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      Senate passes $1.7tn funding bill to avert US government shutdown

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      Senate passes $1.7tn funding bill to avert US government shutdownBill includes $45bn in military aid to Ukraine after lawmakers reached agreement on a final series of votes The US Senate on Thursday passed a $1.7tn government spending bill, sending it to the House to approve and send to Joe Biden for his signature, averting a partial government shutdown.‘No money, nowhere to stay’: asylum seekers wait as Trump’s border restrictions drag onRead moreThe legislation provides funding through 30 September 2023, for the US military and an array of non-military programs.The legislation provides Ukraine with $44.9bn in wartime aid and bans the use of Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on federal government devices.Progress on the bill slowed after the conservative Republican Mike Lee introduced an amendment meant to slow immigration. That prompted Democrats to put forward a competing amendment that would boost funding for law enforcement agencies on the border. Both amendments failed, which allowed lawmakers to move forward.The massive bill includes about $772.5bn for non-defense programs and $858bn for defense. Lawmakers raced to get it approved, many anxious to complete the task before a deep freeze could leave them stranded in Washington for the holidays. Many also wanted to lock in funding before a new Republican-controlled House makes it harder to find compromise.On Wednesday night, senators heard from the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, about the importance of US aid for the war with Russia.“Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way,” Zelenskiy said.The funding measure includes emergency assistance to Ukraine and Nato allies above Joe Biden’s request.The Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the worst thing Congress could do was give the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, any signal the US was wavering in its commitment to Ukraine. He also said he met Zelenskiy.“He made it clear that without this aid package, the Ukrainians will be in real trouble and could even lose the war,” Schumer said. “So that makes the urgency of getting this legislation done all the more important.”But when lawmakers left the chamber, prospects for a quick vote looked glum. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said the funding bill was “hanging by a thread”.Republicans were looking to ensure a vote on a proposed amendment from Lee, of Utah, seeking to extend coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions on asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, known as Title 42. Passage of the amendment would have doomed the bill in the Democratic-held House.“Senator Schumer doesn’t want to have a vote on Title 42 because he presumably knows it will pass,” said Mitt Romney, the other Utah Republican. But the House won’t go along in that case, he added, in which case “everything falls apart”.Lee told Fox News: “I insisted that we have at least one amendment, up-or-down vote, on whether to preserve Title 42. Because Title 42 is the one thing standing between us and utter chaos [at the border]. We already have mostly chaos. This would bring us to utter chaos if it expires, which it’s about to.”The spending bill was supported by Schumer and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, for different reasons.McConnell cited the bill’s 10% boost in defense spending but faced pushback from Republicans resenting being forced to vote on such a massive package with so little time before a shutdown and Christmas. It was expected, however, that enough Republicans agreed with McConnell that the bill would reach 60 votes.Schumer touted the bill as a win on the domestic front, saying: “Kids, parents, veterans, nurses, workers: these are just a few of the beneficiaries of our bipartisan funding package, so there is every reason in the world for the Senate to finish its work as soon as possible.”Lawmakers worked to stuff priorities into the package, which ran to 4,155 pages. It included $27bn in disaster funding and an overhaul of federal election law to prevent presidents or candidates trying to overturn an election. The bipartisan overhaul was a response to Donald Trump’s efforts to convince Republicans to object to Biden’s victory.Hunter Biden hires Jared Kushner lawyer to face Republican investigatorsRead moreThe bill also contained policy changes lawmakers worked to include, to avoid having to start over in the new Congress next year. Examples included the provision from Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, to ban TikTok on government cellphones. A provision supported by Maine would aid the state’s lobster and Jonah crab fisheries, delaying regulations to help save North Atlantic right whales.On the healthcare front, the bill requires states to keep children enrolled in Medicaid on coverage for at least a year. Millions could still start to lose coverage on 1 April because the bill sunsets a requirement of the Covid-19 emergency that prohibited kicking people off Medicaid.The bill also provides roughly $15.3bn for more than 7,200 projects lawmakers sought for their states. Fiscal conservatives criticize such spending as unnecessary.The Senate appropriations committee chairman, Patrick Leahy, a Democrat retiring after nearly five decades in the chamber, praised bipartisan support for the measure following months of negotiations.His Republican counterpart, Richard Shelby, who also is retiring, said of the 4,155-page bill: “It’s got a lot of stuff in it. A lot of good stuff.”House Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy, probably the next speaker, had asked colleagues in the Senate to support only a short-term extension. A notice sent by leadership to House members urged them to vote against the measure.TopicsUS CongressUS SenateUS politicsUS domestic policyUS foreign policyUS militaryUS healthcarenewsReuse this content More

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      African leaders gather in US as Joe Biden aims to reboot rocky relations

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      African leaders gather in US as Joe Biden aims to reboot rocky relationsPresident and Antony Blinken woo nations at summit in Washington in hope they will align with west rather than Russia or China Dozens of African leaders have assembled in Washington for a summit aimed at rebooting US relations on the continent, which have languished in recent years.The US-Africa summit, the first since 2014, will be the biggest international gathering in Washington since the pandemic and the most substantial commitment by a US administration to boosting its influence in the region for almost a decade.The summit comes amid the sharpest great power rivalry for many decades, worsening security problems and acute economic problems in Africa.All three challenges are sometimes blamed on the US, which has been pushed on to the defensive in many areas by determined and often unconventional strategies adopted by strategic rivals such as Russia and China.In all, 49 leaders and heads of states have been invited to the summit, and the guest list underlines the difficulty faced by President Joe Biden and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in balancing values with pressing demands of power politics.Observers have noted tensions in US policy between a desire to win friends and also to reach out to populations suffering under repressive, exploitative regimes through promotion of diversity, tolerance, free speech and democracy.