Closing summary
That’s all from the US politics blog for today, thanks for joining us.
Joe Biden spoke at the White House to announce restrictions on “ghost guns,” and to kick-off a new push for meaningful gun reforms, despite opposition in Congress. Among his first objectives will be to get his pick Steve Dettelbach confirmed as the new director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives.
Developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict can be found on our live 24-hour blog here.
In the US today:
- Biden had a “constructive and productive” video conference with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, but failed to secure an assurance that India would stop buying Russian oil.
- A state judge knocked Abby Finkenauer, a Democrat seeking to unseat Republican Chuck Grassley as Iowa senator, off the 7 June primary ballot on a technicality.
- Liz Cheney, the Republican Wyoming congresswoman booted from her party leadership role for joining the House panel investigating the 6 January Capitol attack, has raised $2.94m for her reelection campaign in the year’s first quarter.
- Maryland became the 15th US state to allow health professionals other than doctors to carry out abortions, as part of a bill expanding access to reproductive rights for women.
- The New York mayor Eric Adams announced that the Juneteeth holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the US would be a paid day-off for city employees for the first time.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced she has now tested negative for coronavirus, days after she became one of the leading names in a flurry of Covid news last week involving Capitol Hill and White House figures.
So, look out, congressmen and women, Pelosi will be unleashed once again on Tuesday to bring her inimitable style to the Capitol.
Today, happily I tested negative for COVID. Tomorrow, I will be exiting isolation at the direction of the Capitol’s Attending Physician and consistent with CDC guidelines for asymptomatic individuals. Many thanks to everyone for their good wishes, chocolates and chicken soup.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) April 11, 2022
The picture at the top is one that got folks rattled, as those testing positive among Washington leaders got closer and closer to Biden himself. But the Speaker is back!
Updated
The US president has taken to Twitter to vent his frustration further at the proliferation of untraceable ‘ghost’ guns, calling them the “weapon of choice for many criminals”.
Joe Biden taking to Twitter is not a sentence often written, especially in comparison with his predecessor Donald Trump who would announce entire policy decisions, fire members of his cabinet and launch personal attacks all via the social media platform (from which he is banned).
Biden tweets seldom and mostly tamely. But he has posted a series of extra statements following his remarks earlier about new restrictions on ghost guns.
Having called ghost guns a weapon of choice for criminals he said his administration will do “everything we can to deprive them of that choice”.
Last year alone, law enforcement reported approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns to ATF.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 11, 2022
That’s a ten-fold increase from 2016.
These guns are the weapon of choice for many criminals — and we’re going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice.
He lamented ghost guns being easy to assemble and use.
A felon or domestic abuser can go from kit to gun in as little as 30 minutes. Buyers aren’t required to pass a background check. And because the guns have no serial numbers, when they show up at crime scenes, they can’t be traced.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 11, 2022
It’s a drop in the ocean when it comes to new gun safety laws in the US.
Today, the United States Department of Justice is banning the business of manufacturing one of these kits without a serial number and requiring sellers to run background checks — just as they must do with other firearms.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 11, 2022
One more:
In addition to today’s rule, we’re working in four areas to reduce gun violence:
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 11, 2022
- Going after rogue gun dealers
- Disrupting illegal gun trafficking
- Funding community policing and community violence intervention
- Funding job training, drug treatment, mental health, and more
Updated
A federal judge in Washington, DC has sentenced two men and a woman from Missouri to several weeks in jail for their roles in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, Reuters reports.
Judge James Boasberg sentenced Emily Hernandez, of Sullivan, to 30 days in jail.
He also sentenced her uncle, William Merry, and another suburban St Louis man, Paul Scott Westover, to 45 days in jail each, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
All three also were ordered to pay $500 for damaging the Capitol.
The trio entered the Capitol through a smashed door. A government sentencing memo says Merry goaded Hernandez into picking up a broken piece of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s sign. It also says Hernandez shot a video of herself stealing two other signs.
Westover pleaded guilty on December 6 to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol.
Merry pleaded guilty on January 5 to one count of theft of government property.
Hernandez pleaded guilty on January 10 to one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building.
The president closed his presentation on gun reform by introducing Steve Dettelbach, a former justice department prosecutor, as his nominee for director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (ATF) .
