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      in Elections

      Talk of Escape: Trump’s Possible Return Rattles D.C.

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      At Washington dinner parties, dark jokes abound about where to go into exile if the former president reclaims the White House.It has become the topic of the season at Washington dinner parties and receptions. Where would you go if it really happens?Portugal, says a former member of Congress. Australia, says a former agency director. Canada, says a Biden administration official. France, says a liberal columnist. Poland, says a former investigator.They’re joking. Sort of. At least in most cases. It’s a gallows humor with a dark edge. Much of official Washington is bracing for the possibility that former President Donald J. Trump really could return — this time with “retribution” as his avowed mission, the discussion is where people might go into a sort of self-imposed exile.Whether they mean it or not, the buzz is a telling indicator of the grim mood among many in the nation’s capital these days. The “what if” goes beyond the normal prospect of a side unhappy about a lost election. It speaks to the nervousness about a would-be president who talks of being a dictator for a day, who vows to “root out” enemies he called “vermin,” who threatens to prosecute adversaries, who suggests a general he deems disloyal deserves “DEATH,” whose lawyers say he may have immunity even if he orders the assassination of political rivals.“I feel like in the past two weeks that conversation for whatever reason has just surged,” said Miles Taylor, a former Trump administration official who became a vocal critic of the former president. “People are feeling that it’s very obvious if a second Trump terms happens, it’s going to be slash and burn.”That’s all fine with Mr. Trump and his allies. In their view, Washington’s fear is the point. He is the disrupter of the elite. He is coming to break up their corrupt “uniparty” hold on power. If establishment Washington is upset about the possibility that he returns, that is a selling point to his base around the country that is alienated from the people in power.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      US House votes to pass antisemitism bill in response to campus protests

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      The US House of Representatives has voted to pass an antisemitism awareness bill, a controversial measure sponsored by a New York Republican amid controversy over pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses in Manhattan and across the US, as Israel’s war with Hamas drags on.The bill passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support.Mike Lawler’s bill will “provide for the consideration of a definition of antisemitism set forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for the enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws concerning education programs or activities, and for other purposes”.Democrats opposed it as a messaging bill meant simply to boost Republicans on a hot-button issue and trap Democrats into taking politically awkward votes.The American Civil Liberties Union opposed the bill, telling members: “Federal law already prohibits antisemitic discrimination and harassment by federally funded entities.“[The bill] is therefore not needed to protect against antisemitic discrimination; instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.”The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), which “works to ensure a just, secure and peaceful future for Palestinians and Israelis”, has defined the shifting meaning of “antisemitism” in US political discourse.“Traditionally,” the FMEP says, “‘antisemitism’ has meant hostility and prejudice toward Jews because they are Jews – a scourge that has imperiled Jews throughout history, and is a source of resurgent threats to Jews today.“In recent years there has been an energetic effort to redefine the term to mean something else. This new definition – known today as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s ‘working definition of antisemitism’, is explicitly politicised, refocusing the term to encompass not only hatred of Jews, but also hostility toward and criticism of the modern state of Israel.”In the House on Tuesday morning, the Illinois Republican Mary E Miller acted as speaker pro tempore to oversee debate on the Republican antisemitism awareness bill.As a choice, it was not without irony. Miller made headlines in 2021, when as a newly elected member of Congress she was forced to apologise after saying in a speech at the Capitol: “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’ Our children are being propagandised.”Representatives for Miller did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.Introducing the bill with Lawler sitting beside her, Michelle Fischbach, a Minnesota Republican, said: “Jewish college students have faced increasing antisemitism. And since 7 October there has been an over 300% increase in incidents on campuses.”More than 1,100 people were killed on 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israel. More than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the subsequent Israeli offensive.Fischbach continued: “Students are supposed to be protected from harassment. But it has been made abundantly clear that the leaders of these institutions are not going to do anything to stop it. Instead, they are allowing large-scale harassment to reign, forcing Jewish students to stay home. Since these institutions refuse to protect their students, it is time for Congress to take action.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTeresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from New Mexico, spoke in answer to Fischbach. She quoted Thomas Massie, a rightwing Republican from Kentucky, as saying the bill was “a political trap … designed to split the Democrat [sic] party and get them stuck” on an issue over which the party is divided.Leger Fernandez also said a different bill should be considered, to “designate a senior official at the [US] Department of Education to combat antisemitism on college campuses”.In his own remarks, Lawler listed alleged outrages on college campuses and said: “We must give the Department of Education the tools to identify and prosecute any antisemitic hate crimes committed and hold college administrators accountable for refusing to address antisemitism on their campuses.”Democrats, he said, were “tripping over themselves because of electoral politics” in states with large Muslim populations which traditionally vote Democratic.Debate then descended into back-and-forth over whether the bill was necessary to defend Jewish students, as Republicans claimed, or an illegitimate attack on free speech, however abhorrent that speech might be, as some Democrats said.In closing, Leger Fernandez said: “We need to remind everybody we all condemn 7 October. We all have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation.“We have taken up these resolutions over and over again. And once again, our Republican colleague [Massie] has spoken the truth when he has said that these are sticky resolutions simply intended to divide the Democrats.“Let’s not work on division. Let’s come together in love, and in belief, and [use] our individual strength to push back against the hatred that we see, and to do it in a manner that is not partisan.” More

