Joe Biden
US nears new cooperation deals with Pacific Island nations
The Biden administration is nearing deals with two Pacific Island nations to extend ties that are considered critical to maintaining balance in the U.S.-China rivalry for influence in a region where the Chinese are rapidly expanding their economic, diplomatic and military clout.
This week, the U.S. signed memorandums of understanding with the Marshall Islands and Palau that administration officials hope will pave the way for the quick completion of broader agreements that will govern the islands' relations with Washington for the next two decades. Those ties grant the U.S. unique military and other security rights on the islands in return for substantial aid.
The administration believes that extending those so-called “Compacts of Free Association” agreements will be key to efforts to retain American power and blunt Chinese assertiveness throughout the Indo-Pacific.
The memorandums signed this week lay out the amounts of money that the federal government will provide to the Marshall Islands and Palau if their compacts are successfully renegotiated. Negotiations on a similar memorandum with a third compact country, Micronesia, are ongoing.
The current 20-year compacts with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia expire this year; the current compact with Palau expires in 2024 but administration officials said they believe all three can be renewed and signed by mid- to late-spring.
Officials would not discuss specifics of the amounts of money involved because the deals aren’t yet legally binding and must still be reviewed and approved by Congress as part of the budget process.
A Micronesian news outlet, Marianas Variety, reported Thursday that the Marshall Islands will receive $700 million over four years under the memorandum that it signed. But that amount would cover only one-fifth of a 20-year compact extension and does not include the amount Palau would receive.
Joe Yun, Biden's special presidential envoy for compact negotiations, said the amounts will be far greater than what the U.S. had provided in the past.
Read more: Australia to reopen island detention camp after refugee bill
Islanders have long complained that the previous compacts they signed did not adequately address their needs or long-term environmental and health issues caused by U.S. nuclear testing in the 1950s and '60s. Lawmakers had expressed concern dating back to 2021 that the administration was not giving enough attention to the matter.
Yun, who signed the memorandums with representatives of the Marshalls and Palau on Tuesday and Wednesday in Los Angeles, said the Marshall Islands, in particular, would be compensated for such damage and would be given control over how that money is spent.
Yun said it would pay “nuclear-affected communities' health, welfare and development” and also noted that the U.S. had committed to building a new hospital as well as a museum in the Marshalls to preserve the memory and legacy of their role, notably in the Pacific theater during WWII.
This week's signings clear the way for individual federal agencies — including the Postal Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the National Weather Service — to negotiate their own agreements with the Marshalls and Palau, which will then become part of the broader compacts.
Along with the federal money, those agencies provide their services to the islands. In return, the U.S. is given unique military and national security basing rights and privileges in an area where China is increasingly flexing its muscles.
Yun said China did not come up specifically in the negotiations but it was a major element in all sides' discussions.
“The threat from China is unstated but there is no question that China is a factor,” Yun said. Not only does China have a large and growing economic presence in the region, but the Marshall Islands and Palau both recognize Taiwan diplomatically. “They are coming under Chinese pressure,” he said.
China has steadily poached allies from Taiwan in the Pacific, including Kiribati and the Solomon Islands in 2019. The U.S. announced plans last year to reopen an embassy in the Solomon Islands, which has signed a security agreement with China.
Since World War II, the U.S. has treated the Marshall Islands, along with Micronesia and Palau, much like territories. On the Marshall Islands, the U.S. has developed military, intelligence and aerospace facilities in a region where China is particularly active.
In turn, U.S. money and jobs have benefited the islands’ economy. And many islanders have taken advantage of their ability to live and work in the U.S., moving in the thousands to Arkansas, Guam, Hawaii, Oregon and Oklahoma.
Many on the Marshall Islands believe a U.S. settlement of $150 million agreed to in the 1980s fell well short of addressing the nuclear legacy. But the U.S. position has remained static for more than 20 years, the last time the compact came up for renegotiation.
Various estimates put the true cost of the damage at about $3 billion, including for repairs to a massive nuclear waste facility known as the Cactus Dome which environmentalists say is leaking toxic waste into the ocean.
Read more: Bangladesh to get US support in improving, widening coastal embankments
The U.S. Department of Energy says the dome contains over 100,000 cubic yards (76,000 cubic meters) of radioactively contaminated soil and debris but the structure isn’t in any immediate danger of failing.
Biden intends to make his first visit to US-Mexico border
President Joe Biden intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border — his first since taking office — in connection with his meeting next week in Mexico City with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
“That’s my intention, we’re working out the details now,” Biden told reporters Wednesday during a trip to Kentucky.
Biden said upon his return to the White House that he hoped to see “what's going on” at the border and also planned to make remarks about border security on Thursday.
Read more: Analysis: Biden, Zelenskyy try to keep Congress from balking
There have been large increases in the number of migrants at the border even as a U.S. public health law remains in place that allows American authorities to turn away many people seeking asylum in the United States. Republican leaders have criticized the president for policies that they say are ineffective on border security and they have questioned why he has not made a trip there yet.
The increased focus from Biden on the border also comes as the president prepares for a 2024 reelection bid. His sole declared potential rival, Donald Trump, rose to the top of the GOP ranks by animating the party's base voters with his hardline stances on immigration.
But there was some praise Wednesday after the news.
“I’m pleased President Biden will finally visit our southern border - which has been completely surrendered to the cartels, smugglers, and human traffickers,” tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., among those most critical.
Among the complaints on border security by Republicans is the amount of fentanyl coming into the U.S. via Mexico. A 2022 report from a bipartisan federal commission found that fentanyl and similar drugs are being made mostly in labs in Mexico from chemicals shipped primarily from China.
And fentanyl and other lab-produced synthetic opioids now are driving an overdose crisis deadlier than any the U.S. has ever seen. But drug control advocates and experts say an anti-drug policy that relies on tighter border security is dangerous and likely futile. It's too easy to move in small, hard-to-detect quantities.
Drug trafficking and immigration are among the top talking points at the summit Monday and Tuesday when Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are hosted by Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Early in his presidency, Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the border and work with Central American nations to address central causes of the problem. She visited El Paso, Texas, in June 2021 and was criticized for choosing a location too far from the epicenter of border crossings that straining federal resources. The number of migrants crossing the border has only risen.
Read more: Biden signs gay marriage law, calls it ‘a blow against hate’
For now, the Supreme Court has for now kept in place Trump-era restrictions, often known as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law, after Biden acted to end them and Republicans sued in response. Title 42 was invoked to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but there always has been criticism that the restrictions were used as a pretext by then-President Donald Trump to seal off the border.
Biden also has yet to lay out any systemic changes to manage an expected surge of migrants should the health restrictions end. And the president is limited in what he can do without immigration law changes. But in Congress, a bipartisan immigration bill was buried shortly before Republicans assumed control of the House.
Biden made his comment about the upcoming visit during a stop in Kentucky at a highway bridge that is receiving federal dollars under the bipartisan infrastructure law.
Trump visited the U.S. side of the border as president several times times, including one trip to McAllen, Texas, where he claimed Mexico would pay for the border wall.