“It seems it’s now a numbers game and getting more countries to align with the west against Russia now and, in the longer term, China. The continent feels a lot more cold war-ish than at any time in my career,” said Alex Vines, director of the Africa programme at Chatham House.Four countries that were suspended from the African Union – Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Sudan – were not invited to the summit because coups in those nations led to unconstitutional changes in power. The White House also did not invite Eritrea.But Equatorial Guinea was invited despite the state department stating that it held “serious doubts” about last month’s election, in which President Teodoro Obiang’s ruling party won nearly 95% of the vote. So too was Zimbabwe, which has faced years of US and western sanctions over poor governance, human rights abuses and widespread corruption, and Ethiopia, some of whose commercial privileges were withdrawn in an attempt to force an end to a war in the Tigray region that led to “gross violations” of human rights.A peace deal was signed last month, with the significant involvement of US diplomats, but implementation faces major challenges.Many African leaders have come with their own agendas, such as seeking help with high debt repayments, the devastating legacy of the coronavirus, climate change, or military assistance. Most countries are suffering too from the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has pushed up inflation and disrupted food supplies.Geopolitical competition goes beyond that between China, Russia, the EU and the US to include middling powers such as Turkey, Japan, the Gulf states and the UK too, said Vines.On a tour of three countries in Africa earlier this year, Blinken appealed to “governments, communities and peoples” across Africa to embrace Washington’s vision of democracy, openness and economic partnership.The US diplomatic strategy appears in part to appeal directly to ordinary people in Africa, rather than their leaders, by promising support for democracy and accountability. Few rulers on the continent welcome Washington’s admonishments about their often poor human rights records or failures to implement political reform.“I do strongly believe that the United States is still seen as a superpower from the African perspective, but most African leaders do not want to align with its promotion of democracy,” said Abraham Kuol Nyuon, a political analyst and associate professor of political science at the University of Juba in South Sudan. “They need the support of America but not the system of America.”China has made little secret of its preference for strongman rulers, offering assistance without conditions. Sub-Saharan nations have also been major recipients of Chinese investment through its now flagging “belt and road initiative”, which supported infrastructure development.Cold war echoes as African leaders resist criticising Putin’s warRead moreThe Russian strategy has been more opportunistic, and has been focused on unstable countries with significant resources such as Sudan or those where once pro-western political leaders are now seeking new allies.On his tour, Blinken sought to counter Russian and Chinese accusations that the US is a “neo-imperialist power” by stressing that Washington wants to act in consultation with local leaders and communities, reinforcing existing African initiatives.“The United States prioritises our relationship with Africa for the sake of our mutual interests and our partnership in dealing with global challenges,” said Molly Phee, an assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “We are very conscious, again, of the cold war history, we’re conscious, again, of the deleterious impact of colonialism on Africa, and we studiously seek to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of those earlier eras.”A further aim is to make sure failures of Trump’s administration – marked by drift and a series of insulting gaffes – are forgotten.African leaders will be looking for Biden to make some big commitments during the summit, including announcing his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa. One crowdpleaser may be support for adding the African Union as a permanent member of the G20, according to the White House.The Senegalese president, Macky Sall, the current AU chair, has argued that by adding the African Union, the G20 “would come to represent the views of 54 additional members, the bulk of low-income countries, and about 80% of the world’s population”.He wrote in July: “The G20 compromises its effectiveness and influence by omitting such a large fraction of humanity and the world economy.”TopicsUS foreign policyBiden administrationJoe BidenUS politicsAntony BlinkenAfrican UnionAfricanewsReuse this content More

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      We Are Not One review: assured history of Israel’s place in US politics

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      We Are Not One review: assured history of Israel’s place in US politicsTo Eric Alterman, ‘Israel is a red state’ while ‘US Jewry is blue’. Like so much else, Donald Trump has disrupted that dynamic The civil war divided America’s Christians along axes of geography and theology. These days, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, soon to be prime minister again, have wrought a similar sorting. In the words of Eric Alterman, “Israel is a red state. US Jewry is blue.”DeSantis and Pence lead Republican wave – of presidential campaign booksRead moreAlterman is a distinguished professor of English and journalism at the City University of New York. We Are Not One represents four decades of effort, patience and research. Sixty pages of endnotes undergird his arguments, some dating to his student days.Alterman posits that closeness between the US and Israel has oscillated over time and that younger American Jews, particularly those outside Orthodox Judaism, are now distancing themselves from the Zionist experiment. He relies, in part, on polling by Pew Research.Practically speaking, the divide may be more nuanced, with the latest shifts also reflecting a response to a rise in crime – and messaging about it. In the midterms, the Republican Lee Zeldin won 46% of Jewish voters in New York as he came close to beating the governor, Kathy Hochul. Donald Trump never surpassed 30% nationally. In 2020, he took 37% of New York’s Jewish vote.In We Are Not One, Alterman observes how unsafe streets and racial tensions helped spawn neoconservatism. It is “impossible” to separate the movement’s “origins from the revulsions caused by constant news reports of inner-city riots … and broader societal dislocations”. Between 1968 and 1972, Richard Nixon’s share of the Jewish vote doubled from 17% to 35%.One Saturday night in 1968, a crowd thronged the streets of Borough Park in Brooklyn, a predominately Jewish enclave, to cheer the vice-president, Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee. Over the next four years, “law and order” found purchase. To top it off, George McGovern, the Democratic nominee, made Israel supporters nervous.The South Dakota senator’s message, “Come home America”, left them wondering if the US would be in Israel’s corner if war came again. Vietnam was a proxy for foreign policy anxieties. As a coda, Alterman recollects how Nixon nonetheless