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      White House correspondents’ dinner weekend: top five parties, by food

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      The annual White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington is ostensibly about the dinner poking fun at the president. But like the Oscars, or the Met Gala, it’s also about the parties.But how to decide which parties to attend and which ones to skip? Every day of the White House correspondents’ dinner weekend is now inundated with competing events.The conversations and the people, for the most part, are fun, until it inevitably gets boring. And then the most interesting thing about the parties becomes the food.Like stock tips, past performance is not an indicator of future performance. But it could be – so here are the Guardian’s top five parties of 2024, in terms of food:1. Politico Sunday brunch (Sunday 28 April)The party: Hosted at the Allbritton residence in Georgetown by Politico and the Allbritton Journalism Institute. Essentially the detox brunch the morning after the White House correspondents’ dinner. This year was Swiss-themed with a large wooden-frame pavilion in the huge back garden, with various food stations dotted around the perimeter. Heidi would have felt at home, walking past two Alphorn players in the front, a toy cable car contraption against a giant wall with a painting of the Matterhorn behind the bar, and flags of various Swiss cantons on each pillar. But it was very warm, and the two St Bernard dogs wearing Politico-branded scarves seemed to be slightly overheating.The food: Towards the side there was a pastry station, absolutely stacked with viennoiserie. Your reviewer sampled the marmalade buns, which were fluffy on the top and firm in the middle, on which the jam sat. Seemed to be freshly baked. Perfect breakfast food. Your reviewer also sampled the relatively mini-waffles, adding the optional caviar and smoked salmon toppings. After the pastries, that triple-decker was divine: the sweetness of the waffle, balanced by the savory caviar and salmon. Pretty much a perfect pairing. There was also a coffee station, raclette station and a Läderach chocolate station that were all sampled but not reviewed.Score: Marmalade buns scored 9/10. Mini-waffles scored 9/10 (a highlight of the weekend). Total: 18/202. Semafor house party (Friday 26 April)The party: Hosted at the Kalorama home of the Semafor co-founder Justin Smith. In addition to the ground-floor spaces in the house and the patio, Semafor constructed a platform next to the mini-pool with a bar area, complete with a step-and-repeat wall with obligatory Semafor logos. Semafor’s DC parties have always been well executed and well catered. On this occasion, two chefs slaved away in Smith’s objectively beautiful kitchen, laying out the food on the kitchen island. Smith’s house also just works as a venue because it is large enough that it could probably fit a hundred people comfortably but also breezily intimate. It all added up to an easy ambience that made the party, well, pleasant. The food: Your reviewer first tried the jerk pork skewers with a sweet mustard dip sauce on the side. The pork was charred on the outside – having just been fired on the grill – and perfectly soft on the inside. It was slightly spicy but it was balanced out if dipped in the sauce. Your reviewer also sampled one of the Bajan ham and cheese sandwiches. These were small finger-food sandwiches with puffy slider buns for the bread. The honey topped off the Bajan-pepper mustard layered between the ham and white cheddar. Score: Pork skewers were 8/10 (spicier than advertised). Finger sandwiches were 8/10 (could have been more imaginative). Total: 16/203. Politico-British embassy reception (Thursday 25 April)The party: Hosted at the British ambassador’s residence, by the British ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce, and the Politico CEO, Goli Sheikholeslami. One of the busier and consequently noisier events of the weekend. The reception was on-brand: British foods, British drinks and, for the first time, free cigars. Winston Churchill would have approved of the cigars and, presumably, the deputy head of mission, James Roscoe, gliding through the hundreds of people there with the most elegant sherry glass. Politico got its branding on the cocktail napkins and projected a big logo on to the side of the redbrick building.The food: Your