It will be Biden’s second attempt at getting a pick through Congress to head the agency after the confirmation of his previous choice, David Chipman, a 25-year ATF veteran, collapsed last year.
“Steve is immensely qualified,” Biden said. “He served the department of justice for two decades. He worked side by side to support the work of federal, state and local law enforcement including ATF agents.
“Steve’s record makes him ready on day one to lead this agency and, by the way, in 2009 the US Senate unanimously confirmed him to serve as US attorney,” Biden added, presumably seeking to steer off any early congressional opposition to his choice for ATF director this time around.
Dettelbach’s confirmation, Biden believes, will be a stride forward in what the president last year branded the US’ “international embarrassment” of gun violence.
Biden was speaking after Mia Tretta, a teenage survivor of a 2019 shooting at Saugus high school in Santa Clarita, California, recounted her experience of seeing two of her closest friends killed by a fellow student, and suffering a serious stomach injury herself.
“I later learned that we had been shot by a 16-year-old student for reasons I will never know. He had brought his father’s weapon to school. A firearm I would come to know as a ghost gun,” she said.
Tretta went on to sue the seller of the weapon used.
“School shootings with ghost guns are on the rise. And the most lasting thing I have learned other than the loss of friends or the shattering of my youth is that nothing has relieved the pain in my heart like working to prevent more senseless shootings,” she said, praising Biden for “standing up for survivors” and taking “bold, meaningful action to stop the spread of ghost guns.”
Biden hugged Tretta after she spoke, then took the podium acknowledging the presence of so many survivors and victims’ families, and activists working for gun law reforms.
“The loss in this crowd is incalculable. But so is the strength,” he said.
“[You] represent individuals and families all across this country whose lives have been forever changed by a ghost gun. Some made national headlines, many others did not. We honor your strength and your action.
“A year ago this week I instructed the attorney general to write a regulation that would rein in the proliferation of ghost guns because I was having trouble getting past in the Congress, but I use what we call regulatory authority. A year later, we’re here. We keep that promise.”
That Biden is using executive authority to try to enact at least some reform is reflective of the current impasse he faces in Congress, despite Democrats controlling both houses and the White House.
As mass shootings and gun crimes, particularly those committed using ghost guns, have proliferated across the nation, Republicans have held up gun reforms in state houses across the country, as well as in Washington DC.
Read more:
Biden announces ghost gun restrictions, seeks to end 'terrible fellowship of loss'
Joe Biden said it was “basic common sense” to want untraceable, so-called ghost guns off the street, during a White House address to announce new firearms restrictions.
In an event at the Rose Garden attended by numerous survivors and families of victims of gun violence, the president said he was clamping down on the kit-form guns to try to prevent others joining the “terrible fellowship of loss.”
He also took a swipe at Republicans in Congress, and the gun rights lobby, including the national rifle association (NRA), that have opposed his efforts to enact reform.
“The gun lobby tried to tie up the regulations and paperwork for a long, long time. The NRA called this rule I’m about to announce extreme,” Biden said.
“But let me ask you, is it extreme to protect police officers? Extreme to protect our children? Extreme to keep guns out of the hands of people who couldn’t even pass a background check?
“The idea that someone on a terrorist list can purchase one of these guns is extreme. Extreme? It’s not extreme. It’s just basic common sense.”
Biden’s order will require ghost guns to be allocated serial numbers when they are sold, either in the first instance as kits, or if they are resold in assembled form.
But he acknowledged “this should be just the start” in terms of gun restrictions.
“I’ll continue to push Congress to act on sensible legislation,” he said announcing what he said would be a “comprehensive strategy to supercharge” such measures.
“We need Congress to pass universal background checks. And I know it’s controversial, but I got it done once: ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines.”
Updated
Biden: Ghost guns pose 'especially grave threat'
Joe Biden’s administration is announcing new firearms restrictions in a ceremony at the White House, at which the president is also unveiling his pick to head the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms (ATF).
Biden, for once, is not making the initial presentation, instead standing by in his sunglasses in the Rose Garden sunshine, alongside the deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco, as the vice-president Kamala Harris announced the clampdown on untraceable “ghost guns.”