yearned to turn Jews into political foils and whipping boys. That 2016 Trump ad with a six-pointed star over a field of dollar bills? It had deep roots.Why pro-Israel lobby group Aipac is backing election deniers and extremist RepublicansRead moreAlterman also recounts how Daniel Moynihan, a Democrat, used his position as Gerald Ford’s UN ambassador to reach the Senate in 1976. With support from neoconservatives, hawkish Jews and the New York Times, he beat Bella Abzug, a leftwing lion, in the primary. Then he beat James Buckley, the Republican incumbent.Moynihan lauded Israel’s raid at Entebbe. In Alterman’s description, he appealed to “American Jews’ feelings of vulnerability and their pride and relief at Israel’s military prowess in kicking the asses” of Palestinian and German terrorists and “humiliating” Idi Amin, Uganda’s “evil dictator”.Time passes. Things remain the same. In New York, transit crime is up more than 30%. Violence against Jews is a staple, according to the NYPD.Meanwhile, on college campuses, in Alterman’s words, Israel is a “mini-America”, a useful target for faculty and students to vent against “rapaciousness on the part of the US and other western nations vis-a-vis the downtrodden of the world”.The author quotes Benzion Netanyahu, the Israeli leader’s late father: “Jewish history is in large measure a history of holocausts.” Modern insecurities spring from ancient calamities.Kanye West spews bile. Trump entertains him with Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier. Republicans quietly squirm. Trump’s Jewish supporters grapple with cognitive dissonance and emotional vertigo. Take Mort Klein, of the hard-right Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), who makes several appearances in We Are Not One.Testifying before Congress, Klein accused the press of taking Trump’s comments on Charlottesville, where neo-Nazis marched in 2017, “completely out of context”. In 2018, after 11 worshippers were murdered at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Klein rode to the rescue again. At the ZOA dinner, he said it was “political blasphemy” to blame Trump.Last month, ZOA gave Trump its highest honor. According to Klein, the ex-president was the “best friend Israel ever had in the White House”. Then Trump met West, now known as Ye, and Fuentes, twisting Klein into a human pretzel.“Trump is not an antisemite,” he announced. “He loves Israel. He loves Jews. But he mainstreams, he legitimizes Jew hatred and Jew haters. And this scares me.”Trump reportedly kept Hitler’s speeches by his bed. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.At a recent confab of Agudath Israel of America, an ultra-Orthodox group, Rabbi Dovid Zwiebel, its executive vice-president, condemned Trump: “Yesterday’s friend can be tomorrow’s greatest enemy.” Two years earlier, though, its members clearly backed Trump over Joe Biden. Borough Park was as deep red as Lafayette, Louisiana.It all carries a whiff of deja vu. Alterman recounts how neoconservatives admonished America’s Jews against complaining of Israel’s alliance with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson: “The Christian Zionists’ devotion to ‘Greater Israel’ earned them a pass from the neocons for their occasional outbursts of antisemitism.”Trump had dinner with two avowed antisemites. Let’s call this what it is | Francine ProseRead moreTrump’s Mar-a-Lago dinner created a similar bind. David Friedman, his bankruptcy lawyer and ambassador to Israel, tweeted: “To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this … I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”Trump was not amused. On Friday, he lashed out at “Jewish Leaders”. Friedman must learn patience. ZOA may wish to rescind its award.Jason Greenblatt, a Trump Organization lawyer who moved to the White House, echoed Friedman for CNN. Days later, he spoke at a synagogue in Scarsdale, north of New York City. Greenblatt repeated the need for Trump to correct the record and urged those in attendance to politely speak up.In the next breath, he lauded his one-time boss’s achievements and character. It sure is tough to quit Trump.
      We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel is published in the US by Hachette Book Group
      TopicsBooksUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpIsraelUS foreign policyreviewsReuse this content More

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      Griner release is cause for relief but Viktor Bout transfer tough to stomach

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      AnalysisGriner release is cause for relief but Viktor Bout transfer tough to stomachDavid Smith in WashingtonCritics label Biden’s decision to release Russian arms dealer ‘deeply disturbing’ – even if Brittney Griner’s freedom is excellent news Last month, the Russian parliament mounted an unusual art exhibition with subjects ranging from the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to a sentimental image of a kitten. They had been produced in prison by Viktor Bout, serving 25 years in America.Brittney Griner freed from Russian prison in exchange for Viktor BoutRead moreHistory has shown that a sideline as an amateur artist is not much guarantee of moral integrity. Bout, known as “the merchant of death”, was the world’s most notorious arms dealer, selling weapons to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia and South America.That, for many, was what made his release on Thursday in a prisoner swap for US basketball star Brittney Griner difficult to stomach. Joe Biden has done a deal with the devil. But he may also have saved a woman’s life. As the president found in Afghanistan, the big decisions are seldom morally clearcut.On the credit side, Griner’s release is spectacularly good news. She was arrested in February after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage. Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, her nine-year prison sentence was wildly disproportionate. Her transfer to a penal colony, with its promise of sexism, racism and homophobia in medieval conditions, raised fears for her survival.But on the debit side, despite Vladimir Putin’s effort to portray Bout as painter and classical music lover with a sensitive soul, the arms dealer has blood on his hands. He armed militias in Sierra Leone, the Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor and the Taliban in Afghanistan. His life helped inspire the 2005 Hollywood film Lord of War, starring Nicholas Cage.Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, captured the ambivalence in a statement on Thursday. The Democrat welcomed Griner’s release as a “moment of profound relief” but warned that “releasing Bout back into the world is a deeply disturbing decision”.He added: “We must stop inviting dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans overseas as bargaining chips, and we must try do better at encouraging American citizens against traveling to places like Russia where they are primary targets for this type of unlawful detention.”Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, also expressed relief but warned that “trading Viktor Bout – a dangerous convicted arms dealer who was in prison for conspiring to kill Americans – will only embolden Vladimir Putin to continue his evil practice of taking innocent Americans hostage for use as political pawns”.Predictably, there was a less measured response from Donald Trump’s wing of the Republican party. Some cried foul over the fact that while Griner was coming home, the former US marine Paul Whelan, convicted in 2020 of spying, will remain in a penal colony.Cory Mills, an Afghanistan and Iraq war veteran and congressman-elect from Florida, tweeted: “Biden clearly showed his priority is celebrities over veterans. I guess Brittany’s basketball career in WNBA was more important than Paul Whelan’s service to our nation as a marine.”Family of US man held in Russia lament ‘catastrophe for Paul’ after Griner swapRead moreIn a phone interview from his penal colony, Whelan told CNN he was glad Griner had been released but “greatly disappointed” that the Biden administration has not done more to secure his own freedom. According to the White House, Russia is treating Whelan’s case differently because of his espionage conviction and was not willing to include him in the deal.Not even Republicans, however, were accusing Biden of being “soft on Russia”, given his success in rallying the west against Putin in Ukraine – a vivid contrast from Trump’s embrace of the autocrat. The war has been unusual in its lack of ambiguity between right and wrong.After meeting Griner’s wife, Cherelle, in the Oval Office, it was clear Biden had no doubt he had done the right thing despite the understandable ethical qualms.“It’s my job as president of the United States to make the hard calls,” he said. “And I’m proud that, today, we have made one more family whole again.”TopicsJoe BidenUS foreign policyUS politicsRussiaViktor BoutBrittney GrineranalysisReuse this content More

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      Newt Gingrich warns Republicans that Joe Biden is winning the fight

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      Newt Gingrich warns Republicans that Joe Biden is winning the fightFormer speaker who led charge against Bill Clinton raises eyebrows with column heralding Democrat’s first-term success Republicans must “quit underestimating” Joe Biden, the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich said, because the president is winning the fight.Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voicesRead moreWriting on his own website, Gingrich said: “Conservatives’ hostility to the Biden administration on our terms tends to blind us to just how effective Biden has been on his terms.“… We dislike Biden so much, we pettily focus on his speaking difficulties, sometimes strange behavior, clear lapses of memory and other personal flaws. Our aversion to him and his policies makes us underestimate him and the Democrats.”Gingrich’s words pleased the White House – Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief of staff, tweeted a link with the message: “You don’t have to take my word for it, any more.”The column also caused consternation among Washington commentators, in part because, as Axios put it, “a leader of the GOP’s ’90s-era New Right [is] arguing that Joe Biden is not just a winner – but a role model”.Gingrich has been a fierce partisan warrior ever since he entered Congress, in 1979, then as speaker led the charge against Bill Clinton, culminating in a failed attempt to remove the Democrat via impeachment. In the conclusion to his column, he used the term “Defeat Big Government Socialism” – a version of the title of his latest book.Gingrich told Axios: “I was thinking about football and the clarity of winning and losing. It hit me that, measured by his goals, Biden has been much more successful than we have been willing to credit.”Biden recently turned 80. He has said he will use the Christmas holiday to decide if he will run for re-election.Gingrich, 79, compared Biden to Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, the latter previously the oldest president ever in office, having been 77 when he left the White House in 1989.Reagan and Eisenhower, Gingrich said, “preferred to be underestimated” and “wanted people to think of them as pleasant – but not dangerous”, and thereby enjoyed great success.“Biden has achieved something similar,” Gingrich continued, by taking “an amazingly narrow four-vote majority in the US House and a 50-50 tie in the Senate and turn[ing] it into trillions of dollars in spending – and a series of radical bills”.Gingrich also accused Biden of pursuing “a strategy of polarizing Americans against Donald Trump supporters” – more than 950 of whom have been charged over the deadly Capitol riot they staged after the former president’s defeat in 2020 – and “grossly exaggerat[ing] the threat to abortion rights”, after the supreme court removed the right this year.But Gingrich also gave Biden credit on the chief foreign policy challenge of his first term in power. The president, the former speaker said, had “carefully and cautiously waged war in Ukraine with no American troops … US weapons and financial aid [helping] cripple what most thought would be an easy victory for Russian president Vladimir Putin”.The result, Gingrich said, was that last month “the Biden team had one of the best first-term off-year elections in history. They were not repudiated.”Gingrich advised Republicans “to look much more deeply at what worked and what did not work in 2020 and 2022”, as they prepare to face “almost inevitable second-time Democrat presidential nominee Biden”.According to Axios, Biden is thought likely to run. Friends of the first couple, the site said, “think only two things could stop him: health or Jill”, the first lady.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationNewt GingrichDemocratsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Biden ‘working with Macron’ to hold Russia accountable for ‘brutal’ Ukraine war – as it happened

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      Joe Biden says he’s working with French president Emmanuel Macron to hold Russia accountable for its aggression in Ukraine.Speaking at the White House following their summit this morning, Biden says the two leaders “talked a lot” about the war:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re continuing to strong support people in Ukraine as they defend their homes and their families, and their sovereignty and territorial integrity, against Russian aggression, which is incredibly brutal.
      We’re going to stand together against this brutality. And we’ll continue the strong support for the Ukrainian people as they defend their homes and their families, nurseries their hospitals, their sovereignty, their integrity, against Russian aggression.
      [Russian president Vladimir] Putin thinks that he can crush the will of all those oppose his imperial ambitions by attacking civilian infrastructures and Ukraine, choking off energy to Europe to drive up prices, exasperating food through the food crisis, that’s hurting very vulnerable people, not just in Ukraine but around the world.
      He’s not going to succeed. President Macron and I have resolved that we’re going to continue working together to hold Russia accountable for their actions and to mitigate the global impacts of Putin’s war.We’re closing our US politics blog now after a day dominated by French president Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Washington DC, the first of Joe Biden’s presidency. Thanks for joining us.Several significant talking points emerged:
      Joe Biden says he’ll speak with Vladimir Putin, but only if the Russian president is serious about wanting to end the war in Ukraine.
      Biden and Macron appeared at a joint press conference to condemn the brutality of Putin’s aggression against civilians in Ukraine, and promised to jointly hold Russia accountable.