reviewer was on the hunt for dinner-esque foods seeing as the reception started at about 7pm – and found the half-sized fish and chips station in the main hall with the columns. Your reviewer has tried many fish and chips over the years. These were some of the best your reviewer has tried, even if they were slightly over-salted. Each fish was about the size of a hand, and came in little baskets that also contained a handful of fries. Your reviewer also sampled the sliders in the next room over, which were not quite as great as the fish and chips. The beef was slightly overcooked and the buns were slightly firm.Score: Fish and chips scored 8/10 (pretty salty). Sliders were 7/10 (could have been better). Total: 15/20.4. NBC-French ambassador’s residence after party (Saturday, 27 April)The party: Hosted at the residence of the French ambassador, Laurent Bili, by NBC Universal. In the way that the British embassy does quintessentially British food, the French embassy naturally does very French foods. After parties can be hard to cater because guests have already eaten at the White House correspondents’ dinner. Mainly offering desserts in literal bite-size portions, carried around on white platters by servers in white jackets was a smart move and appropriately elegant for the grandeur of the residence. The gothic-exterior house, protected by heavy security from NBC, opens up inside to several interconnected rooms and a large back garden space covered by a marquee. The dimly lit, wood-panelled rooms are decorated with 18th-century oil portraits, presumably of French aristocrats, which gave the space a cosy European atmosphere when guests got tired of the brightly lit rooms off to the side with either a Paris 2024 Olympics theme or a Saturday Night Live theme.The food: Your reviewer first sampled what appeared to be red-wine flambéed pear tarts. The tarts were literally bite-size, they fit into your palm. It was unclear whether they were actually flambéed, but the tarts were warm and it tasted like lightly burned sugar on the top. The tiny pieces of pear, though, were oversaturated with wine. Swallowing more than a few and your reviewer would have failed a field sobriety test. It was slightly too strong. Your reviewer next tried the bite-size chocolate eclairs. The choux pastry was firm and the filling was well executed. Those were good desserts.Score: Pear tarts scored 6/10 (swimming in wine was a bit much). Chocolate eclairs scored 8/10 (nothing special but well done). Total: 14/205. AAJA Saturday brunch (Saturday, 27 April)The party: The Asian American Journalists’ Association hosts a brunch on the Saturday, which this year was held on the roof of the Hall of the States building where NBC, MSNBC, C-Span and Fox News have their studios. It’s the sleeper brunch of the weekend that starts a couple of hours after Tammy Haddad’s much more well-known garden brunch over at Beall-Washington House gets going. AAJA’s mission is championing Asian American and minority figures in Washington political reporting, but the speeches can take a long time – after which your reviewer was hungry. Fortunately, AAJA always seems to find remarkably creative and appropriately Asian caterers.The food: On a rooftop with no formal cooking facilities, AAJA’s caterers magicked up dumplings with either a vegetable filling, a garlic shrimp filling, or a pork and kimchi filling. Your reviewer sampled the garlic shrimp, which was crispy in all the right places and soft on the underside. The garlic was more of an undertone and yet, it was sufficient enough to balance out the saltiness of shrimp. (Shrimp and garlic butter of course is a classic pairing.) As far as savory breakfasts foods go, it was delicious. Your reviewer also tried the cold glass noodles, which were fine but bland. The noodle plate was disappointing.Score: Shrimp dumplings scored 8/10. Glass noodles were a 5/10 (could have been missed). Total: 13/20.
      The rules were as follows: two food options were chosen at random at each party, and given a score out of 10 based on taste and execution. The parties reviewed were cocktail parties only; sit-down dinners were not included. Where the primary reviewer could not attend, a secondary reviewer sent notes. The final list was submitted to a three-judge “appeals panel” made up of longtime MSNBC contributors, though the ranking could only be overturned in the event of plain error by the reviewer. The rankings were not overturned.