Such weapons are cheaply and readily available in kit form on the internet.
“Our nation continues to be plagued by an epidemic of gun violence,” Harris said.
“Traditional guns are required to have serial numbers, which can help law enforcement identify firearms that have been stolen from its lawful owner, or found at the scene of a crime.
“Ghost guns have no serial numbers. They are practically untraceable making it more difficult for law enforcement to hold to account those who use weapons to do violence because of how easy they are to access and how difficult they are to trace.
“Ghost guns pose an especially grave threat to the safety of our communities.”
Updated
Rashida Tlaib, Democratic congresswoman for Michigan, has announced she has tested positive for Covid-19, the first public acknowledgement of an infection by a prominent Washington figure this week, after a recent flurry.
Tlaib joins, among others, the House speaker Nancy Pelosi, senators Joaquin Castro and Susan Collins, Biden administration officials Tom Vilsack and Gina Raimondo, the mayor of Washington DC Muriel Bowser, and the attorney general Merrick Garland, who all announced they had received positive tests last week.
Tlaib, who says she is vaccinated and boosted, is experiencing symptoms, according to her tweet, and is currently isolating.
Over the weekend, I began to experience COVID-19 symptoms & unfortunately have tested positive. This is a stark reminder that we are not out of this pandemic. Thankfully, I am vaccinated & boosted. I am currently isolating and following CDC guidelines. Please stay safe, everyone.
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) April 11, 2022
The White House has released more details of its soon-to-be-announced restrictions on “ghost guns.”
A fact sheet issued to accompany Joe Biden’s afternoon address from the Rose Garden says all such weapons put up for sale must be allocated a serial number so they can be traced in future.
Ghost guns are those assembled from kits, often purchased online, and without serial numbers, making it difficult, if not impossible to track them.
According to the fact sheet:
This final rule bans the business of manufacturing the most accessible ghost guns, such as unserialized ‘buy build shoot’ kits that individuals can buy online or at a store without a background check and can readily assemble into a working firearm in as little as 30 minutes with equipment they have at home,” the White House fact sheet states.
This rule clarifies that these kits qualify as “firearms” under the Gun Control Act, and that commercial manufacturers of such kits must therefore become licensed and include serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver, and commercial sellers of these kits must become federally licensed and run background checks prior to a sale – just like they have to do with other commercially-made firearms.
The final rule will also help turn some ghost guns already in circulation into serialized firearms. Through this rule, the Justice Department is requiring federally licensed dealers and gunsmiths taking any unserialized firearm into inventory to serialize that weapon.
At her afternoon briefing, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if she thought Biden’s new rules would hold up in the face of expected stiff Republican opposition. Despite holding a majority in both houses of Congress, Democrats have been unable to progress gun control measures by way of legislation.
“The president is confident in any executive order and the legal authority that he puts forward,” she said.
“But what’s important to note about the announcement he is making today is that this is a rule that is supported by law enforcement. It is a rule that will help address what we know is a rising component of gun crimes across the country.”
Modi call 'constructive', White House says, but no agreement over Russian oil
Joe Biden made efforts to dissuade India from continuing to purchase oil from Russia during his earlier call with the prime minister, Narendra Modi, the White House says, but did not appear to have secured a commitment that it would do so.
At her afternoon briefing to reporters Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, characterised a “constructive, productive” video conference between the leaders, who discussed the conflict in Ukraine and India’s ongoing reliance on Russian crude.
India purchased millions of barrels of Russian oil at a discount in February as other nations were ramping up sanctions on the country for its invasion of Ukraine, drawing criticism from the US and several allies.
“What the president did … was to make clear what the impact of course of our sanctions would be. We expect everybody to abide by those,” Psaki said.
“India only imports about 1-2% of its energy from Russia. We also made clear and the president made clear that we would be happy to help them in diversifying this as well.
“The president also made clear that he does not believe it’s in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy, and other commodities as well,” she added, likely referring to India’s investment in Russian S-400 military air defense systems.
Asked if Modi had given any commitment to reduce or eliminate purchases of Russian oil, Psaki said “I’ll let prime minister Modi and the Indians speak to that.
