“A month I’ve been asking to sit down with the President to talk about the border and talk about national security, and that meeting has not been granted,” Johnson said…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden has said that he is willing to meet with House Speaker Mike Johnson in order to secure the long-awaited passage of a bill that contains funding for the provision of additional arms to Ukraine.
“Sure, I’d be happy to meet with him if he has anything to say,” Biden told reporters on Monday as he returned to the White House from Delaware, where he spent the weekend.
The President said House GOP members, led by Johnson, are “making a big mistake by not responding” to the repeated calls from the White House that they should approve the administration’s supplemental budget request and meet Ukraine’s urgent need for resupply of ammunition in its conflict with Russia, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The way they’re walking away from the threat of Russia, they way they’re walking away from NATO, the way they’re walking away from meeting our obligations. It’s just shocking. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Biden added.
Johnson, who’s been withholding a vote in his chamber on a Senate-passed national security spending bill in order to squeeze out Democrats’ compromise allowing significant upgrades to border security, told reporters last week that he had been requesting a meeting with Biden “for weeks”.
“A month I’ve been asking to sit down with the President to talk about the border and talk about national security, and that meeting has not been granted,” Johnson said.
“And I’m going to continue to insist on that, because they’re very serious issues that need to be addressed. And if the Speaker of the House can’t meet with the President of the United States, that’s a problem.”
A series of mediatory talks held in Europe, Cairo and Doha for a second ceasefire to the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel has not borne fruit till now…reports Asian Lite News
With the ceasefire mooted by the US, Egypt and Qatar in the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel not gaining traction, US President Joe Biden’s top advisor is scheduled to reach Israel and Egypt on Wednesday.
Brett McGurk, the senior most advisor to the US President, will reach Egypt to accelerate the ongoing peace talks for a ceasefire and release of hostages in the ongoing war.
The top US official will meet the Chief of Egyptian Intelligence, Abbas Kamal, and hold a series of meetings with him and other senior Egyptian officials. The Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah in Gaza Strip which shares the border with Egypt will also be a major point of discussion between the US official and Egyptians.
McGurk will then leave for Tel Aviv and will have meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The Israel war cabinet member and Minister without portfolio, Benny Gantz will also meet the visiting top US official.
A series of mediatory talks held in Europe, Cairo and Doha for a second ceasefire to the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel has not borne fruit till now.
While Hamas want a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, Israel has agreed for a temporary four week ceasefire wherein Hamas would release 35 hostages in its capacity with Israel reciprocating by releasing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails almost three times the number of Israeli hostages released.
Since the war commenced on October 7, 2023 a one week ceasefire between November 24 and December 1 saw the release of 105 Israeli hostages in exchange of 324 Palestinians who were lodged in Israeli jails.
The families of hostages in Hamas custody has been demanding Israeli authorities to work for a ceasefire deal and to release their dear one’s from the captivity of Hamas terror group.
Biden made the remarks during a press conference after a Special Counsel report said that Biden was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden made a serious gaffe when he called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as “the president of Mexico” during a press conference in the White House, The Hill reported.
He made the remarks during a press conference after a Special Counsel report said that Biden was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden was found in the report by Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur to have “wilfully retained and disclosed classified materials” related to military and foreign policy in Afghanistan after serving as vice-president until 2017.
In response to question about the humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt, Biden mistakenly called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the “President of Mexico.”
Biden said, “I think as you know initially, the president of Mexico, El-Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate.”
The report references showcased apparent lapses in memory from the US President. One reporter asked Biden, “How bad is your memory and can you continue as president?” In response, the US President said, “My memory is so bad I let you speak.”
Another reporter asked Biden if he believed his memory had worsened. Biden responded, “My memory is fine. Take a look at what I’ve done since I became president. None of you thought could I pass any of the things I got passed. How did that happen? I guess I just forgot what was going on,” as reported by CNN.
Biden hit back against special counsel Robert Hur’s description of why he was not charged. Hur described the US President as potentially being seen by a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden said, “I am well-meaning. And I’m an elderly man. And I know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve been President – I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation,” according to CNN report.
In his remarks, Biden said he is pleased that special counsel Robert Hur “reached a firm conclusion that no charges should be brought against me in this case.”
The US President said, “The special counsel acknowledged I cooperated completely. I did not throw up any roadblocks. I sought no delays.” He said that he cooperated with the investigation and sat for a five hour interview over two days in October, “even though Israel had just been attacked by Hamas.”
It is not the first time Biden has confused two leaders. Earlier on Sunday, Biden appeared to mix up French President Emmanuel Macron with France’s Former President Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, The Hill reported.