      Events not reviewed: Washington Women in Journalism awards ceremony, White House Foreign Press-Meridien party, WME-Puck party, Washingtonian/embassy of Qatar soiree, Politics and Inclusion dinner, Washington AI Network-TGI Friday lunch, Substack New Media party. More

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      in Elections

      Esther Coopersmith, Washington Hostess and Diplomat, Dies at 94

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      A place at her dinner tables, which sat 75, provided access to networks of money, influence and power across cultural and political divides.At a private fund-raising reception last year, the president of the United States introduced himself this way: “My name is Joe Biden. I’m a friend of Esther Coopersmith’s.”Mrs. Coopersmith’s name has been a calling card in Washington for seven decades. As one of the longest-reigning hostesses, best-connected diplomats and top fund-raisers in the nation’s capital, she greased the machinery that helped keep political, diplomatic and journalistic circles spinning; a place at her dinner tables, which sat 75, (with room for many more elsewhere and outside) provided access to networks of money, influence and power across cultural and political divides.Among her many matches, she introduced Bill Clinton, who was then the governor of Arkansas, to Boris Yeltsin on a trip to Moscow. She introduced Jehan Sadat, the wife of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, to Aliza Begin, the wife of Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel, before the Camp David peace accords. Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the longtime Soviet ambassador to the United States, had his first Thanksgiving at her table.“People need a place out of the public spotlight to meet and talk,” she told The New York Times in 1987.Mrs. Coopersmith, who had multiple affiliations with the United Nations but who also reveled in her role as a freelancing citizen diplomat, died on Tuesday at her home in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington. She was 94.The cause was cancer, said Janet Pitt, her longtime chief of staff. Rather than seek treatment that might have only postponed the inevitable and made her miserable, Ms. Pitt said, Mrs. Coopersmith “wanted to live her life.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Lincoln had something to say’: historians ponder lessons for the age of Trump