“It was a constructive call, it was a productive call. It’s a relationship that is vitally important to the United States and to the president. I would not see it as an adversarial call.”
Updated
The Democrat with perhaps the best chance to unseat Chuck Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa, in the midterm elections in November has been knocked off the 7 June primary ballot – for now.
As the Associated Press reports, late on Sunday a state judge ruled that Abby Finkenauer cannot appear on the ballot for the Democratic primary, because of a technicality.
The ruling from the judge, Scott Beattie, an appointee of the Republican governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, overturned a decision from a panel of three state elected officials last week which found Finkenauer’s campaign staff had mostly followed a law requiring candidates to obtain 3,500 signatures, including at least 100 from a minimum of 19 counties.
Two Republicans challenged Finkenauer’s paperwork, saying signatures from at least two counties were missing the date required to accompany them, the AP said. Finkenauer can appeal the ruling to the Iowa supreme court.
Finkenauer is considered the Democratic frontrunner in the primary partly because of her past experience in Congress, having served in the US House from 2019 to 2021.
Other Democrats in the primary are Mike Franken, a retired admiral, and Glenn Hurst, a doctor and city council member. Whoever wins will advance to face Grassley, who at a sprightly 88 years old is in search of an eighth term in the Senate, having first been elected in 1980.
The Democrats for now hold a single-vote edge in the 50-50 Senate because vice-president Kamala Harris can serve as a tiebreaker. As always, both parties are trying to retain seats while flipping others to secure a majority in the chamber.
Updated
Watching Fox News can be like entering an alternative universe. It’s a world where Vladimir Putin isn’t actually that bad but vaccines may be and where some unhinged rightwing figures are celebrated as heroes but Anthony Fauci, America’s top public health official, is an unrivaled villain.
Given the steady stream of misinformation an avid Fox News consumer is subjected to, the viewers – predominantly elderly, white and Donald Trump-supporting – are sometimes written off as lost causes by Democrats and progressives, but according to a new study, there is still hope.
In an unusual, and labor intensive, project, two political scientists paid a group of regular Fox News viewers to instead watch CNN for a month. At the end of the period, the researchers found surprising results; some of the Fox News watchers had changed their minds on a range of key issues, including the US response to coronavirus and Democrats’ attitude to police.
Full article:
Interesting news from Wyoming – via Politico – about Liz Cheney, the defiantly anti-Trump conservative Republican.
Politico reports that the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney “is prepared to announce that [she] raised an eye-popping $2.94m in Q1 of 2022, bringing her total haul for the cycle to more than $10m. With four months left to go in the primary campaign, Cheney has $6.8m on hand”.
What that means is that Cheney is well placed for the fight to keep her seat, against a Donald Trump-endorsed challenger and other Republican hopefuls, one of whom the website describes as “even Trumpier” than the one the former president has chosen to back.
Wyoming is deep-red Republican and as Politico says, “in previous cycles it was common for Cheney to raise a few hundred thousand dollars in a quarter, mostly from Wyoming residents. With the national attention her race has received, money has poured in from across the country.”
Cheney was booted out of Republican House leadership over her membership, with Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, of the January 6 committee. Unlike Kinzinger, one of four anti-Trump Republicans to have announced retirements in November, Cheney is sticking around for the fight.
This has all raised her profile considerably. One more quote from Politico: “If she beats Trumpism in Wyoming, [Cheney] will immediately be able to leverage her new national fundraising network into a potential 2024 [presidential] primary showdown against the man himself.
“After all, she said last May, “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.”
Here’s more on Cheney and January 6:
Biden and Modi pledge collaboration over Ukraine
Joe Biden and Narendra Modi are talking now over a video link about the conflict in Ukraine and what Biden said is: “Our close consultation on how to manage the destabilizing effects of this Russian war.”
The US president and Indian prime minister are in a private session, at which Biden is expected to raise US concerns over India’s perceived closeness to Moscow and its continuing investment in Russian oil and military systems.
But the mood was lighter as Biden and Modi presented a collaborative front in the public portion of their meeting, aired live on the White House website.
“At the root of our partnership is a deep connection between our people, a family of friendship and a shared value,” Biden said, as Modi appeared on a giant screen before him.