The apparent mix-up took place during a campaign event in Las Vegas on Sunday. During the event, Biden recalled a Group of Seven (G7) meeting he attended after being elected in 2020.
Biden said one of the first things he said during the meeting was “America is back.” He added that he received a prompt a response from “Mitterrand from Germany,” before correcting it to “from France.”
Biden said, “And Mitterand from Germany — I mean, from France — looked at me and said … ‘You know, what — why, how long you back for?” Biden said, according to The Hill report.
“And I looked at him, and … the chancellor of Germany said, ‘What would you say, Mr. President, if you picked up the paper tomorrow in the London Times, and London Times said, “A thousand people break through the House of Commons, break down the doors, two Bobbies are killed in order to stop the election of the prime minister.” What would you say?'”
As per The Hill report, the White House later mentioned the remarks, with the name Mitterand crossed out and replaced with Macron. (ANI)
The documents pertained to foreign policy issues on Afghanistan and notebooks that contained nothing from briefings on national security and foreign policy….reports Asian Lite News
A special counsel investigating US President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents from his vice-presidency in 2017 has decided not to prosecute him but raised serious questions about his mental condition because of his age, which has become an issue as he seeks a second term that will further cement his place in history as the oldest American President.
Robert K. Hur, the special counsel, said in the report submitted to US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday, “no criminal charges are warranted” in the case but the investigation found that President Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice-presidency when he was a private citizen”.
Biden had shared the papers with the ghost writer of his memoir “Promise Me, Dad”.
The documents pertained to foreign policy issues on Afghanistan and notebooks that contained nothing from briefings on national security and foreign policy.
The counsel, however, handed a severe indictment of Biden’s mental acuity.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
He further said: “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him by then a former President well into his 80’s of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
The case against Biden came up in the aftermath of the loads of classified documents that were discovered to have been carried away by former President Donald Trump when he left office in January 2021.
He had refused to hand them back to the government and he has since defended his actions claiming these were not classified papers because, in exercising his presidential powers, he had declassified them.
Biden’s age and his mental acuity are facing continued scrutiny, even within his own party. He is 81, and if re-elected, he will be 82 at the time of second inauguration. He is already the oldest President in US history. He has publicly struggled with memory. He recently mixed up French President Emmanuel Macron with one of his predecessors, Francois Mitterrand and Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel with her predecessor Helmut Kohl.
Biden’s victory in Nevada came days after he easily won the South Carolina primary…reports Asian Lite News
U.S. President Joe Biden won Nevada’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday while Nikki Haley lost the state-run Republican contest skipped by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Biden’s victory in Nevada came days after he easily won the South Carolina primary, the first official nominating race of the Democratic Party in the 2024 presidential election cycle, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Thank you, Nevada! We’re building a campaign that leaves no one behind,” Biden, who only faces longshot challenges from U.S. Representative Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Let’s keep up this momentum.”
Biden narrowly won Nevada, a battleground state in the Western region of the United States, in the 2020 presidential election, beating Trump.
Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor, lost the Nevada Republican primary on Tuesday. With 79 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday morning, the “none of these candidates category” has more than 62 percent of the vote, with Haley at 31 percent.
Trump’s name wasn’t on the Nevada primary’s ballot because he is set to compete in party-run caucuses on Thursday, which will award all the state’s 26 delegates to the winner. Haley was barred from participating in the Nevada caucus after opting to take part in Tuesday’s primary.
Trump wrote in a social media post that it was a “bad night for Nikki Haley.”
Haley has been going after Trump, 77, and Biden, 81, by criticizing their ages, alleging on X that Americans “need a president who has the focus and stamina to deal with all the challenges facing our country.”
Republicans kicked off their voting season with the Iowa caucus in January, followed by the primary in New Hampshire. Trump won both contests, leaving Haley as the lone challenger to him in the GOP race.
The U.S. presidential primaries will last through June. The Republican National Convention, in which delegates will officially select the party’s presidential nominee, will be held in July, while the Democratic National Convention will take place in August. The 2024 Election Day falls on Nov. 5.
President turned the tables on Tuesday, saying he would take the issue as his own on the campaign trail and use it against Trump and Congressional Republicans…writes T.N Ashok
The US President Joe Biden lashed out at the GOP with the remark “Grow a Spine” for picking up enough courage to oppose his predecessor Donald Trump and defy his demand for scuttling the bipartisan compromise bill on the border issue.