      The US president acknowledged there were “glitches” in the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that European countries, including France, say disadvantages their companies. Biden says they can be “tweaked” to favor allies.
      We’ve also been following these developments:
      A national rail strike has been averted after the US Senate voted 80-15 to impose a labor deal on workers. The bill heads for Biden’s signature after the House of Representatives approved the measure on Wednesday.
      Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina, an ally of outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House majority leader Steny Hoyer, was elected assistant leader of the Democratic House caucus.
      Please join us again tomorrow.Meanwhile, take a read of my colleague David Smith’s report on Biden’s meeting with Macron, and how it has helped heal the rift in their relationship:Biden and Macron seek to heal trade rift and present united front on UkraineRead moreThe Senate has voted 80-15 to implement a labor deal and avert a national rail strike on 9 December that the Biden administration and business leaders warned would have had devastating consequences for the nation’s economy.The Senate passed a bill to bind rail companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached between the rail companies and union leaders in September. That settlement had been rejected by some of the 12 unions involved, creating the possibility of a strike next week.BREAKING: The Senate votes to avert a rail strike that the Biden administration and business leaders warned would have had devastating consequences for the nation’s economy. https://t.co/EOFNdq2lud— The Associated Press (@AP) December 1, 2022
      The Senate vote came one day after the House voted to impose the agreement. The measure now goes to Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.“I’m very glad that the two sides got together to avoid a shutdown, which would have been devastating for the American people, to the American economy and so many workers across the country,” Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.The Senate is moving quickly to hold a series of votes Thursday afternoon that could stave off a national rail strike that the Biden administration and business leaders say would greatly damage the economy.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer announced a deal to hold three votes related to the rail negotiations, the Associated Press reports, with the final vote on whether to bind rail companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached in September.That settlement had been rejected by some of the 12 unions involved, creating the possibility of a strike. The House has already voted to impose that agreement anyway.“I’m very glad that the two sides got together to avoid a shutdown, which would have been devastating for the American people, to the American economy and so many workers across the country,” Schumer told reporters.Joe Biden who had urged Congress to intervene earlier this week, defended the contract that four of the unions had rejected, noting the wage increases it contains.“I negotiated a contract no one else could negotiate,” Biden said at a news briefing with French President Emmanuel Macron. “What was negotiated was so much better than anything they ever had.”Read more:US Senate votes on bill to avoid railroad strike and give sick leave to workersRead moreThe US Supreme Court will hear Joe Biden’s bid to reinstate his plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, after it was blocked by a lower court in a challenge by six states that accused his administration of exceeding its authority.According to Reuters, justices deferred taking action on Biden’s request to immediately lift an injunction issued on 14 November by the St Louis-based 8th US circuit court of appeals, but said in a brief order that they would hear oral arguments in their session from late February to early March.The challenge to Biden policy was brought by Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina. Five are Republican governed while the other, Kansas, has a Republican attorney general.The policy faces another hurdle as the administration contests a separate 10 November ruling by a federal judge in Texas deeming the program unlawful. A federal appeals court on Wednesday declined to put that decision on hold, and the administration said it plans to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.Read more:US student debt relief: borrowers in limbo as lawsuits halt cancellation programRead moreLawyers for the Trump Organization were admonished in court Thursday for showing jurors in the company’s criminal tax fraud trial portions of witness testimony that had not been entered into evidence.Judge Juan Manuel Merchan halted closing arguments in the case in New York after prosecutors objected to Trump Org attorney Susan Necheles presenting in a slideshow testimony that the jurors hadn’t previously heard, the Associated Press reports.The trial continued after a half-hour break and admonishment for Necheles from Merchan.Necheles insisted she had not intended to show any testimony that had been stricken. “Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for that error,” she told jurors at the resumption.The transcript kerfuffle was, the AP says, just the latest dust-up involving Trump Organization lawyers. Earlier this week, Merchan scolded the defense for submitting hundreds of pages of court papers just before midnight Sunday.The company, through which Donald Trump manages his real estate holdings and other ventures, is accused of helping some top executives avoid paying income taxes on company-paid perks, such as apartments and luxury cars.The tax fraud case is the only trial to arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices.One significant moment of note towards the end of the Biden-Macron press briefing, the US president says he’s willing to talk with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but only if he’s willing to discuss ending his country’s war in Ukraine.Biden repeated his often-heard line that he has no plans to contact Putin, whom he and French president Emmanuel Macron condemned unequivocally today for the brutality of the Russian assault on Ukraine’s civilian population.But he said he would be open to listening to what Putin had to say:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s one way for this war to end rationally, Putin to pull out of Ukraine, and it appears he’s not going to do that. It’s sick, what he’s doing.
      I’ll choose my words very carefully. I’m prepared to speak with Mr Putin, if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war. He hasn’t done that yet.
      If that’s the case, in consultation with my French and my Nato friends, I’ll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he has in mind.
      I’m prepared, if he’s willing to talk, to find out what he’s willing to do, but I’ll only do it in consultation with my Nato allies. I’m not going to do it on my own.Answering questions from the media, Joe Biden conceded there were “glitches” in clean energy provisions in the inflation reduction act that angered many in Europe, but said there were “tweaks we can make” to satisfy allies.Macron was among the European leaders who felt the $430bn US law would put European companies at a disadvantage.“The United States makes no apology, and I make no apologies since I wrote the legislation you’re talking about,” Biden told the reporter.“But there are occasions when you write a massive piece of legislation for the largest investment in climate change in all of history, there’s obviously going to be glitches in it, and a need to reconcile changes.”Macron has made clear that he and other European leaders are concerned about incentives in the law that favor American-made climate technology, including electric vehicles.Biden added: “There’s tweaks we can make that can fundamentally make it easier for European countries to participate… that is something to be worked out. It was never intended when I wrote the legislation to exclude folks who were cooperating with us.”Read more:The Guardian view on Biden’s ‘Buy America’ strategy: a wake-up call for Europe | EditorialRead moreIn his remarks, Emmanuel Macron spoke at length about the importance of supporting Ukraine, its military and people with financial support and other humanitarian aid, and praised the US commitment to that cause.He reiterated that it would be Ukraine’s decision when it was ready to pursue peace:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We always agreed to help Ukraine resist, never giving up on anything in the United Nations charter, to prevent any risk of escalation of this conflict, and make sure that when the time comes, on the basis of conditions to be set by Ukrainians themselves, help build peace.In an apparent dig at Donald Trump, and the former president’s decision – rescinded by Biden – to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, Macron praised Biden’s commitment to environmental issues..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The fact that you’re back, on major international challenges such as health and climate, it is really a new deal.