American taxpayers ended up covering the costs. Mexican leaders had flatly rejected the idea when Trump pressed them early on. "NO,” Enrique Peña Nieto, then Mexico’s president, tweeted in May 2018. “Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever. Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).”
Analysis: Biden, Zelenskyy try to keep Congress from balking
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dramatic visit to Washington was a moment for the White House to demonstrate to Russia’s Vladimir Putin that the United States would sustain its commitment to the war for, as President Joe Biden put it, “as long as it takes.”
It also provided the Ukrainian president, dressed in military green, the opportunity in the grand setting of the U.S. Capitol to thank Congress for the billions of dollars that are sustaining his country in the fight.
“As long as it takes” is powerful rhetoric, but it now collides with a formidable question: How much more patience will a narrowly divided Congress — and the American public — have for a war with no clear end that is battering the global economy?
On Wednesday night, Zelenskyy made his case. In an address before a joint meeting of Congress, he melded Ukraine’s struggle to maintain its sovereignty with America’s battle for freedom. He spoke of the battle for Bakhmut — where a fierce, monthslong battle in eastern Ukraine is underway — as his country’s Battle of Saratoga, a turning point in the American Revolutionary War.
Zelenskyy, who visited the frontlines of Bakhmut shortly before traveling to Washington, presented members of Congress with a Ukrainian flag signed by the troops. And while he expressed thanks for U.S. aid, he also told the lawmakers “your money is not charity.”
“It’s an investment in global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way,” Zelenskyy said.
The majority of Americans, polls show, continue to support aid for Ukraine as it has managed to repel a Russian military some U.S. government officials initially believed would quickly overwhelm Ukrainian forces.
But the outmanned Ukrainians, with the help of some $21.3 billion in American military assistance since the February invasion, have managed to rack up successes on the battlefield and exact heavy losses on Russian troops.
Zelenskyy, seated next to Biden in the Oval Office, with a fire crackling in the fireplace behind them, acknowledged that Ukraine was in its more favorable position because of bipartisan support from Congress.
“We control the situation because of your support,” said Zelenskyy, who presented Biden with a medal that had been awarded to the Ukrainian captain of a HIMARS battery, a rocket system provided by the U.S., that the officer wanted Biden to have.
Yet even as support for Ukraine was being hailed by both Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell as serving core American interests, bipartisan unity on Ukraine was starting to fray.
“I hope that we’ll continue to support Ukraine, but we got to explain what they’re doing all the time,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said shortly before Zelenskyy landed in Washington on Wednesday afternoon. “I think you have to keep selling things like this to the American public. I don’t think you can just say, you know, for the next, whatever time it takes.”
Just before Zelenskyy’s arrival, the U.S. announced a $1.85 billion military aid package for Ukraine, including Patriot surface-to-air missiles, and Congress planned to vote on a spending package that includes an additional $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine.
Pelosi and others compared Zelenskyy’s visit to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s 1941 visit for talks with President Franklin D. Roosevelt following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Read more: Zelenskyy to meet Biden, address Congress as war rages on
Pelosi, in a letter to fellow lawmakers Wednesday, noted that her father, Rep. Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was a House member when Churchill came to Congress on the day after Christmas “to enlist our nation’s support in the fight against tyranny in Europe.”
“Eighty-one years later this week, it is particularly poignant for me to be present when another heroic leader addresses the Congress in a time of war — and with Democracy itself on the line,” said Pelosi, who will soon step down as speaker with Republicans taking control of the House.
Biden, born less than a year after Churchill’s historic visit, observed that Zelenskyy has showed enormous fortitude through the conflict. “This guy has, to his very soul — is who he says he is. It’s clear who he is. He’s willing to give his life for his country,” Biden said during a news conference with Zelenskyy.
McConnell made the case in a speech on the Senate floor that supporting Ukraine is simply pragmatic.
“Continuing our support for Ukraine is morally right, but it is not only that. It is also a direct investment in cold, hard, American interests,” McConnell said.
Still, there are signs of discontent in the Republican conference.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is vying to be the next House speaker when Republicans take over in the new year, as said his party won’t write a “blank check” for Ukraine once it’s in charge.
Some of the most right-leaning members of the Republican conference have lashed out at McConnell over his support of Ukraine.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in a Wednesday morning Twitter post accused McConnell of pressing for passage of the $1.7 trillion spending bill that includes new funding for Ukraine “so that he can hand a $47 BILLION dollar check to Zelenskyy when he shows up in DC today.”
“But in my district, many families & seniors can’t afford food & many businesses are struggling bc of Biden policies,” she added.
For now, hers is mostly an isolated voice.
Unlike in other conflicts of the past half century in which the U.S. has been deeply involved — Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan — the cost of helping Ukraine has been strictly financial.
While the far right is beginning to turn up the volume on its skepticism on spending, the Ukrainian cause is an easier sell than those long costly conflicts, said Elliot Abrams, who served in senior national security and foreign policy roles in the Donald Trump, George W. Bush and Reagan administrations.
“With Ukraine, I think it’s much easier to make the argument that helping Kyiv resist Russian aggression is a valuable thing to do, and grinding down the Russian military is a valuable thing to do,” said Abrams, who is now chairman of the conservative foreign policy group Vandenberg Coalition. “And the cost of American lives is zero.”
As the war in Ukraine has passed 300 days, polling shows Americans have grown less concerned and less supportive of U.S. aid. In September, just 18% of U.S. adults said the U.S. wasn’t providing enough support to Ukraine, according to Pew Research Center, compared with 31% in May and 42% in March.
Still, about as many — 20% — said in September that the U.S. was providing too much support. About a third said the level of support was about right, and about a quarter weren’t sure.
Republicans were roughly three times as likely as Democrats to say support was too much, 32% vs. 11%.
Read more: G20: Zelenskyy, Biden trying to persuade world leaders to further isolate Russia
Biden acknowledged that the past 10 months have been difficult and lamented that Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no sign of having the “dignity” to call off the invasion. He assured Zelenskyy that the U.S. wasn’t going anywhere.
“You don’t have to worry, we are staying with Ukraine,” Biden said.
Petr Pudil, a board member of Slovakian-based nongovernmental group Globsec, said Zelenskyy’s mission of keeping America engaged is a difficult one, but he is up to the task. Pudil’s group earlier this month helped organize a visit to Washington by Ukrainian parliament members who made their case that American support is going to be needed for some time while assuring lawmakers that it will not be wasted.
“One of the goals of Zelenskyy for this trip is convincing those who are still skeptical that winning is a real option,” Pudil said. “But it can be done, and only if they deliver the right support. Everyone needs to understand that there is a chance to win.”
Zelenskyy tells cheering US legislators funding Ukraine’s war effort “not charity” but an “investment”
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy told cheering U.S. legislators during a defiant wartime visit to the nation’s capital on Wednesday that against all odds his country still stands, thanking Americans for helping to fund the war effort with money that is “not charity,” but an “investment” in global security and democracy.
The whirlwind stop in Washington — his first known trip outside his country since Russia invaded in February — was aimed at reinvigorating support for his country in the U.S. and around the world at a time when there is concern that allies are growing weary of the costly war and its disruption to global food and energy supplies.