Biden vowed to take the border issue on the campaign trail against Congressional Republicans who are too timid to defy Trump’s demand that a bipartisan compromise bill be scuttled. And his Deputy Kamala Harris has already hit the campaign dirt taking the abortion rights issue to the women voters across the country in a combined assault against the Republicans who are divided on both the issues.
Congressional Republicans are so afraid of Donald Trump that they are willing to risk border security, the fate of US ally Ukraine, and the US’ reputation abroad to appease the GOP presidential frontrunner Trump, President Joe Biden charged on Tuesday, appealing to lawmakers to pass a bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill.
“All indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor,” Biden said at the White House as it was increasingly clear that the hard work that went into the nuances and finer details of the border issue and sending assistance to Ukraine and the Middle East was seriously facing prospects of being jeopardised.
“Why? A simple reason. Donald Trump. Because Trump thinks it’s bad for him, politically. He’d rather weaponise this issue than actually solve it,” he added.
“It’s time for Republicans in Congress to show a little courage, to show a little spine … to make it clear to the American people that they work for them,” Biden said, pleading for passage of a bill Republicans had warmed up to until Trump campaigned for its defeat.
The border situation is an ongoing vulnerability for Biden, who faces the prospect of another close race with his predecessor this fall. With the economy strong and inflation stabilising, Republicans have shifted their attacks on Biden to the border problem, an issue that could be especially damaging to Biden in battleground states like Arizona, media reports said.
But the President turned the tables on Tuesday, saying he would take the issue as his own on the campaign trail and use it against Trump and Congressional Republicans.
“Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends,” Biden said.
The package, crafted by a bipartisan team on Capitol Hill, includes 1,500 additional border agents to physically secure the border, 4,300 asylum officers and 100 asylum judges. The latter two would reduce the current five to seven year wait for asylum claims to be adjudicated to a more reasonable six months, Biden said.
While the bill is sans some Democratic priorities — such as a path to citizenship for certain immigrants who strolled into the country illegally, including people illegally brought here as small children — it would expedite work permits for qualifying immigrants. That detail has been sought by Governors, Mayors and business people looking for workers.
Further, the legislation would give Biden the authority to temporarily shut down the border on days it is overwhelmed.
“If the bill were law today, it would require it to be shut down right now,” Biden said, reversing the attack on the GOP.
The bill also includes aid to Ukraine, to Israel and for humanitarian needs for Palestinians suffering in the war in Gaza. Denying that assistance would send a grim message to the rest of the world about America’s leadership, Biden warned.
“Supporting this bill is standing up to (Russian President Vladimir Putin),” who invaded Ukraine two years ago, Biden said: “Opposing this bill is playing into his hands.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, declared the bipartisan Senate bill “dead on arrival”. He’s acknowledged having conversations with Trump but said the former President did not intimidate him into killing the bill.
Once the GOP-run House signalled it would not even consider the package, Senate Republicans started to jump ship, making it unclear whether the upper chamber would even consider the package their own members negotiated on a bipartisan basis, media reports said.
Congress Careens Toward Border Showdown: “Doing nothing is not an option,” Biden said.
“Republicans have to decide: Who do they serve? Donald Trump or the American people? Are they here to solve problems or just weaponise those problems for political purposes? I know my answer. I serve the American people.”
The Senate needs 60 votes to advance the border package to the Congress. Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat indicated that a vote will be on Wednesday. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, suggested a “repackage” that would include foreign aid while taking the border elements out of it.
“Most of our members feel that we’re not going to be able to make a law here” on border security, McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Biden refused to endorse that idea, saying he still wanted a package with both Ukraine and Mideast assistance as well as border security.
Biden’s campaign fears Trump could use the report and any accompanying photos to create equivalency with his charges…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden’s team fears that the results of a classified documents investigation could lead to embarrassing information, and possibly photos, that could hurt his re-election campaign, media reports said.
Biden’s aides believe that though special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation won’t lead to any criminal charges, as per Axios, unflattering details and photos could still lead to political fallout.
Former President Donald Trump is facing felony charges related to his handling of classified documents that he took to his Florida home on the last day of his office in the White House. Soon after Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was raided by the FBI in August 2022, Biden weighed in by asking aloud how “anyone could be that irresponsible”.
But Biden soon found himself at the receiving end of the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s case on the classified documents scandal, when documents from his eight-year term as Vice President were found in his Wilmington home and at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington.
Biden’s campaign fears Trump could use the report and any accompanying photos to create equivalency with his charges, Axios reported.
Hur’s investigation is believed to be finished and could be released as soon as this week, the Washington Examiner reported.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, giving him the kind of emphatic result he no doubt envisioned when he made the state the first contest on the Democrat’s presidential nominating calendar, The New York Times reported.