“The people in Ukraine are suffering a horrific assault, including the tragic shelling in a train station last week that killed dozens of innocent children and women and civilians attempting to flee the violence. The United States and India are going to continue our close consultation on how to manage the destabilizing effects of this Russian war.”
Modi condemned Russian killings of Ukraine citizens and said India was “very worried” about the alleged atrocities in Bucha.
“We condemn the killings and have called for an independent inquiry,” he said, adding that India had contributed to the global effort to send help to Ukraine.
“We have also emphasized the importance of the security of civilians in Ukraine and the unhindered supply of humanitarian assistance to them.”
The press were asked to leave without the opportunity to ask questions, and the live feed went dark. It remains to be seen if Biden or Modi will make themselves available to reporters at the event’s conclusion.
Updated
Maryland has become the 15th US state to allow health professionals other than doctors to carry out abortions, as part of a bill expanding access to reproductive rights for women.
Under the new law, midwives, senior nurses and trained doctor’s assistants will be authorised to perform medical abortions from 1 July. The bill also directs the state to ring-fence $3.5m a year for abortion-care training.
The bill was vetoed by the Republican governor, Larry Hogan, but approved on Saturday with substantial majorities in the state house and senate.
Hogan claimed in an open letter the bill would “endanger the health and lives of women” and “set back standards for women’s health care and safety”.
There is no evidence that allowing advanced clinicians to provide abortion care in states including California, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois and New Hampshire has led to lower standards.
The law, which may face legal challenge from anti-choice groups, also requires most insurance companies to cover the cost of an abortion at no cost to the patient. The average cost of an abortion is $500 but costs vary widely across the US and can be much higher when accounting for travel and days off work.
The Maryland legislation comes amid a surge in bills in Republican-run states seeking to severely restrict or ban access to abortion.
Last week, a young woman was jailed in Texas after being accused of causing the “death of an individual by self-induced abortion”.
Lizelle Herrera, 26 and from Starr county, was released on Sunday after charges were dropped amid widespread condemnation.
Read more here:
Juneteenth will be a paid holiday for city workers in New York for the first time this year, mayor Eric Adams has announced, further crystalizing recognition of the date commemorating the end of slavery in the US and fulfilling a promise made by his predecessor Bill de Blasio.
He made the announcement in a Monday morning tweet citing the urgency of the declaration.
As the second Black mayor of New York City, I know that I stand on the shoulders of countless heroes and sheroes who put their lives on the line to secure a more perfect union. Now is the time for me to do a small part and recognize one of our nation’s greatest wrongs.
Juneteenth is a time for reflection, assessment, and self-improvement. People across the country of all races, nationalities, and religions unite on this day to truthfully acknowledge the stain of slavery and celebrate the countless contributions of Black Americans. It’s time for our city to finally do what’s right and officially designate Juneteenth as a city holiday.
This decision is long overdue, which is why it will immediately take effect this year.
De Blasio promised to make 19 June, the official date of Juneteenth, a paid day off in 2020 as racial protests swept the nation, but was never able to agree a deal with union leaders.
Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday last year, the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr Day was first celebrated in 1986.
It’s time for our city to finally do what’s right and officially designate Juneteenth as a city holiday. This decision is long overdue, which is why it will immediately take effect this year.
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) April 11, 2022
Read my full statement: pic.twitter.com/W0yPmKTl5q
Biden to announce restrictions on 'ghost guns'
Gun controls are back on Joe Biden’s radar, with the president set to announce this afternoon restrictions on so-called ghost guns, those made from kits and without serial numbers, thus rendering them untraceable.
A number of gun law activists have been invited to attend the Rose Garden event at the White House, including victims’ parents from the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre in Parkland, Florida, the worst high school shooting in the US with 17 students and staff killed.
One of the activists, Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin was among the victims, has grown increasingly impatient in recent months over a perceived lack of action by Biden, who campaigned for the White House partly on a promise of gun reforms.
He and his wife Patricia, Joaquin’s mother, have toured the country using drama and urban art to highlight gun deaths and promote their call for meaningful reforms.