Zelenskyy called the tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic assistance provided over the past year vital to Ukraine’s efforts to beat back Russia and appealed for even more in the future.
“Your money is not charity,” he sought to reassure both those in the room and those watching at home. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”
Just before his arrival, the U.S. announced a new $1.8 billion military aid package, including for the first time Patriot surface-to-air missiles. And Congress planned to vote this week on a fresh spending package that includes about $45 billion in additional emergency assistance to Ukraine.
The speech to Congress came after President Joe Biden hosted Zelenskyy in the Oval Office for strategy consultations, saying the U.S. and Ukraine would maintain their “united defense” as Russia wages a “brutal assault on Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation.” Biden pledged to help bring about a “just peace.”
Zelenskyy told Biden that he had wanted to visit sooner and his visit now demonstrates that the “situation is under control, because of your support.”
The highly sensitive trip came after 10 months of a brutal war that has seen tens of thousands of casualties on both sides and devastation for Ukrainian civilians.
Zelenskyy traveled to Washington aboard a U.S. Air Force jet. The visit had been long sought by both sides, but the right conditions only came together in the last 10 days, U.S. officials said, after high-level discussions about the security both of Zelenskyy and of his people while he was outside of Ukraine. Zelenskyy spent less than 10 hours in Washington before beginning the journey back to Ukraine.
In his remarks to lawmakers, Zelenskky harked back to U.S. victories in the Battle of the Bulge, a turning point against Nazi Germany in World War II, and the Revolutionary War Battle of Saratoga, an American victory that helped draw France’s aid for U.S. independence. The Ukrainian leader predicted that next year would be a “turning point” in the conflict, “when Ukrainian courage and American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom — the freedom of people who stand for their values.”
Zelenskyy received thunderous applause from members of Congress and presented lawmakers with a Ukrainian flag autographed by front-line troops in Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s contested Donetsk province. The flag was displayed behind him on the rostrum by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris. Pelosi, in turn, presented Zelenskyy with an American flag that had flown over the Capitol that day, and Zelenskyy pumped it up and down as he exited the chamber.
Declaring in his speech that Ukraine “will never surrender,” Zelenskyy warned that the stakes of the conflict were greater than just the fate of his nation — that democracy worldwide is being tested.
“This battle cannot be ignored, hoping that the ocean or something else will provide protection,” he said, speaking in English for what he had billed as a “speech to Americans.”
Read more: US to send $3 billion in aid to Ukraine as war hits 6 months
Earlier, in a joint news conference with Biden, Zelenskyy was pressed on how Ukraine would try to bring an end to the conflict. He rejected Biden’s framing of finding a “just peace,” saying, “For me as a president, ‘just peace’ is no compromises.” He said the war would end once Ukraine’s sovereignty, freedom and territorial integrity were restored, and Russia had paid back Ukraine for all the damage inflicted by its forces.
“There can’t be any ‘just peace’ in the war that was imposed on us,” he added.
Biden, for his part, said Russia was “trying to use winter as a weapon, but Ukrainian people continue to inspire the world.” During the news conference, he said Russian President Vladimir Putin had “no intention of stopping this cruel war.”
The two leaders appeared to share a warm rapport, laughing at each other’s comments and patting each other on the back throughout the visit, though Zelenskyy made clear he will continue to press Biden and other Western leaders for ever more support.
He said that after the Patriot system was up and running, “we will send another signal to President Biden that we would like to get more Patriots.”
“We are in the war,” Zelenskyy added with a smile, as Biden chuckled at the direct request. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Biden told Zelenskyy that it was “important for the American people, and for the world, to hear directly from you, Mr. President, about Ukraine’s fight, and the need to continue to stand together through 2023
Zelenskyy had headed to Washington after making a daring and dangerous trip Tuesday to what he called the hottest spot on the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) front line of the war, the city of Bakhmut.
Poland’s private broadcaster, TVN24, said Zelenskyy crossed into Poland early Wednesday on his way to Washington. The station showed footage of what appeared to be Zelenskyy arriving at a train station and being escorted to a motorcade of American SUVs. TVN24 said the video, partially blurred for security reasons, was shot in Przemysl, a Polish border town that has been the arrival point for many refugees fleeing the war.
Officials, citing security concerns, were cagey about Zelenskyy’s travel plans, but a U.S. official confirmed that Zelenskyy arrived on a U.S. Air Force jet that landed at Joint Base Andrews, just outside the capital, from the Polish city of Rzeszow.
Biden told Zelenskyy, who wore a combat-green sweatshirt and boots, that ”it’s an honor to be by your side.”
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have made clear they do not envision an imminent resolution to the war and are preparing for fighting to continue for some time. The latest infusion of U.S. money would be the biggest yet — and exceed Biden’s $37 billion request.
Biden repeated that while the U.S. will arm and train Ukraine, American forces will not be directly engaged in the war.
The latest U.S. military aid package includes not only a Patriot missile battery but precision guided bombs for fighter jets, U.S. officials said. It represents an expansion in the kinds of advanced weaponry intended to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses against what has been an increasing barrage of Russian missiles.
Read more: Russia warns of ‘consequences’ if US missiles go to Ukraine
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said the delivery of the advanced surface-to-air missile system would be considered a provocative step and that the system and any crews accompanying it would be a legitimate target for Moscow’s military.
“It’s a defensive system,” Biden said of sending the missile system. “It’s not escalatory — it’s defensive.”
The visit comes at an important moment, with the White House bracing for greater resistance when Republicans take control of the House in January and give more scrutiny to aid for Ukraine. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California has said his party will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.
Zelenskky appeared well aware of political divisions in the U.S. over prolonged overseas spending, and called on the House and Senate lawmakers to ensure American leadership remains “bicameral and bipartisan.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer opened the chamber’s session on Wednesday by saying that passage of the aid package and confirmation of the new U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne M. Tracy, would send a strong signal that Americans stand “unequivocally” with Ukraine. Tracy was confirmed later on a 93-2 vote.
The Senate’s top Republican, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, said “the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests.” He said “defeating Russia’s aggression will help prevent further security crises in Europe.”
Russia’s invasion, which began Feb. 24, has lost momentum. The illegally annexed provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia remain fiercely contested.
With the fighting in the east at a stalemate, Moscow has used missiles and drones to attack Ukraine’s power equipment, hoping to leave people without electricity as freezing weather sets in.
Zelenskyy to meet Biden, address Congress as war rages on
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was making his way to Washington on Wednesday for a summit with President Joe Biden and to address Congress in his first known trip outside the country since Russia’s invasion began in February.
Zelenskyy said on his Twitter account that the visit was “to strengthen resilience and defense capabilities” of Ukraine and discuss cooperation between his country and the U.S with Biden.
The highly sensitive trip is taking place after 10 months of a brutal war that has seen tens of thousands killed and wounded on both sides of the conflict, along with devastation for Ukrainian civilians. It also comes as U.S. lawmakers are set to vote on a year-end spending package that includes about $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and as the Pentagon prepares to send Patriot surface-to-air missiles to the country to defend itself.
