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In national address, Biden tells states to make all adults vaccine eligible by 1 May
Joe Biden has directed states to make all American adults eligible for coronavirus vaccines by 1 May and set an audacious goal of 4 July for gatherings to celebrate “independence” from the deadly pandemic.
But in his first prime-time address, which marked the anniversary of America’s shutdown, the president warned that restrictions could be reinstated if the nation lets down its guard against the virus.
“Tonight, I’m announcing that I will direct all states, tribes and territories to make all adults – people 18 and over – eligible to be vaccinated no later than 1 May,” Biden said in the east room of the White House. “That’s much earlier than expected.”
He went on to make clear that this does not mean every person can get their shot in the arm by then but they will at least be able to join a waiting list. It signified the growing confidence of an administration that Biden said remains on “a war footing to get the job done”.
The president said his target of 100m vaccine doses in his first 100 days has already been exceeded, with the US now on track to achieve that figure on his 60th day.
In a 24-minute speech that carefully balanced caution and optimism, Biden also announced that the federal government will create a website before 1 May to help people find vaccination sites and schedule appointments. He promised he would “not relent” until the virus is beaten but he needs every American to “do their part”.
He then offered a tangible target with emotional resonance: “If we do this together, by July the fourth there’s a good chance you, your families and friends, will be able to get together in your back yard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate independence day.”
He added: “After this long hard year, that will make this independence day something truly special, where we not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus.”
Trump was frequently criticised last year for setting wildly optimistic dates for reopening businesses and schools. With many states already lifting restrictions again, Biden was at pains to say the fight is far from over. “Because if we don’t stay vigilant and the conditions change and we may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track,” he warned. “Please, we don’t want to do that again. We’ve made so much progress. This is not the time to let up.”
Wearing a black mask, dark suit, white shirt, striped tie and white handkerchief in his breast pocket, Biden walked up a red carpet flanked by flags to make the address – the first on live television from the east room since Donald Trump falsely claimed election victory at 2.20am on 4 November. More - in US Politics
Surge in migrants seeking to cross Mexico border poses challenge for Biden
The number of migrant children and families seeking to cross the US-Mexico border has increased to levels not seen since before the coronavirus pandemic – a challenge for Joe Biden as he works to undo the hardline immigration policies of predecessor Donald Trump.Statistics released Wednesday by US customs and border protection (CBP) showed the number of children and families increased by more than 100% between January and February.Children crossing by themselves rose 60% to more than 9,400, forcing the government to look for new places to hold them temporarily.Roberta Jacobson, the administration’s coordinator for the southern border and a former ambassador to Mexico, joined the White House press briefing on Wednesday.She said the president is committed to building a fair immigration system, but cannot undo the damage of the Trump administration “overnight”.She sidestepped a question about whether the situation at the border qualifies as a crisis.“Whatever you call it wouldn’t change what we’re doing,” Jacobson said.The secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, previously said he does not consider the situation to be a crisis, which sparked intense criticism among Republicans, including Trump.But Jacobson said: “Surges tend to respond to hope. There was a hope for a more humane policy.”She also argued that the election of Biden allowed human smugglers to spread disinformation about migrants’ ability to enter the US immediately.“The border is not open,” Jacobson said and urged undocumented people not to make the dangerous journey.The Biden administration is turning back nearly all single adults, who make up the majority of border-crossers, under a public health order imposed by Trump at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.And the administration is temporarily holding children and families, mostly from Central America, in government and private facilities for several days while it evaluates claims for asylum or determines if they have any other legal right to stay in the US.Republicans have argued that migrants are drawn by incentives such as the immigration bill backed by Biden and many Democrats that would offer a path to citizenship for millions of people living unlawfully in the US.