told CNN that he believed coronavirus may have originated in a Chinese lab.
Psaki noted the World Health Organization is currently examining the origins of coronavirus and is expected to soon release a report on the issue.
“We’ll look closely at that information when it’s available,” Psaki said.
Speaking at the coronavirus response team’s briefing earlier today, Dr Anthony Fauci expressed skepticism about Redfield’s comments, noting that many health experts have dismissed the lab theory.
Asked whether Joe Biden would consider taking executive action on voting rights, Jen Psaki said the president will “continue to review options in that regard”.
The press secretary noted Biden planned to release a statement on the voting law that Georgia’s governor just signed into law. Psaki said Biden was particularly dismayed by restrictions on offering water to people waiting in line to vote.
During his first presidential press conference yesterday, Biden said Republican efforts to curtail voting rights were “sick”.
lowering child poverty and expanding childcare options, allowing more women to enter (or reenter) the workforce.
Fox News has issued a response to the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems this morning.
“FOX News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court,” the network said in a statement.
In its lawsuit, Dominion claimed that Fox “sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process”.
The lawsuit marks Dominion’s first defamation lawsuit against a media outlet, although it has filed similar lawsuits against some of Donald Trump’s allies who leveled fraud accusations against the company.
Rudy Giuliani, the former president’s personal attorney; Sidney Powell, a former member of Trump’s legal team; and Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, are also facing Dominion lawsuits.
Profiles in Chickenshit”) but Romney was alone in the first, a fact which won him the Kennedy award.
The former venture capitalist, Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee told NBC there was “no question, there are a few people that are not happy with me” in the Republican party.
“I understand that that’s the nature of the job that I’ve got,” he said.
We swore, under God, that we would apply impartial justice. I took that very, very seriously. I listened to the various testimonies that were provided … and I felt that that was a severe enough violation of his oath of office to require a guilty verdict.
Romney is a unique figure in US politics, seen by many on the left, as the liberal columnist Molly Jong-Fast put it to the Guardian recently, as “a very good-faith actor” and therefore a rare Republican open to working across the aisle, yet also a doctrinaire conservative who for just one example had no problem backing Mitch McConnell’s more-than-slightly hardball decision to ram Amy Coney Barrett on to the supreme court shortly before last year’s election, a decision which tipped the court 6-3 to the (hard) right.
Speaking to NBC, Romney said there was “some irony” in his receiving the Kennedy award, because in 1994 he ran for the US Senate against JFK’s younger brother, Ted Kennedy – and lost.
“We became very good friends as time went on and actually collaborated together on a piece of legislation to provide healthcare to all the citizens of our state,” Romney said, referring to the reform he enacted in 2006 in Massachusetts, a rather Obamacare-esque gambit which is another source of lasting suspicion on the right.
“I think common ground is the best way to unify the country,” Romney said. “I’m afraid if the president of either party instead just follows the demands of the most aggressive wing in his party, you may have that wing satisfied but the nation has become more divided. You’ve got to find common ground and work with people in both parties and get answers to issues that are bipartisan.”
Romney has something else in common with JFK, at least in a literary sense. When he has published books, he has had help in the writing. In 1957, famously or perhaps infamously, Kennedy won a Pulitzer prize for his book, Profiles in Courage. Other people, however, most prominently the speechwriter Ted Sorensen, wrote almost all of it.
In case you missed it: Donald Trump falsely said the Capitol insurrectionists posed “zero threat” to lawmakers.
Speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham last night, the former president complained that law enforcement officials were “persecuting” those who participated in the insurrection, which resulted in five deaths.
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar)
“It was zero threat, right from the start, it was zero threat” — Trump on the January 6 insurrection that left 5 dead, including a police officer pic.twitter.com/6YBho1bywM
March 26, 2021
While acknowledging the rioters “went in and they shouldn’t have done it,” Trump argued they had “great relationships” with the law enforcement officers on Capitol Hill.
“Some of them went in and they’re, they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards,” Trump said. “You know, they had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in and then they walked in and they walked out.”
One Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, died as a result of his injuries from the insurrection. Two men have now been charged for allegedly assaulting Sicknick with bear spray.
Trump was impeached by the House for inciting the Capitol insurrection, and 57 senators voted to convict him on the charge, although that fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for conviction.
the proposed new missile, known as the ground-based strategic deterrent (GBSD) which is projected to cost a total of $264bn over its projected lifespan, and discontinue spending on a linked warhead modification program.
Instead, the life of the existing US intercontinental ballistic missile, the Minuteman III, would be extended until 2050, and an independent study commissioned on how best to do that.
“The United States should invest in a vaccine of mass prevention before another new land-based weapon of mass destruction,” Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, co-author of the bill, said.
“The ICBM Act makes clear that we can begin to phase out the cold-war nuclear posture that risks accidental nuclear war while still deterring adversaries and assuring allies, and redirect those savings to the clear and present dangers presented by coronaviruses and other emerging and infectious diseases.”
Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, closed the briefing by reiterating the need to remain vigilant about limiting the spread of the virus.
Echoing Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Zients acknowledged that Americans are experiencing fatigue a year into the pandemic.
“We certainly understand that people are tired,” Zients said. “But we can’t let down our guard.”
The coronavirus response team said the White House expected the three approved vaccine producers to meet their first-quarter supply goals.
That is particularly surprising when it comes to Johnson & Johnson, which had promised to deliver 20 million vaccine doses by the end of the month.
Earlier this week, White House officials sounded skeptical that Johnson & Johnson would be able to meet that goal, but it appears the company will be successful on that front.