Zelenskyy headed abroad after making a daring and dangerous trip Tuesday to what he called the hottest spot on the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) front line of the conflict, the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s contested Donetsk province. He praised Ukrainian troops for their “courage, resilience and strength” as artillery boomed in the background.
In a statement Tuesday night, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden looks forward to the visit and that the address to Congress will demonstrate “the strong, bipartisan support for Ukraine.”
“The visit will underscore the United States’ steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, including through the provision of economic, humanitarian, and military assistance,” she said.
Zelenskyy was scheduled to meet with Biden at the White House in the afternoon and then join Biden for a news conference in the East Room. He was expected to address Congress in the evening.
In her invitation to Zelenskyy to address a joint meeting of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “the fight for Ukraine is the fight for democracy itself” and that lawmakers “look forward to hearing your inspiring message of unity, resilience and determination.”
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have made clear they don’t envision an imminent resolution to the war and are preparing for fighting to continue for some time. Biden has repeated that while the U.S. will arm and train Ukraine, American forces will not be directly engaged in the conflict.
Biden and Zelenskyy first discussed the idea of a visit to Washington during their most recent phone call, on Dec. 11, and a formal invitation followed three days later, said a senior U.S. administration official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the visit. Zelenskyy accepted the invitation on Friday and it was confirmed on Sunday, when the White House began coordinating with Pelosi to arrange the congressional address.
The White House consulted with Zelenskyy on security for his departure from Ukraine and travel to Washington, including the risk of Russian action while Zelenskyy was briefly out of the country, the official added, declining to detail the measures taken to safeguard the Ukrainian leader. The official said the U.S. expected Russia to continue its attacks on Ukrainian forces and civilian infrastructure targets despite the trip.
Read more: US to send $3 billion in aid to Ukraine as war hits 6 months
The tranche of U.S. funding pending before Congress would be the biggest American infusion of assistance yet to Ukraine — even more than Biden’s $37 billion emergency request — and is meant to ensure that support flows to the war effort for months to come.
On Wednesday, the U.S. was also set to announce that it will send a major package of $1.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine that will for the first time include a Patriot missile battery and precision guided bombs for its fighter jets, U.S. officials said.
The aid signals an expansion by the U.S. in the kinds of advanced weaponry it will send to Ukraine to bolster its air defenses against what has been an increasing barrage of Russian missiles in recent weeks. The package will include about $1 billion in weapons from Pentagon stocks and $800 million in funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, officials said.
The decision to send the Patriot battery comes despite threats from Russia’s Foreign Ministry that the delivery of the advanced surface-to-air missile system would be considered a provocative step and that the Patriot and any crews accompanying it would be a legitimate target for Moscow’s military.
It’s not clear exactly when the Patriot would arrive on the front lines in Ukraine, since U.S. troops will have to train Ukrainian forces on how to use the high-tech system. The training could take several weeks, and is expected to be done in Germany. To date, all training of Ukraine’s forces by the U.S. and its Western allies has taken place in European countries.
The visit comes at an important moment as the White House braces for greater resistance when Republicans take control of the House in January and give more scrutiny to aid for Ukraine. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has said his party’s lawmakers will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.
Biden and Zelenskyy frequently have talked by phone as the White House arranges new tranches of military assistance for Ukraine. The calls have been mostly warm, with Biden praising Ukraine for remaining steadfast against the Russians and Zelenskyy thanking the U.S. president for support.
The one exception was a June phone call soon after Biden notified Zelenskyy that an additional $1 billion package was headed to Ukraine. Zelenskyy didn’t miss a beat in ticking off the additional assistance he said Ukraine needed.
That irked Biden, who underscored to Zelenskyy the American people’s generosity. But the brief moment of tension hasn’t caused any lasting difficulty, according to officials familiar with the episode.
Pelosi, who visited Zelenskyy earlier this year in Kyiv, encouraged lawmakers to be on hand for Wednesday evening’s address by the Ukrainian leader.
“We are ending a very special session of the 117th Congress with legislation that makes progress for the American people as well as support for our Democracy,” Pelosi wrote Tuesday in a letter to colleagues. “Please be present for a very special focus on Democracy Wednesday night.”
Later at the Capitol she said of Ukrainians, “They are fighting for democracy for all of us.”
Read more: Russia warns of ‘consequences’ if US missiles go to Ukraine
Russia’s invasion, which began Feb. 24, has lost momentum. The illegally annexed provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia remain fiercely contested.
With the fighting in the east at a stalemate, Moscow has used missiles and drones to attack Ukraine’s power equipment, hoping to leave people without electricity as freezing weather sets in.
In a video released by his office from the Bakhmut visit, Zelenskyy was handed a Ukrainian flag and alluded to delivering it to U.S. leaders.
“The guys handed over our beautiful Ukrainian flag with their signatures for us to pass on,” Zelenskyy said in the video. “We are not in an easy situation. The enemy is increasing its army. Our people are braver and need more powerful weapons. We will pass it on from the boys to the Congress, to the president of the United States. We are grateful for their support, but it is not enough. It is a hint — it is not enough.”
For his part, Putin on Tuesday hailed the “courage and self-denial” of his forces in Ukraine — but he did so at a ceremony in an opulent and glittering hall at the Kremlin in Moscow, not on the battlefield.
At the Kremlin ceremony, Putin presented awards to the Moscow-appointed heads of the four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine. In a video address honoring Russia’s military and security agencies, he praised the security personnel deployed to the four regions, saying that “people living there, Russian citizens, count on being protected by you.”
Putin acknowledged the challenges faced by the security personnel.
“Yes, it’s difficult for you,” he said, adding that the situation in the regions is “extremely difficult.”
Biden, Macron vow unity against Russia, discuss trade row
Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron vowed to maintain a united front against Russia on Thursday amid growing worries about waning support for Ukraine’s war effort in the U.S. and Europe. Biden also signaled he might be willing to tweak aspects of his signature climate legislation that have raised concerns with France and other European allies.
Biden honored Macron with a grand state dinner Thursday evening — the first of the U.S. president’s COVID-19 shadowed presidency for a foreign leader. But following up on Biden’s upbeat comments might not go as smoothly as that fancy affair. Republicans who are about to take control of the House have shown less willingness than Biden to spend billions on Ukraine, and Democratic lawmakers said Thursday they were not about to jump back into the climate legislation.
In fact, for all the positive statements, Macron’s visit to Washington has been tempered by his criticism of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and the challenges both leaders face amid the mounting costs of keeping military and economic aid flowing to Kyiv with no end in sight for the Russian invasion.
Despite the differences, Biden and Macron sought to underscore that the U.S.-France alliance remains solid and that the West must hold steadfast against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Read more: Biden, Macron ready to talk Ukraine, trade in state visit
“Today, we reaffirm that, as I said, we’re going to stand together against this brutality,” Biden said. “Putin thinks that he can crush the will of all those who oppose his imperial ambitions by attacking civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, choking off energy to Europe to drive up prices, exacerbating the food crisis. That’s hurting very vulnerable people not just in Ukraine but around the world and he’s not going to succeed.”