      We’ve been resisting for a number of years, and now we’re being able to engage with you. I would like to say how much has been achieved by both our countries.Macron said France and the US would be exploring ways to assist developing countries financially:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We want to promote solutions on climate change, but we also very acknowledge a number of initiatives in this respect. It is about finding a new financing means for the most fragile countries, emerging countries to support them on both development and climate change.Biden said he and Macron were also committed to “reaching our goal of ending the Aids epidemic by 2030”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We just have to make finishing this fight a top priority for not just the two of us, but for other nations as well. And that’s why I’m proud to take the baton from you President Macron, and host the global fund’s seventh replenishment conference this year.
      Building on France’s strong record of leadership, we raised $15.7bn with the US and France as the two largest contributors to the global fund. And it’s good to save millions, literally millions of lives.Biden said if he went on to list all the ways the US and France were in partnership, “we’d be here until dinnertime”, so he closed his prepared remarks with praise for a student exchange program with France, and told Macron the floor was his…Joe Biden praised France for taking in 100,000 Ukraine refugees, and commended efforts by Europe to move away from energy dependence on Russia.“I welcome the progress we’ve already made in many of these issues through the US-EU task force on energy security, and today we also committed to deepening cooperation between France and the United States on civil nuclear energy through our bilateral clean energy partnership,” Biden said.Other topics discussed, the US president said, included the Middle East, where Biden recognized Macron for helping to broker a maritime boundaries deal between Israel and Lebanon; human rights abuses; and efforts “to ensure that Iran does not, emphasize does not, ever acquire nuclear weapons”.He said the two countries were committed to working together for peace in the Middle East and Afghanistan:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Our partnership also extends to cooperating in outer space, coordinating defense of our space activities, to strengthening scientific efforts to monitor Earth’s changing climate.
      And we had a detailed discussion of inflation reduction. We did talk about [how] the US and and Europe share the goal of making bold investments in clean energy.Joe Biden says he’s working with French president Emmanuel Macron to hold Russia accountable for its aggression in Ukraine.Speaking at the White House following their summit this morning, Biden says the two leaders “talked a lot” about the war:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re continuing to strong support people in Ukraine as they defend their homes and their families, and their sovereignty and territorial integrity, against Russian aggression, which is incredibly brutal.
      We’re going to stand together against this brutality. And we’ll continue the strong support for the Ukrainian people as they defend their homes and their families, nurseries their hospitals, their sovereignty, their integrity, against Russian aggression.
      [Russian president Vladimir] Putin thinks that he can crush the will of all those oppose his imperial ambitions by attacking civilian infrastructures and Ukraine, choking off energy to Europe to drive up prices, exasperating food through the food crisis, that’s hurting very vulnerable people, not just in Ukraine but around the world.
      He’s not going to succeed. President Macron and I have resolved that we’re going to continue working together to hold Russia accountable for their actions and to mitigate the global impacts of Putin’s war.A joint press conference by Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron is under way at the White House following bilateral talks at the White House this morning.The US president says he and his French counterpart had “a great conversation”.“France is one of our strongest partners and most capable allies. We share the same values,” Biden says.He says the leaders “talked a lot” about the war in Ukraine. We’ll bring you their comments as they speak.The US economy would face a severe economic shock if senators don’t pass legislation this week to avert a freight rail workers’ strike, Democrats in the chamber are hearing today, according to the Associated Press.Senators held a closed-door session with Biden administration officials Thursday, following a House vote last night approving a deal to avert such a nationwide strike. They are being urged to quickly vote the deal through.But the Senate often works at a slower pace, and the timing of final votes on the measure is unclear.Labor secretary Marty Walsh and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg met the Democratic senators to underscore that rail companies will begin shuttering operations well before a potential strike begins on 9 December.“If there’s even the possibility of a shutdown, about five days in advance of that, the railroads would have to begin winding down their acceptance of things like hazardous material shipments that you can’t allow to get stranded,” Buttigieg said in a CNBC interview.“So my goal today speaking to the senators will be to make sure they understand the implications of a shutdown or even getting close to a shutdown,” he said. “It wouldn’t just bring down our rail system. It would really shut down our economy.”Railways say that halting rail service would cause a devastating $2bn-per-day hit to the economy. A freight rail strike also would have a big potential impact on passenger rail, with Amtrak and many commuter railroads relying on tracks owned by the freight railroads.The rail companies and 12 unions have been negotiating. The Biden administration helped broker deals between the railroads and union leaders in September, but four of the unions rejected the deals. Eight others approved five-year deals and are getting back pay for their workers for the 24% raises that are retroactive to 2020.On Monday, with the strike looming, Biden called on Congress to impose the tentative agreement reached in September. Read more:US House approves bill to block rail strike and mandate paid sick leaveRead moreWhile we wait for Biden and Macron to appear, here’s Hamilton Nolan on a domestic issue facing the US president: his move to stop a rail strike and how many in the union movement have been left feeling betrayed …It’s sad, really. Beleaguered US labor unions thought that they had finally found a true friend. In Joe Biden, they had a man who was the most pro-union president in my lifetime – a low bar to clear, but something. Yet this week we found out that when the fight got difficult, Biden had the same thing to say to working people that his Democratic predecessors have said for decades: “You’ll never get anything you want if I don’t win; but once I win, I can’t do the things you need, because then I wouldn’t be able to win again.”At the same time that thousands of union members are fanned out across the state of Georgia knocking on doors to get Raphael Warnock elected and solidify Democratic control of the Senate – to save the working class, of course! – Biden decided to sell out workers in the single biggest labor battle of his administration. Rather than allowing the nation’s railroad workers to exercise their right to strike, he used his power to intervene and force them to accept a deal that a majority of those workers found to be unacceptable.His ability to do this rests on the vagaries of the Railway Labor Act, but all you really need to understand is this: nobody forced him to side with the railroad companies over the workers. That was a choice. The White House just weighed the political damage it anticipated from Republicans screaming about a Christmas-season rail strike against the fact that railroad workers have inhuman working conditions and would need to go on strike to change that, and chose the easier political route. This was a “Which side are you on?” moment, and Biden made his position clear.Read on:Biden just knifed labor unions in the back. They shouldn’t forget it | Hamilton NolanRead more More

