Biden pushed on immigration in press conference but provides no clear answers – live

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:

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:

The White House has formally withdrawn the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

The White House’s statement comes three weeks after Joe Biden announced Tanden’s nomination would be withdrawn, due to bipartisan opposition in the Senate over her past controversial tweets.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

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.

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.