Both leaders at an outdoor welcoming ceremony paid tribute to their countries’ long alliance. But they acknowledged difficult moments lay ahead as Western unity shows some wear nine months into the war in Ukraine.
In Washington, Republicans are set to take control of the House, where GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has said his party’s lawmakers will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine. Across the Atlantic, Macron’s efforts to keep Europe united will be tested by the mounting costs of supporting Ukraine in the war and as Europe battles rising energy prices that threaten to derail the post-pandemic economic recovery.
Macron stressed that the issue has ramifications far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
“What is at stake in Ukraine is not just very far from here, in a small country somewhere in Europe,” he declared. “But it’s about our values. And about our principles.”
“Our two nations are sisters in the fight for freedom,” he said.
Biden indicated he would be willing to talk with Putin if the Russian leader demonstrated that he seriously wanted to end the invasion. But the U.S. president, as always, conditioned such talks on support by NATO allies.
“I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding that he’s looking for a way to end the war,” Biden said. “He hasn’t done that yet.”
In addition to their talk of Ukraine — what White House officials said was at the top of the agenda — the two leaders discussed Macron’s and other leaders’ concerns about the recently enacted clean energy law.
Macron has made clear that he and other European leaders are opposed to incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act that favor American-made climate technology, including electric vehicles.
Biden acknowledged “glitches” in the legislation but said “there’s tweaks we can make” to satisfy allies.
“The United States makes no apology. And I make no apologies since I wrote it for the legislation we’re talking about,” Biden added.
However, Macron said that while the Biden administration’s efforts to curb climate change should be applauded, the subsidies would be an enormous setback for European companies.
“We want to succeed together, not one against the other,” Macron added. He said the U.S. and France would “resynchronize” their clean energy efforts to ensure there’s no “domino effect” that undermines clean energy projects in Europe.
On Capitol Hill, despite Biden’s talk of possible changes in the law, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, one of the bill’s main architects, said, “Congress passed a law to rev up the American electric automobile industry, create good-paying American jobs and tackle climate change at the same time. I have no intention of reopening it.”
Read more: Biden strengthening US policy to stem sexual violence in war zones, including in Ukraine
The European Union has also expressed concern that tax credits in the law would discriminate against European producers and break World Trade Organization rules.
The leaders, with aides, met for about three hours after taking part in a formal ceremony with hundreds of people gathered on the South Lawn on a sunny, chilly morning. There was a 21-gun salute and review of troops, and ushers distributed small French and American flags to the guests.
Both Biden and Macron in their public comments sought to keep the focus on the situation in Ukraine.
The state visit should provide a boost to Macron diplomatically that he can leverage back in Europe. His outspoken comments help him demonstrate that he’s defending French workers, even as he maintains a close relationship with Biden. The moment also helps Macron burnish his image as the European Union’s most visible and vocal leader, at a time when Europe is increasingly concerned that its economy will be indelibly weakened by the Ukraine war and resulting energy and inflation crises.
To that end, Biden praised Macron as “not just the leader of France” and for being “very outspoken and very, very commanding in Europe.” In his public comments, Macron repeatedly referred to the U.S. president as “dear Joe.”
Still, at moments, Macron’s rhetoric has rankled U.S. and Ukrainian officials, with calls for Ukraine and Russia to meet at the negotiating table. White House officials have publicly maintained that it is solely up to Ukraine’s leadership to decide when it’s appropriate to engage the Russians and have stressed the war could end immediately if Putin ended his invasion.
Macron also raised eyebrows earlier this month in a speech at a summit in Bangkok when he referred to the U.S. and China as “two big elephants” that are on the cusp of creating “a big problem for the rest of the jungle.” His visit to Washington came as both the U.S. and France are keeping their eyes on China after protests have broken out in several mainland cities and Hong Kong over Beijing’s “zero COVID” strategy.
The state visit marked a return of a White House tradition of honoring close foreign allies that dates back to Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency.
Macron and his wife, Brigitte, came to the U.S. bearing gifts carefully tailored to their American hosts, including a vinyl record and CD of the original soundtrack from the 1966 film “Un Homme et une Femme,” which the Bidens went to see on their first date, according to the palace.
Among the gifts Biden and first lady Jill Biden presented the Macrons was a mirror framed by fallen wood from the White House grounds and made by an American furniture maker.
Vice President Kamala Harris hosted Macron for a lunch at the State Department before the evening state dinner in an enormous tented pavilion constructed on the White House South Lawn. The dinner for hundreds attracted big names from fashion, entertainment, business and politics.
Biden says he and Xi have a “responsibility” to show US, China can “manage differences”
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping opened their first in-person meeting Monday since the U.S. president took office nearly two years ago, amid increasing economic and security tensions between the two superpowers as they compete for global influence.
Xi and Biden greeted each other with a handshake at a luxury resort hotel in Indonesia, where they are attending the Group of 20 summit of large economies. As they began their conversation, Biden said he and Xi have a “responsibility” to show that their nations can “manage our differences” and identify areas of mutual cooperation. Xi added that he hoped the pair would “elevate the relationship” and that he was prepared to have a “candid and in-depth exchange of views” with Biden.
Both men entered the highly anticipated meeting with bolstered political standing at home. Democrats triumphantly held onto control of the U.S. Senate, with a chance to boost their ranks by one in a runoff election in Georgia next month, while Xi was awarded a third five-year term in October by the Communist Party’s national congress, a break with tradition.
“We have very little misunderstanding,” Biden told reporters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Sunday, where he participated in a gathering of southeast Asian nations before leaving for Indonesia. “We just got to figure out where the red lines are and ... what are the most important things to each of us going into the next two years.”
Biden added: “His circumstance has changed, to state the obvious, at home.” The president said of his own situation: “I know I’m coming in stronger.”
White House aides have repeatedly sought to play down any notion of conflict between the two nations and have emphasized that they believe the two countries can work in tandem on shared challenges such as climate change and health security.
But relations between the U.S. and China have grown more strained under successive American administrations, as economic, trade, human rights and security differences have come to the fore.
Read: Biden, Xi coming into highly anticipated meeting with bolstered political standing at home
As president, Biden has repeatedly taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities, crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, military provocations against self-ruled Taiwan and differences over Russia’s prosecution of its war against Ukraine. Chinese officials have largely refrained from public criticism of Russia’s war, although Beijing has avoided direct support such as supplying arms.
Taiwan has emerged as one of the most contentious issues between Washington and Beijing. Multiple times in his presidency, Biden has said the U.S. would defend the island — which China has eyed for eventual unification — in case of a Beijing-led invasion. But administration officials have stressed each time that the U.S.’s “One China” policy has not changed. That policy recognizes the government in
Beijing while allowing for informal relations and defense ties with Taipei, and its posture of “strategic ambiguity” over whether whether it would respond militarily if the were island attacked.
Tensions flared even higher when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited Taiwan in August, prompting China to retaliate with military drills and the firing of ballistic missiles into nearby waters.