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      Biden administration ‘dragged feet’ on Mohammed bin Salman immunity ruling

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      Biden administration ‘dragged feet’ on Mohammed bin Salman immunity rulingLegal experts raise questions about run-up to granting immunity in civil case involving murder of journalist When the Biden administration filed a legal brief last week calling for the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case involving the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it said it was strictly a legal determination that did not reflect its views on the “heinous” killing.“In every case, we simply follow the law. And that’s what we did,” Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, later said.But a close examination of the Biden administration’s actions, including interviews with legal experts and people who closely followed the matter, suggest the controversial decision was anything but straightforward.Beginning last summer, the administration’s decision to delay action and seek months of legal extensions before submitting its views on the matter before a US judge offered Saudi Arabia an unprecedented opportunity to protect Prince Mohammed through a legal manoeuvre that put him above the law and out of the reach of the US legal system. Once this had happened, the Biden administration in effect said its hands were tied.“If you look at the sequence of events, it is hard not to see this was a battle between Biden and Mohammed bin Salman playing out,” said one close observer, who asked not to be named so they could speak candidly. “I would hate to imagine that there was bartering over our judicial system and that integrity was up for grabs.”The US government was first invited to get involved in the civil case against Prince Mohammed on 1 July by the US district court judge John Bates. At the centre of the request was a lawsuit filed in 2020 against the crown prince and his associates by Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, which accused Prince Mohammed and his associates of conspiring with premeditation to kidnap, torture and murder Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.Bates’s request was straightforward. He gave the administration 30 days – until 1 August – to submit a “statement of interest” and weigh in on whether the heir to the Saudi throne ought to be granted sovereign immunity in the case, or tell the court that it did not wish to make a statement. He also wanted the administration to weigh in on how the court might reconcile protections that are given to foreign leaders and those who are using a US law that allows victims of torture or extrajudicial killings to hold perpetrators accountable.At that time, Prince Mohammed was – clearly – not a sovereign. In Saudi Arabia, that distinction belonged at the time solely to his father, King Salman.Harold Koh, a former legal adviser to the state department during the Obama administration who is now a professor of international law at Yale Law School, said the US had competing interests at the time. On the one hand, the US asserts reciprocal principles of immunity so that its own head of state will be offered protection from legal courts. But that had to be weighed against Biden’s statements about human rights being at the centre of his administration’s foreign policy and “autocrats understanding that the president means what he says”.“All things considered, silence would have been the better way to balance those competing national interests,” Koh said, adding that there would have been “ample precedent” for the state department to stay silent.On 15 July, Joe Biden met Prince Mohammed in Jeddah, a meeting that started with a fist bump and was meant to “reset” his relationship with a leader he once called a pariah. It would later emerge that the meeting was also the start of a campaign by the administration to try to persuade the Saudis not to cut oil production before the US midterm elections.Back in Washington, just a few days later on 18 July, the US asked Judge Bates for an extension, saying it needed time to consult multiple entities within the administration with respect to “complex issues of international and domestic law”. The court agreed, giving the US until 3 October to respond.Weeks later, on 23 September, Brett McGurk, a Middle East policy coordinator for the US National Security Council (NSC), and Amos Hochstein, a US senior adviser for energy security, visited Jeddah again, ostensibly to discuss energy policies.Days later, on 27 September, the Saudi royal court announced that Prince Mohammed had been named prime minister, a role that had been and usually is held by the Saudi king. Observers noted that the apparent promotion did not confer any major new duties or powers to Mohammed bin Salman. Human rights defenders saw it as a ploy to influence the US recommendation on sovereign immunity, which was due about a week later.The US government, citing “changed circumstances”, requested a second extension to prepare its response and was granted one, until 17 November. A few days after it missed its 3 October deadline, Opec+ announced it was cutting oil production by 2m barrels a day, in what was seen by Democrats as an attempt by the kingdom to interfere with the US election and side with Russia over US interests.Biden promised that Saudi Arabia would face “consequences” for the decision, but has not articulated any specific actions he planned to take against the kingdom. On 17 November, just hours before a midnight deadline, the administration filed a notice that it believed Prince Mohammed, as prime minister, deserved to be treated as a sovereign as a standard matter of international law.An NSC spokesperson told the Guardian that the US president was briefed on the immunity decision, which was based on “well-established principles of common law”.When the Guardian asked the spokesperson if any US official ever suggested to Saudi Arabia that Prince Mohammed could be appointed prime minister before the matter was public, the spokesperson said: “This was an independent decision made by Saudi Arabia.”People familiar with the matter say legal questions about Prince Mohammed’s status were hotly debated inside the state department, where views about the best course of action differed.In debates within the administration, senior officials such as McGurk who have sought to promote the rehabilitation of the Saudi-US relationship have edged out policy objectives focused on human rights.“This administration made the decision it did because Mohammed bin Salman is prime minister. But they dragged their feet so much … This was clearly a policy decision in that they waited and stalled,” said one person who has advocated for human rights to have more prominence in decisions around policy.Leaders like Prince Mohammed were “legitimately worried” when Biden first came into office and vowed to make the Saudi heir accountable for human rights violations.“And when they got into office, the execution was not there,” the person said. Even when Biden made the decision to release a declassified intelligence report that found Prince Mohammed had likely ordered the murder, there were no sanctions against him.The person added: “That set the stage and indicated the rhetoric was not matched by substance.”TopicsMohammed bin SalmanSaudi ArabiaBiden administrationUS foreign policyUS politicsMiddle East and north AfricanewsReuse this content More