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      Asked what Abraham Lincoln might have to say to Americans in 2024, an election year in a country as divided as at any time since the civil war Lincoln won, the NPR host Steve Inskeep said the 16th president would advise that a big part of “building a political majority is making alliances with people you believe to be wrong”.“One of the things that drew me to the topic of Lincoln was the present and the dilemmas and difficulties of democracy right now,” Inskeep said on Saturday, appearing in connection with his book Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America, at the 27th Annual Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC.“I did feel like Lincoln had something to say,” Inskeep said, “and I’ve tried to express it. And it has to do with dealing with differences in a fractured society. And it has to do with building a political majority, which is a skill that I think some of us perhaps have forgotten, or we’re being told to forget.“And part of building a political majority is making alliances with people you believe to be wrong. And hopefully you don’t believe they’re wrong on everything. But maybe out of 10 things, you think they’re very wrong about three things and can find some way to agree on some of the other seven and move forward and at least agree fundamentally on the idea that we have a constitution, we have a republic, we have a democracy. We have a system to mediate our differences. We have institutions and we should uphold them.”The 46th president, Joe Biden, has made Donald Trump’s threat to that constitution, republic and democracy a central plank of his re-election campaign.Trump, the 45th president, refused to admit defeat in 2020, inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress in an attempt to stop certification of that election. Despite that – and while facing 88 criminal charges, multimillion-dollar civil penalties and attempts to keep him off the ballot by constitutional means – he stormed to a third successive presidential nomination by the party that still calls itself the party of Lincoln.Three weeks short of the 159th anniversary of Lincoln’s death – he was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s on 14 April 1865, Good Friday, and died the following morning – Inskeep and other historians gathered in the very same theatre. James Swanson, author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, now the basis for an Apple TV drama, was among those in the stalls.The event took place at the end of another tumultuous week in US politics, in which Trump railed against Democrats while struggling to pay a $454m bond in his New York civil fraud case; sought to have federal criminal charges over his election subversion dismissed; was accused by the White House of employing “unhinged antisemitic rhetoric”; called for the jailing of Liz Cheney, a conservative opponent; and stoked huge debate over what he meant when he predicted a “bloodbath” if Biden beat him again.View image in fullscreenAppealing to the better angels of Americans on both sides of the partisan divide, Inskeep said Lincoln’s example, including his magnanimous approach to defeated Confederates after the civil war, might help voters decide not “to simply denounce, isolate or ostracise those we believe to be wrong.“It is an approach to political difference that I think is a little bit out of fashion now, but it is fundamentally what Lincoln did. It is fundamentally the reason we decided the civil war” and thereby ended slavery.Lincoln “understood that the north had the population, they had the economy, they had the advantages that become real in wartime, that eventually come to tell on the battlefield. And Lincoln had to keep enough people unified to have that political majority, and in order to have that majority win.“It’s a central message and matter for our time.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlso appearing were Callie Hawkins, chief executive of President Lincoln’s Cottage, a national monument in Washington; Gordon Leidner, author of Abraham Lincoln and the Bible; George Rable, author of Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War; and Michael Zuckert, author of A Nation So Conceived: Abraham Lincoln and the Paradox of Democratic Sovereignty.As moderator, Lucas Morel, professor of politics at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, returned to a persistent theme of audience questions: how can Americans use Lincoln’s example today.Inskeep said: “Lincoln … understood that people would act in their self-interest but tried to harness that into something larger. And part of recognising that people have self-interest lay in trying to work out who that person was, which I feel is another thing we’re discouraged from doing.“We’re encouraged to speak our truth, which is great, because there’s lots of truths, lots of experiences that were suppressed and ignored and less so now. But the next step is to put yourself in the shoes of the other person, to understand where they’re coming from. And an additional step for a politician, of course, is to appeal to them.”Rable, meanwhile, said voters could learn from viewing Lincoln not as some perfect figure from the past, but as a politician and leader with faults like any other.“Here you have a full-bodied human being” Rable said. “He has strengths, he has weaknesses. And I think [we should] look at leaders that way, rather than saying, ‘OK, this leader does this, I’m just going to dismiss him,’ or, ‘I’m going to believe everything that this leader says’.” More