The Biden administration also blocked exports of advanced computer chips to China last month — a national security move that bolsters U.S. competition against Beijing. Chinese officials quickly condemned the restrictions.
And though the two men have held five phone or video calls during Biden’s presidency, White House officials say those encounters are no substitute for Biden being able to meet and size up Xi in person. That task is all the more important after Xi strengthened his grip on power through the party congress, as lower-level Chinese officials have been unable or unwilling to speak for their leader.
Asked about the anticipated meeting, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said last week at a news briefing that China was looking for “win-win cooperation with the U.S.” while reiterating Beijing’s concerns about the U.S. stance on Taiwan.
Read: Biden-Xi meeting: US trying to understand where China really stands
“The U.S. needs to stop obscuring, hollowing out and distorting the One China principle, abide by the basic norms in international relations, including respecting other countries’ sovereignty, territorial integrity and noninterference in other countries’ internal affairs,” he said.
Xi has stayed close to home throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic, where he has enforced a “zero-COVID” policy that has resulted in mass lockdowns that have roiled the global supply chains.
He made his first trip outside China since start of the pandemic in September with a stop in Kazakhstan and then onto Uzbekistan to take part in the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization with Putin and other leaders of the Central Asian security group.
White House officials and their Chinese counterparts have spent weeks negotiating out all of the details of the meeting, which is taking place at Xi’s hotel with translators providing simultaneous interpretation through headsets.
U.S. officials were eager to see how Xi approaches the Biden sit-down after consolidating his position as the unquestioned leader of the state, saying they would wait to assess whether that made him more or less likely to seek out areas of cooperation with the U.S.
Biden and Xi each brought small delegations into the discussion, with U.S. officials expecting that Xi would bring newly-elevated government officials to the sit-down and expressing hope that it could lead to more substantive engagements down the line.
Before meeting with Xi, Biden first held a sit-down with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who is hosting the G-20 summit, to announce a range of new development initiatives for the archipelago nation, including investments in climate, security, and education.
Many of Biden’s conversations and engagements during his three-country tour — which took him to Egypt and Cambodia before he landed on the island of Bali on Sunday — were, by design, preparing him for his meeting with Xi and sending a signal that the U.S. would compete in areas where Xi has also worked to expand his country’s influence.
Read: Biden to meet China's Xi on Monday for Taiwan, Russia talks
In Phnom Penh, Biden sought to assert U.S. influence and commitment in a region where China has also been making inroads and where many nations feel allied with Beijing. He also sought input on what he should raise with Xi in conversations with leaders from Japan, South Korea and Australia.
The two men have a history that dates to Biden’s time as vice president, when he embarked on a get-to-know-you mission with Xi, then China’s vice president, in travels that brought Xi to Washington and Biden through travels on the Tibetan plateau. The U.S. president has emphasized that he knows Xi well and he wants to use this in-person meeting to better understand where the two men stand.
Biden was fond of tucking references to his conversations with Xi into his travels around the U.S. ahead of the midterm elections, using the Chinese leader’s preference for autocratic governance to make his own case to voters why democracy should prevail.
The president’s view was somewhat validated on the global stage, as White House aides said several world leaders approached Biden during his time in Cambodia — where he was meeting with Asian allies to reassure them of the U.S. commitment to the region in the face of China’s assertive actions — to tell him they watched the outcome of the midterm elections closely and that the results were a triumph for democracy.
U.S. officials said no joint communique was expected after the meeting with Xi and downplayed expectations for policy breakthroughs. The White House said Biden planned to hold a press after his meeting with Xi.
Biden slams GOP, Trump warns of 'tyranny' ahead of midterms
President Joe Biden pilloried Republicans up and down ballots across the nation as election deniers who reveled in political violence, while his predecessor, Donald Trump, urged voters to oppose “growing left-wing tyranny" on the final Sunday before midterm elections that could reshape Washington's balance of power.
Wrapping up a five-state, four-day campaign swing with an evening rally at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, Biden championed Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. She's locked in a tight race with Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is looking to become the state's first GOP governor since George Pataki left office in 2006.
The president said hundreds of Republican candidates for state, federal and local office are "election deniers, who say that I did not win the election, even though hundreds of attempts to challenge that have all failed, even in Republican courts.”
Biden said that for the deniers, “There are only two outcomes for any election: either they win or they were cheated.”
Biden said Republicans were willing to condone last year's insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and that, after the recent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, some in that party made “light of it” or were “making excuses.”
“There's never been a time in my career where we've glorified violence based on a political preference," the president said.
Read more: Amidst recession fears, Biden has to convince Americans job gains mean better days ahead
More than 39 million people have voted early in Tuesday's races, which will decide control of Congress and key governorships — the first national election since a mob overran the Capitol. Earlier Sunday, as Trump addressed supporters in Miami, a reference to the House speaker prompted chants of “Lock her up!" — a stark reminder of just how far apart each side is.
Trump is hoping that a strong GOP showing on Election Day will generate momentum for the 2024 run that he is expected to launch this month.
“I will probably have to do it again, but stay tuned,” Trump said, teasing an event he has with Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, JD Vance, for Monday. "We have a big, big rally. Stay tuned for tomorrow night.”
Trump also told the crowd that "every free and loving American needs to understand that the time to stand up to this growing left-wing tyranny is right now,” while calling on his supporters to reject the “radical left-wing maniacs” and adding that Hispanics would show up strong for GOP candidates.
Sen. Marco Rubio joined Trump at the rally as he seeks reelection. Not attending the Miami event was Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who is running for reelection against Democrat Charlie Crist and is widely considered Trump’s most formidable challenger if he also were to get into the White House race.
Instead, DeSantis held his own, separate events Sunday in another part of the state where he stuck to the centerpieces of his reelection campaign, including railing against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and “wokeness” in schools and other parts of society. The governor's counter political programing avoided antagonizing Trump — meaning it didn't deliver the dueling 2024 events that could be in his and Trump's near future.
Trump said Sunday that Florida would “reelect Ron DeSantis as your governor.” But he was more confrontational during a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday night, referring to Florida's governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
It's a rivalry that's been simmering for more than a year as DeSantis has taken increasingly bold steps to boost his national profile and build a deep fundraising network.
Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party. Still, many of his supporters are eager for the prospect that DeSantis might run, seeing him as a natural successor to Trump, without the former president's considerable political negatives.
Read more: G-20 summit could put Biden in the same room with Putin and MBS
For national Democrats, meanwhile, the focus is on the fate of their narrow control of the House and Senate, which could evaporate after Tuesday.
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, head of the Democrats’ House campaign arm, is in a tough contest for his seat. But he insisted Sunday that Democrats are “going to do better than people think on Tuesday,” adding that his party is “not perfect” but “we are responsible adults who believe in this democracy.”
“I think this race is razor-close and I think everybody who cares about the extremism in this ‘MAGA’ movement — the racism, the antisemitism, the violence — needs to get out and vote and that’s not just Democrats, it’s independents and fair-minded Republicans,” Maloney told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referring to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Voters may rebuke the party controlling the White House and Congress amid surging inflation, concerns about crime and pessimism about the direction of the country. History suggests the party in power will suffer significant losses in the midterms.