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      Progressive Democrats retract Biden Ukraine letter after furious debate

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      Progressive Democrats retract Biden Ukraine letter after furious debateDramatic U-turn from progressive caucus, withdrawing letter sent to US president urging talks to end war in Ukraine The chair of the progressive caucus of the US House of Representatives, Pramila Jayapal, has retracted a letter sent by 30 of the members urging Joe Biden to engage in direct talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine following a heated debate within the Democratic party about future strategy over the conflict.We need direct talks with Russia and a negotiated settlement | Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Barbara Lee, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and othersRead moreIn a statement issued on Tuesday afternoon, Jayapal made a dramatic U-turn, scrapping the letter that had been sent to the White House the previous day and implying it had all been a mistake. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting,” she said.Jayapal went on to regret what she said was conflation of the progressive Democratic call for a diplomatic end to the Ukraine war with a recent statement by the Republican leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, which threatened an end to aid for the stricken country should the Republican party take back the House in next month’s midterm elections.Jayapal said: “The letter sent yesterday has been conflated with GOP opposition to support for the Ukrainians’ just defense of their national sovereignty. As such, it is a distraction at this time and we withdraw the letter.”Jayapal’s retraction is the latest twist in a strange 24 hours of Democratic politics, which has seen the progressive caucus apparently lend its name to a call for direct talks with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, followed by a fierce backlash and then staged walking back of the position.In the original letter, sent to the White House on Monday and first reported by the Washington Post, the progressive Democrats called on Biden to make “vigorous diplomatic efforts” towards a “negotiated settlement and ceasefire”. They highlighted the global hunger and poverty that could ensue from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine as well as “elevated gas and food prices at home”, concluding that America’s top priority should be to seek “a rapid end to the conflict”.Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the letter was the proposal that Biden should explore “incentives to end hostilities, including some form of sanctions relief” for Russia.The letter provoked fierce pushback from several Democratic lawmakers – including one of its own signatories – and elicited a frosty White House response. It was interpreted as the first sign of friction over Ukraine within the Democratic party, which has until now stood firm behind Biden’s unconditional backing of Kyiv in its battle to defend and retrieve its sovereign territory from Moscow.The timing of the correspondence was also criticised, coming at a crucial stage in the war and just a week after Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, said that Congress was “not going to write a blank check to Ukraine”.The blowback from Democrats was so intense that within hours of the letter being dispatched, Jayapal was forced to issue a “clarification”.“Let me be clear: we are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion, and nothing in the letter advocates for a change in that support,” she said.The original letter was signed by several of the most prominent leftwing Democrats in the House, including the so-called “Squad” of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, was also among the 30.The White House responded by repeating Biden’s central approach – that Ukraine will decide for itself when and how to negotiate with Russia. The press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, reiterated that there would be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”.Individual Democratic lawmakers were more pointed in their reaction – including signatories. Mark Pocan, a congressman from Wisconsin who signed the letter, said it had first been drafted in July and indicated that he had been caught off guard by its publication.“I have no idea why it went out now. Bad timing,” he said.A second signatory, Mark Takano of California, put out a statement after the letter was revealed saying he remained “steadfast in support of the Ukrainian people”.Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a member of the progressive caucus who declined to sign the letter, posted an acerbic response on Twitter. He wrote: “The way to end a war? Win it quickly. How is it won quickly? By giving Ukraine the weapons to defeat Russia.”The sharpest comment from any Democrat came from the former marine and representative from Massachusetts, Jake Auchincloss. He condemned the letter as “an olive branch to a war criminal who’s losing his war. Ukraine is on the march. Congress should be standing firmly behind [Biden’s] effective strategy, including tighter – not weaker! – sanctions.”After the initial eruption of criticism, some of the progressive signatories defended their action. Ro Khanna of California, who pointed out that he had voted for each of the aid packages to Ukraine, said: “Our nation should never silence or shout down debate.”House Republicans divided over aid to Ukraine ahead of midtermsRead moreCongress has so far approved about $66bn for Ukraine since the Russian invasion began in February, including military, humanitarian and economic help. With Ukraine stepping up its advance on Russian positions as a potentially punishing winter approaching, and with the US midterm elections looming on 8 November, the progressives’ letter could not have landed at a more sensitive time.Russia specialists warned that the intervention could embolden Putin and loosen US commitment to lead the international coalition in support of Ukraine. Yoshiko Herrera, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “The biggest problem in the letter is that it may weaken US support for Ukraine by fostering the appearance of divisions among those who support Ukraine.”Cracks, albeit fine ones, are already clearly visible on the Republican side. The largest aid package for Ukraine, amounting to $40bn, was passed in May with 57 Republicans in the House and 11 in the Senate voting against.Supporters of the letter said that it reflected a desire to end the war through diplomacy – an aspiration which Biden himself has championed. He was explicit about that goal in a speech he made in Delaware in June.Biden said: “It appears to me that, at some point along the line, there’s going to have to be a negotiated settlement here. And what that entails, I don’t know.”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsRussiaUkraineJoe BidenUS foreign policyVladimir PutinnewsReuse this content More