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      in Elections

      Some of Washington’s Iconic Cherry Trees Are About to Disappear

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      The National Park Service plans to chop down 140 of the trees as it builds a new sea wall to protect the area around the Jefferson Memorial.Around 140 cherry trees that form part of Washington’s iconic spring attraction will be chopped down this year to make way for the construction of new, taller sea walls to protect the area around the Jefferson Memorial.The National Park Service, which is overseeing the project, said on Wednesday that it had tried to minimize the loss of the trees, which erupt each year in a burst of pink and white splendor that draws more than 1.5 million visitors. But the age of the existing barriers, rising sea levels and poor drainage forced its hand.The current sea walls have sunk as much as five feet since their construction in the late 1800s and are no longer an effective bulwark against tidal waves and storm surges. Tides submerge parts of the walls twice a day, the Park Service said.“Despite various repairs over the decades, the sea walls are no longer structurally sound and threaten visitor safety and the historic setting, including the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin,” the Park Service said in a statement.The sea walls at the Tidal Basin have sunk as much as five feet.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesBlossom lovers still have one chance to experience the blooms in their full glory. Construction will not start until late May, after the conclusion of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which runs from late March to mid-April.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      State of the Union address 2024: Donald Trump labels Joe Biden’s speech ‘angry, polarizing and hate-filled’ – US politics live

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      Former President Donald Trump, during Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, sent a steady stream of messages blasting Biden on Truth Social.“He looks so angry when hes talking, which is a trait of people who know they are ‘losing it,’” Trump wrote. “The anger and shouting is not helpful to bringing our Country back together!”He added: “This was an angry, polarizing, and hate-filled Speech. He barely mentioned Immigration, or the Worst Border in the History of the World.“He will never fix Immigration, nor does he want to. He wants our Country to be flooded with Migrants. Crime will raise to levels never seen before, and it is happening very quickly!”Would it be a withered old man or a human dynamo? Would it be a rambling, gaffe-prone politician or an inspiring leader touched with fire? Would it be Geriatric Joe or Dark Brandon?Within the first few minutes of Thursday’s State of the Union address in Washington, millions of Americans had their answer. Joe Biden, 81, had brought the fight. But will it be enough?Read our US Politics Sketch here:U.S. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, who delivered Republicans’ formal response to Biden, attacked him over immigration and the economy.The true, unvarnished State of our Union begins and ends with this: Our families are hurting. Our country can do better, she said.At 42, Britt is the youngest Republican woman ever to serve in the Senate and she attacked Biden over his age, telling viewers: “What we saw was the performance of a permanent politician who has actually been in office for longer than I’ve been alive.”The first-term Alabama senator was speaking on the heels of her state’s supreme court ruling that frozen embryos are ‘children’.Former President Donald Trump, during Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, sent a steady stream of messages blasting Biden on Truth Social.“He looks so angry when hes talking, which is a trait of people who know they are ‘losing it,’” Trump wrote. “The anger and shouting is not helpful to bringing our Country back together!”He added: “This was an angry, polarizing, and hate-filled Speech. He barely mentioned Immigration, or the Worst Border in the History of the World.“He will never fix Immigration, nor does he want to. He wants our Country to be flooded with Migrants. Crime will raise to levels never seen before, and it is happening very quickly!”As he spoke, the president was heckled by far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She demanded he say the name of Laken Riley, who is suspected to have been killed by an undocumented migrant.Biden, who usually wants nothing to do with Greene, took her up on the offer. Biden acknowledged Riley – and then, in a reference to efforts to reduce gun violence, referred to greater numbers of people killed in incidents unrelated to migrants in the country.President Joe Biden accused Donald Trump of trying to “bury the truth about January 6” in a fiery State of the Union speech.The Democrat leader accused Trump and Republicans of trying to rewrite history about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by the former president’s supporters seeking to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory.“My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6. I will not do that,” Biden said, a signal that he will emphasize the issue during his re-election campaign. “You can’t love your country only when you win.”Here are other key moments from Biden’s speech:
      He opened by declaring democracy under threat at home and abroad and criticizing Trump, who he did not mention by name, for inviting Putin to invade NATO nations if they did not spend more on defense.
      The president said efforts to restrict abortion were an “assault on freedom”, and he derided the supreme court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade, with members of that court seated just feet away.
      Biden knocked Republicans for seeking to roll back healthcare provisions under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and driving up deficits, and jibed them for taking money from legislation they had opposed.
      He proposed new measures to lower housing costs, including a $10,000 (£7,807) tax credit for first-time homebuyers while boasting of U.S economic progress under his tenure.
      In a nod to Republican attacks over his age, Biden mentioned he was born during the second world war, but defended his vision for the country as fresh. “You can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.”
      Good morning, I will be bringing you all the most important US politics news as it happens today. More