The graphic evidence shows the social value of Guac’s disruptive behavior. See you tomorrow, @POTUS , and thanks for the invitation. Viva Guac! @ChangeTheRef @patriciapadauy @GunsDownAmerica @AMarch4OurLives pic.twitter.com/qzm7hachKh
— Manuel Oliver (@manueloliver00) April 10, 2022
Oliver was arrested in Washington DC in February on the fourth anniversary of his son’s death, climbing a crane and unfurling a banner directed at Biden reading: “45k died from gun violence on your watch.”
That figure is now above 54,000, according to the website shockmarket.org, which tallies gun deaths in the US since Biden took office.
“See you tomorrow Potus, and thanks for the invitation,” Oliver tweeted on Sunday, crediting “Guac”, his son’s nickname, for helping prompt Biden towards action.
The president will also introduce Steve Dettelbach, a former justice department prosecutor, as his nominee for director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (ATF)
Read more about today’s announcement here:
Updated
A federal judge has indicated that an attempt to stop the far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene running for re-election will be allowed to proceed, with a ruling expected as early as today.
The challenge from a group of Georgia voters says Greene should be disqualified under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, because she supported insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
A similar challenge in North Carolina, against Madison Cawthorn, another prominent supporter of Donald Trump, was blocked.
But on Friday Amy Totenberg, a federal judge in Georgia, said she had “significant questions and concerns” about the ruling in the Cawthorn case, CNN reported.
Totenberg said she was likely to rule on Greene’s attempt to have her case dismissed on Monday, two days before a scheduled hearing before a state judge.
The 14th amendment was passed by Congress in 1866, a year after the end of the civil war, and ratified in 1868.
It says: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Congress can reverse any such prohibition.
Read more here:
Updated
A plain-talking Joe Biden is likely to greet the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, on their video call this morning, the president expected to seek a harder line from New Delhi towards Russia over the Ukraine war.
The US and allies are concerned by recent Indian actions, including abstaining from last week’s vote that saw Russia suspended from the United Nations human rights council, buying 3bn barrels of Russian crude while other nations were ramping up oil sanctions, and acquisition of Russia’s S-400 air defense systems.
According to the White House press secretary Jen Psaki, in a statement on Sunday, the Biden-Modi call will discuss: “Strengthening the global economy, and upholding a free, open, rules-based international order to bolster security, democracy, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”
To many analysts, the softer language conceals what is expected to be a resolute US president setting out some hard truths to his Indian counterpart, and that consequences await if Modi’s government continues to court Moscow.
Vivian Salama, the Wall Street Journal’s national security reporter, characterizes (in this tweet) talk of deepening “ties between our governments, economies and people,” per Biden’s schedule announcing the meeting, thus: “This is White House speak for: ‘Potus to express deep disappointment in India’s ongoing ties with Moscow and will warn Modi about repercussions should he choose to accelerate energy imports from Russia.”
We’ll get the chance to assess the mood in the room when Biden and Modi appear briefly for reporters as they make the call, which is scheduled for 11am.
This is White House speak for: POTUS to express deep disappointment in India’s ongoing ties with Moscow and will warn Modi about repercussions should he choose to accelerate energy imports from Russia. pic.twitter.com/pK3Nt36sEr
— Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) April 11, 2022
Updated
Good morning, happy Monday, and thanks for joining the blog for what promises to be another intriguing week in US politics.
Joe Biden will host a video call with the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi this morning, ostensibly billed as a meeting to “deepen ties between our governments, economy and people,” which the Wall Street Journal’s national security reporter Vivian Salama sees as White House speak for: “Potus to express deep disappointment in India’s ongoing ties with Moscow and will warn Modi about repercussions should he choose to accelerate energy imports from Russia.”
The Russian war continues to escalate in eastern Ukraine in particular, and you can follow developments in our live 24-hour blog here.
Here’s what else we’re watching in the US today:
- Biden will announce measures to restrict “ghost guns” – made from kits and without serial numbers – in an address at the White House at 2.15pm. The president will also introduce Steve Dettelbach, a former justice department prosecutor, as his nominee for director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (ATF).
- A federal judge in Georgia could rule as early as today on a motion that could allow the progression of a lawsuit to disqualify the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress as an insurrectionist.
- The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, will deliver her first briefing of the week at 1pm.
- The vice-president, Kamala Harris, will announce new action on relieving medical debt later this afternoon.