“We’re seeing a surge of unaccompanied children coming across the border. Why? Joe Biden promised amnesty,” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, tweeted.There were nearly 29,000 family units or unaccompanied minors in February. The last time it was higher was in October 2019.Biden officials have faced mounting questions about the temporary detention of migrant families, an issue that the two previous presidents had to deal with because of the instability in the region.Jacobson said the administration is asking Congress for $4bn for targeted aid to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.“Only by addressing those root causes can we break the cycle of desperation and provide hope for families who clearly would prefer to stay in their countries and provide a better future for their children,” she told reporters at the White House.Jacobson said the US is also restoring a program, ended under Trump, that reunited children in the three Central American countries with parents who are legal residents in the United States.The Department of Homeland Security has also begun processing the asylum claims of thousands of people who were forced by the Trump administration to stay in Mexico, often in dangerous conditions for a long time, for a decision on their case.A migrant camp that formed in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, in south-east Texas, recently was emptied of migrants as they were allowed into the US to process their immigration or asylum claims. More
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Merrick Garland confirmed as attorney general, turning page on Trump era
Merrick Garland has been confirmed as America’s top law enforcement officer, a boost for Joe Biden’s drive against racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.Garland’s rise to attorney general, approved 70-30 by the US Senate in a strongly bipartisan vote, turns the page on former president Donald Trump’s harsh “law and order” rhetoric and efforts to bend the justice department to his will.It also marks a poignant second chance for the 68-year-old judge who, nominated to the supreme court by then president Barack Obama in 2016, was denied a hearing by Senate Republicans on the pretext that it was an election year.This time around his confirmation had been widely expected, especially after a relatively uneventful hearing where Republicans landed few punches. Mitch McConnell, who was Garland’s nemesis in 2016, told reporters last Tuesday that he would back him for attorney general.“After Donald Trump spent four years – four long years – subverting the powers of the justice department for his own political benefit, treating the attorney general like his own personal defense lawyer, America can breathe a sigh of relief that we’re going to have someone like Merrick Garland leading the justice department,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ahead of the vote. “Someone with integrity, independence, respect for the rule of law and credibility on both sides of the aisle.”McConnell said he was voting to confirm Garland because of “his long reputation as a straight shooter and a legal expert” and that his “left-of-center perspective” was still within the legal mainstream.“Let’s hope our incoming attorney general applies that no-nonsense approach to the serious challenges facing the Department of Justice and our nation,” McConnell said.Garland faces a daunting inbox at a justice department that critics say was left in tatters by Trump and his own attorney general, William Barr. He must attempt to restore morale while addressing demands for racial justice in the wake of last year’s police killing of George Floyd and widespread Black Lives Matter protests.At last week’s confirmation hearing in Washington, Garland stressed his commitment to combating racial discrimination in policing, arguing that America does not “yet have equal justice” as well as confronting the rise in extremist violence and domestic terror threats.He said his first briefing as attorney general would be focused on the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January. He told the committee he fears that the riots were “not necessarily a one-off” and pledged to provide prosecutors with all the resources they need to bring charges over the mob violence.“We must do everything in the power of the justice department to prevent this kind of interference with policies of American democratic institutions,” he said.Born in Chicago and educated at Harvard, Garland is a federal appellate judge and former prosecutor. He held senior positions at the justice department including as a supervisor in the prosecution of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people and led to the execution of Timothy McVeigh.Last week, reflecting on the rise in hate crimes and extremist groups, he said: “I certainly agree that we are facing a more dangerous period than we faced in Oklahoma City.”Garland assured senators that the justice department would remain politically independent – a line that often became blurred under Trump and Barr. He emphasized that he had never spoken to Biden about a federal tax investigation into the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and that he did not expect interference from anyone.“The president nominates the attorney general to be the lawyer, not for any individual, but for the people of the United States,” he said.At one point in the hearing, Garland fought back tears after Cory Booker of New Jersey asked him about his own family’s experience of hateful extremism.“I come from a family where my grandparents fled antisemitism and persecution,” the judge said. “The country took us in, and protected us, and I feel an obligation to the country to pay back, and this is the highest, best use of my own set of skills to pay back.“So I very much want to be the kind of attorney general that you’re saying I could become, and I’ll do my best to become that kind of attorney general.”Associated Press contributed to this report More