The leading US daily reported that Biden won an overwhelming majority of South Carolina Democrats, more than 96 per cent with 80 per cent of the vote counted, dominating every county with more than 95 per cent of the vote, including in heavily Black areas.
President Biden vowed that South Carolina would once again send him to the White House.
“The people of South Carolina have spoken again, and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser again,” the president said in a statement released by his campaign.
Biden Criticised Trump for Allegedly Insulting Fallen Soldiers, Expresses Uncertainty About His Reaction if Present in Washington…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden, known to be soft-spoken, went raging and stated he had to hold back his “Irish temper” when his predecessor Donald Trump reportedly described fallen soldiers in unseemly words.
Hitting out at Trump for purportedly calling fallen soldiers “suckers and losers”, Biden told a wealthy donors fundraising dinner at Las Vegas in Nevada that he did not know what he would have done if he had been around Trump in Washington that day. Biden had lost his son in the war against Iraq.
“I have to hold my Irish temper. I’m glad I wasn’t with him. I’m not sure what I would’ve done. He had said they’re all suckers and losers,” Biden said addressing wealthy donors at the fundraiser in Las Vegas on Sunday ahead of the Nevada primaries.
Mentioning his son Beau, who served in the Delaware National Guard in Iraq before he died in 2015, the President got animated: “My son was not a sucker nor were any of yours. Who does this guy think he is talking about Americans?”
During a rally in Las Vegas’ Historic Westside, Biden repeated a similar version of the speech, telling the crowd: “This is the guy, when he was in France; they asked him to go to an American cemetery in France for World War II, where Americans were buried. You know what he said? He said those folks were suckers and losers.”
“Called my son and your sons and daughters who gave their lives in this country suckers and losers. That’s how this guy thinks. Who the hell does he think he is?” Biden said.
Multiple US media outlets on Saturday night declared Biden the projected winner shortly after the close of polling…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden kicked off his inevitable claim on the Democratic nomination for the president post with a win in the first of the party’s primaries held in South Carolina, a state that had changed the trajectory of his 2020 campaign.
“The truth is I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina, and that’s a fact,” Biden said at a campaign event last week in South Carolina. “So, I want to start with a very simple message: From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Multiple US media outlets on Saturday night declared Biden the projected winner shortly after the close of polling.
Biden has a lock on the nomination despite his low approval ratings. His rivals for the ticket are Dean Phillips, member of the House of Representatives, and self-help author Marianne Williamson. Robert Kennedy Jr, nephew of President John F Kennedy, a Democrat, has declared himself an Independent and is drawing as much attention among conservatives as liberals.
The Democrats changed their primaries schedule this year and switched from the traditions first — Iowa for caucuses and New Hampshire for primaries — to South Carolina as their first state in the primaries contest. This state had turned the fortunes of Biden’s 2020 campaign with a thumping win that erased the slate of Iowa and New Hampshire outcomes and set him on course to the nomination and the presidency,
Biden’s projected win in the state marked the start of his march to re-nomination and a second term.
Biden’s Republican rival is likely to be his predecessor and 2020 rival, former President Donald Trump unless the latter is convicted and jailed in any of the many cases going on against him. Or, if Nikki Haley, the Indian American Republican politician who served as two-term governor of South Carolina and then as ambassador to the UN, is able to convince Republican voters to choose her over Trump in the remaining primaries.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has defended Israeli settlers as ‘law abiding citizens’ after Biden administration imposed sanctions on them
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded harshly to a statement made by President Joe Biden on Thursday on what the President called “settler violence” in the West Bank. The statement came as the Biden Administration imposed sanctions on Israelis referred to as “extremist settlers” who commit acts of violence against Palestinians.
“The overwhelming majority of residents in Judea and Samaria are law-abiding citizens, many of whom are currently fighting – as conscripts and reservists – to defend Israel,” declared Netanyahu.
“Israel acts against all Israelis who break the law, everywhere; therefore, exceptional measures are unnecessary,” he added.
In his statement, President Biden said, “I find that the situation in the West Bank – in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction – has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region.”
The President went on to say that such actions “undermine the foreign policy objectives of the United States, including the viability of a two-state solution and ensuring Israelis and Palestinians can attain equal measures of security, prosperity, and freedom.”
Biden also said that they undermine the security of Israel and have the potential to “lead to broader regional destabilisation across the Middle East, threatening United States personnel and interests.”
“For these reasons,” asserted the President, “these actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” (ANI/TPS)