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      Joe Biden delivers feisty State of the Union address with vision for his second term

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      Joe Biden confirmed a new US mission to deliver aid to Gaza and repeatedly took aim at Donald Trump in his State of the Union address on Thursday, offering a pointed preview of the general election in November.Biden’s most significant announcement came toward the end of his roughly hour-long speech, when he confirmed that the US military would establish a “temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza” capable of receiving large shipments of water, food and medicine. Biden pledged the mission will not involve deploying American troops on the ground and would facilitate a significant infusion of supplies into Gaza.While reiterating his belief in Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, Biden condemned the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.“To Israel, I say this: humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be priority,” Biden said. “As we look to the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time.”The overall tone of Biden’s speech, which marked his last State of the Union address before November, was strikingly combative, while hopeful. Biden repeatedly invoked Trump by derisively referring to “my predecessor” as he criticized the former president’s views on everything from foreign policy to immigration reform.Opening his remarks with a robust defense of US allies abroad, Biden called on Congress to approve more funding for Ukraine amid its war against Russia and condemned Trump’s recent comments about Nato.Biden compared this moment to 1941, when the US stood on the precipice of entering the second world war, and he repeatedly reminded Americans that “history is watching” how the nation will react to the crises unfolding around the world. As he reflected on the deadly violence seen at the Capitol on January 6, Biden warned that democracy faces a fundamental threat.“Not since President Lincoln and the civil war have our freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today,” Biden said. “What makes our moment rare is freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time.”Biden then accused Trump of “bowing down” to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, after the former president said he would allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato nations that fail to make sufficient financial contributions to the alliance.“It’s dangerous and it’s unacceptable,” Biden said. “My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple. We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.”Republican members of Congress, who were seated in the House chamber as Biden delivered his remarks, occasionally lashed out against the criticism of Trump. Early in his speech, Biden said: “My predecessor failed the most basic presidential duty that he owes to the American people: the duty to care. I think that’s unforgivable.”One unidentified member of Congress responded to the remark by yelling: “Lies!”Biden later directly engaged with Republican members on the issue of immigration, attacking them over blocking the bipartisan border and national security deal that stalled in the Senate last month. As Biden blamed Trump for impeding the bill’s passage by instructing members to oppose it, Republicans began yelling at him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a tense moment, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right Republican of Georgia, implored Biden to say the name of Laken Riley, a Georgia college student who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant.Greene had handed Biden a button bearing Riley’s name as he walked into the chamber, and the president held the button up as he said her name, although he appeared to mispronounce her first name. Biden then expressed his condolences to Riley’s parents and emphasized the need to “change the dynamic at the border”, saying: “I would respectfully suggest my Republican friends owe it to the American people [to] get this bill done. We need to act now.”Even as he clashed with Republicans, Biden made a point to paint a vision of his potential second term. He noted that one of first lady Jill Biden’s guests at the State of the Union address was Kate Cox, a Texas woman who was forced to flee her home state after courts rejected her pleas to access abortion care.“If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you: I will restore Roe v Wade as the law of the land again,” Biden said to loud applause from Democratic lawmakers in the chamber.Biden went on to outline other campaign promises – including protecting social security and Medicare, banning assault weapons and capping the cost of prescription drugs. Faced with an underwater approval rating and widespread concerns over his age of 81, Biden did not waste the opportunity to contrast his vision for the country with that of Trump.“I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while,” Biden said, prompting laughter from the audience. “My fellow Americans – the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old are our ideas? Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done. Tonight you’ve heard mine.”As America braces for a long general election season that is expected to be bitterly fought and closely contested, Biden has eight months to sell voters on that vision. More