On a weekend that also featured Democratic rallies by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, first lady Jill Biden attended church services while campaigning in Houston on Sunday. Like her husband and his presidential predecessors, she argued that democracy itself was on the ballot.
"So much is at stake in this election," she said. "We must speak up on justice and democracy.”
Traveling in Chicago Vice President Kamala Harris struck a similar tone, saying, “These attacks on our democracy will not only directly impact the people around our country, but arguably around the world.”
Trump has long falsely claimed he lost the 2020 election only because Democrats cheated and has even begun raising the possibility of election fraud this year. Federal intelligence agencies are warning of the possibility of political violence from far-right extremists.
Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, said Democrats were “inflation deniers,” trying to deflect the other side's branding of her party as anti-democracy for rejecting the results of 2020's free and fair presidential election simply because Trump lost it.
“If we win back the House and the Senate, it’s the American people saying to Joe Biden, we want you to work on behalf of us and we want you to work across the aisle to solve the problems that we are dealing with," McDaniel told CNN's “State of the Union."
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest union of public employees, has been traveling the country rallying for Democrats. He said, “It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be tough, but we aren’t giving up hope."
“Clearly people are concerned about the economy," Saunders said. But he added that voters also are “concerned about the freedoms being taken away from them, whether you’re talking about voting rights or whether your talking about a women’s right to choose.”
Amidst recession fears, Biden has to convince Americans job gains mean better days ahead
President Joe Biden has notched an envious record on jobs, with 10.3 million gained during his tenure. But voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections are far more focused on inflation hovering near 40-year highs.
That’s left the president trying to convince the public that the job gains mean better days are ahead, even as fears of a recession build.
Presidents have long trusted that voters would reward them for strong economic growth, but inflation has thrown a monkey wrench into the already difficult probability of Democrats’ retaining control of the House and Senate.
Economic anxieties have compounded as the Federal Reserve has repeatedly hiked its benchmark interest rates to lower inflation and possibly raise unemployment. Mortgage costs have shot upwards, while the S&P 500 stock index has dropped more than 20% so far this year as the world braces for a possible downturn.
Biden is asking voters to look beyond the current financial pain, saying that what matters are the job gains that he believes his policies are fostering. The government reported Friday that employers added 261,000 jobs in October as the unemployment rate bumped up to 3.7%.
Roughly 740,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since the start of Biden’s presidency, a figure that the president says will keep rising because of his funding for infrastructure projects, the production of computer chips and the switch to clean energy sources.
“America is reasserting itself — it’s as simple as that,” Biden said in a Friday speech. “We also know folks are still struggling with inflation. It’s our number one priority.”
Yet the president is also warning that a Republican majority in Congress could make inflation worse by seeking to undo his programs and treating payments on the federal debt as a bargaining chip instead of an obligation to honor.
Read: Bangladesh an important country: US President
His challenge is that the party in power generally faces skeptical voters in U.S. midterms and inflation looms over the public mindset more than job growth.
“If you have a job, it’s small comfort to know that the job market is strong if at the same time you feel like every paycheck is worth less and less anyway,” said pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson. “Inflation is such political poison because voters are reminded every day whenever they spend money that it is a problem we are experiencing.”
As Biden tries to fend off fears that inflation is causing the country to slide into a recession, his chief evidence of the economy’s resilience is the continued job growth.
“As we see the economy as a whole, we do not see it going into a recession,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in anticipation of the latest jobs report.
Going into the election, Biden and Democrats are already at a disadvantage. Voters generally favor the party out of the White House in midterms, giving Republicans an automatic leg up. When Yale University economist Ray Fair looked at past elections, his model forecast that Democrats would get just 46.4% of the national vote largely because Biden was in the Oval Office.
Fair’s analysis suggests that inflation basically erased the political boost that Democrats could have gotten from strong economic growth during three quarters in 2021. Even if the economy is top of mind for many voters, the conflicting forces of past growth and high inflation cancel out each other.
This makes the Democrats’ vote share roughly the same as suggested by the historical trend, Fair concluded.
Read: Record inflation puts the squeeze on Eurozone economies
But inflation compounds the obstacles for a president who has tried to convey optimism as he tours the country in the run-up to the elections. Research in social psychology and behavioral economics generally shows that people often focus on the negatives and can block out the positives.
“People pay more attention to bad news than to good news and are more likely to retain and recall bad news,” said Matthew Incantalupo, a political scientist at Yeshiva University.
Incantalupo’s research looks at how voters absorb economic news. When unemployment is low, as it is now, he said, voters generally think about jobs as a personal issue — rather than a systemic one involving government policies. But most think about inflation as a social problem beyond any person’s control, unless that individual happens to run the Fed.
“When it is high, everyone experiences it at least a little bit, and there really is no individual way to avoid it,” Incantalupo said. “Voters are going to look to government for remedies under those circumstances, and in many cases that will result in them punishing incumbents, even in the presence of other positive news about the economy.”
Republican candidates have specifically said Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package last year overheated the economy, causing prices to rise alongside the job gains that they claim would have happened anyway as the pandemic receded. They have also said that Biden should have loosened restrictions on oil production, in order to increase domestic output and lower gasoline prices.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy — who could become speaker if the GOP wins a House majority — has hammered Biden on high prices. As Biden has warned that Republicans who deny the outcome of the 2020 election are a threat to democracy, the California congressman countered that what voters care about are the costs of gas and groceries.
Read: Inflation: UN expert for increasing benefits, wages or lives will be lost
“President Biden is trying to divide and deflect at a time when America needs to unite — because he can’t talk about his policies that have driven up the cost of living,” McCarthy tweeted this past week. “The American people aren’t buying it.”
Still, inflation is not solely a domestic issue. After Russia invaded Ukraine, energy and food costs rose and suddenly flipped the global dynamics as inflation rose faster in parts of the world with less aggressive coronavirus relief than the U.S. Annual inflation in the euro zone is a record 10.7%, much higher than the 8.2% in the U.S.
Meanwhile, growth has slowed in China, the pace of world trade is slipping and Saudi Arabia-led OPEC+ has cut oil production in order to prop up prices. And because the Fed is raising rates to lower domestic inflation, the dollar has increased in value and essentially exported higher prices to the rest of the world.
This has left U.S. voters in the curious position of not necessarily blaming the president for inflation, even as they disapprove of his economic leadership.
An October poll by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs captured this split. More than half of voters say that prices are higher because of factors beyond Biden’s control. But just 36% approve of his economic leadership.
Biden: Killing of al-Qaida leader is long-sought 'justice'
President Joe Biden announced Monday that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, an operation he said delivered justice and hopefully “one more measure of closure” to families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The president said in an evening address from the White House that U.S. intelligence officials tracked al-Zawahri to a home in downtown Kabul where he was hiding out with his family. The president approved the operation last week and it was carried out Sunday.
Al-Zawahri and the better-known Osama bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks that brought many ordinary Americans their first knowledge of al-Qaida. Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, in operation carried out by U.S. Navy SEALs after a nearly decade-long hunt.