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Biden's $1.9tn Covid relief bill marks an end to four decades of Reaganism | Analysis
Joe Biden reflected recently on the last time a Democratic administration had to rescue an economy left in tatters by a Republican president.“The economists told us we literally saved America from a depression,” Biden told the House Democratic Caucus last week. “But we didn’t adequately explain what we had done. Barack was so modest; he didn’t want to take, as he said, a ‘victory lap’. I kept saying, ‘Tell people what we did.’ He said, ‘We don’t have time. I’m not going to take a victory lap.’ And we paid a price for it, ironically, for that humility.”The 46th US president is often lauded for his humility but don’t expect him to repeat Obama’s mistake. Once his $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill is signed, he is set to take an extended victory lap by travelling the country to promote it.Biden will have short and long sales pitches. First, that help is on the way after the hellish year of a pandemic that has killed more than 528,000 people in the US and put many millions out of work.The stimulus, among the biggest in history, includes $400bn to fund $1,400 direct payments to most Americans (unlike Donald Trump, Biden’s signature will not appear on the cheques), $350bn in aid to state and local governments and increased funding for vaccine distribution.Politically, it is an open goal. The risks of inaction were immense; the risks of action are modest. Opinion polls show that three in four Americans support the stimulus, making congressional Republicans’ implacable opposition all the more jarring. But given that voters tend to have short memories – academic research and midterm election results suggest that Obama got little credit for the 2009 rescue – Biden is wise to press home his advantage.Second, he will also be on a mission to restore faith in government. Confidence in it “has been plummeting since the late 60s to what it is now”, Biden noted in his remarks last week. His legislation, called the American Rescue Plan, can correct that with the biggest expansion of the welfare state in decades.Advocates say it will cut the number of Americans living in poverty by a third and reduce child poverty by nearly half. It contains, at $31bn, the biggest federal investment in Native American programmes in history. It also delivers the most important legislation for Black farmers in half a century, allocating $5bn through debt relief, grants, education and training.Jim McGovern, the Democratic congressman who chairs the House rules committee, has said: “This bill attacks inequality and poverty in ways we haven’t seen in a generation.”The White House has called it “the most progressive piece of legislation in history”. Biden knows better than anyone what that means.When he was born, in 1942, the president was Franklin Roosevelt, architect of the New Deal, an epic set of programmes, public work projects and financial reforms to provide relief from the Great Depression. When Biden was a student at the University of Delaware, Lyndon Johnson embarked on his project of the “Great Society”, flexing the muscles of government for poverty alleviation, civil rights and environmental protections.But then came the monumental pushback. As a senator, Biden witnessed the Watergate scandal tarnish the political class as Richard Nixon became the first president to resign. Then came Ronald Reagan and his famous quip: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”Reagan oversaw a major tax overhaul in 1986, resulting in cavernous inequality and a massive budget deficit. He described Johnson’s “Great Society” as a fundamental wrong turn and set about dismantling it. Reagan was so successful in making the political weather that Biden himself bought into the ideology.In 1988 he wrote in a newspaper column: “We are all too familiar with the stories of welfare mothers driving luxury cars and leading lifestyles that mirror the rich and famous. Whether they are exaggerated or not, these stories underlie a broad social concern that the welfare system has broken down – that it only parcels out welfare checks and does nothing to help the poor find productive jobs.”This orthodoxy held and dominated the political centre ground. In 2017, Trump followed Reagan’s lead with a $1.5tn bill that slashed taxes for corporations and the wealthy, including himself and his allies. That was his first big legislative win; Biden’s could hardly be more of a polar opposite.The American Rescue Plan is not without disappointments for progressives, notably the lack of a $15-per-hour minimum wage, a harbinger of how difficult an evenly divided Senate will be for Biden to handle. All the more reason to enjoy his victory lap and celebrate that four decades of Reaganism and “trickle down” economics are at an end. More