As for Al-Zawahri, Biden said, “He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we’re going to make sure that nothing else happens.”
“This terrorist leader is no more,” he added.
Also read: Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri killed in US missile attack
The operation is a significant counterterrorism win for the Biden administration just 11 months after American troops left the country after a two-decade war.
The strike was carried out by the CIA, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Neither Biden nor the White House detailed the CIA's involvement in the strike.
Biden, however, paid tribute to the U.S. intelligence community in his remarks, noting that “thanks to their extraordinary persistence and skill” the operation was a success.
Al-Zawahri’s death eliminates the figure who more than anyone shaped al-Qaida, first as bin Laden’s deputy since 1998, then as his successor. Together, he and bin Laden turned the jihadi movement’s guns to target the United States, carrying out the deadliest attack ever on American soil — the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings.
The house Al-Zawahri was in when he was killed was owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to a senior intelligence official. The official also added that a CIA ground team and aerial reconnaissance conducted after the drone strike confirmed al-Zawahri’s death.
Also read: Biden tests positive for COVID-19, returns to isolation
A senior administration official who briefed reporters on the operation on condition of anonymity said “zero” U.S. personnel were in Kabul.
Over the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the U.S. targeted and splintered al-Qaida, sending leaders into hiding. But America’s exit from Afghanistan last September gave the extremist group the opportunity to rebuild.
U.S. military officials, including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said al-Qaida was trying to reconstitute in Afghanistan, where it faced limited threats from the now-ruling Taliban. Military leaders have warned that the group still aspired to attack the U.S.
After his killing, the White House underscored that al-Zawahri had continued to be a dangerous figure. The senior administration official said al-Zawahri had continued to “provide strategic direction," including urging attacks on the U.S., while in hiding. He had also prioritized to members of the terror network that the United States remained al-Qaida's “primary enemy,” the official said.
The 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon made bin Laden America’s Enemy No. 1. But he likely could never have carried it out without his deputy. Bin Laden provided al-Qaida with charisma and money, but al-Zawahri brought tactics and organizational skills needed to forge militants into a network of cells in countries around the world.
U.S. intelligence officials have been aware for years of a network helping al-Zawahri dodge U.S. intelligence officials hunting for him, but didn’t have a bead on his possible location until recent months.
Earlier this year, U.S. officials learned that the terror leader’s wife, daughter and her children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul, according to the senior administration official who briefed reporters.
Officials eventually learned al-Zawahri was also at the Kabul safe house.
In early April, White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and Biden’s homeland security adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall were briefed on this developing intelligence. Soon the intelligence was carried up to national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan brought the information to Biden as U.S. intelligence officials built “a pattern of life through multiple independent sources of information to inform the operation,” the official said.
Senior Taliban figures were aware of al-Zawahri’s presence in Kabul, according to the official, who added the Taliban government was given no forewarning of the operation.
Inside the Biden administration, only a small group of officials at key agencies, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, were brought into the process. Through May and June, Biden was updated several times on the growing mound of intelligence that confirmed al-Zawahri was hiding out in the home. Over the last few weeks, Biden brought together several Cabinet officials and key national security officials to scrutinize the intelligence findings.
On July 1, Biden was briefed in the Situation Room about the planned operation, a briefing in which the president closely examined a scale model of the home Zawahri was hiding out in. He gave his final approval for the operation on Thursday. Al-Zawahri was on the balcony of his hideout on Sunday when two Hellfire missiles were launched from an unmanned drone, killing him.
Al-Zawahri's family was in another part of the house when the operation was carried out, and no one else was believed to have been killed in the operation, the official said.
“We make it clear again tonight: That no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out,” Biden said.
Al-Zawahri was hardly a household name like bin Laden, but he played an enormous role in the terror group's operations.
The two terror leaders' bond was forged in the late 1980s, when al-Zawahri reportedly treated the Saudi millionaire bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan as Soviet bombardment shook the mountains around them.
Al-Zawahri, on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, had a $25 million bounty on his head for any information that could be used to kill or capture him.
Al-Zawhiri and bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks that brought many ordinary Americans their first knowledge of al-Qaida.
Photos from the time often showed the glasses-wearing, mild-looking Egyptian doctor sitting by the side of bin Laden. Al-Zawahiri had merged his group of Egyptian militants with bin Laden’s al-Qaida in the 1990s.
“The strong contingent of Egyptians applied organizational know-how, financial expertise, and military experience to wage a violent jihad against leaders whom the fighters considered to be un-Islamic and their patrons, especially the United States,” Steven A. Cook wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations last year.
When the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan demolished al-Qaida’s safe haven and scattered, killed and captured its members, al-Zawahri ensured al-Qaida’s survival. He rebuilt its leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and installed allies as lieutenants in key positions.
He also reshaped the organization from a centralized planner of terror attacks into the head of a franchise chain. He led the assembling of a network of autonomous branches around the region, including in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Asia. Over the next decade, al-Qaida inspired or had a direct hand in attacks in all those areas as well as Europe, Pakistan and Turkey, including the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the 2005 transit bombings in London.
More recently, the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen proved itself capable of plotting attacks against U.S. soil with an attempted 2009 bombing of an American passenger jet and an attempted package bomb the following year.
But even before bin Laden’s death, al-Zawahri was struggling to maintain al-Qaida’s relevance in a changing Middle East.
He tried with little success to coopt the wave of uprisings that spread across the Arab world starting in 2011, urging Islamic hard-liners to take over in the nations where leaders had fallen. But while Islamists gained prominence in many places, they have stark ideological differences with al-Qaida and reject its agenda and leadership.
Nevertheless, al-Zawahri tried to pose as the Arab Spring’s leader. America “is facing an Islamic nation that is in revolt, having risen from its lethargy to a renaissance of jihad,” he said in a video eulogy to bin Laden, wearing a white robe and turban with an assault rifle leaning on a wall behind him.
Al-Zawahri was also a more divisive figure than his predecessor. Many militants described the soft-spoken bin Laden in adoring and almost spiritual terms.
In contrast, al-Zawahri was notoriously prickly and pedantic. He picked ideological fights with critics within the jihadi camp, wagging his finger scoldingly in his videos. Even some key figures in al-Qaida’s central leadership were put off, calling him overly controlling, secretive and divisive.
Some militants whose association with bin Laden predated al-Zawahri’s always saw him as an arrogant intruder.
“I have never taken orders from al-Zawahri,” Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, one of the network’s top figures in East Africa until his 2011 death, sneered in a memoir posted on line in 2009. “We don’t take orders from anyone but our historical leadership.”
There had been rumors of al-Zawahri’s death on and off for several years. But a video surfaced in April of the al-Qaida leader praising a Indian Muslim woman who had defied a ban on wearing a hijab, or headscarf. That footage was the first proof in months that he was still alive.
A statement from Afghanistan’s Taliban government confirmed the airstrike, but did not mention al-Zawahri or any other casualties.
It said the Taliban “strongly condemns this attack and calls it a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,” the 2020 U.S. pact with the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of American forces.
“Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region,” the statement said.