President Joe Biden is holding a rare news conference Wednesday at the one-year mark in his presidency to try to talk anxious Americans through the challenges of delivering on his lengthy to-do list.
Biden has held just six solo news conferences during his first year in office. The ongoing threat from the coronavirus will be evident in the very setup of Wednesday's gathering: A limited number of reporters will be allowed to attend, and all will have to be tested for the virus and wear masks.
As for voting rights, she said, Biden's view"is that it’s never a good idea not to shoot for the moon with what your proposals are and what you’re fighting for. And the alternative is to fight for nothing and to fight for nothing hard.” On the Senate floor, meanwhile, Democrats are on track to lose a vote to change the chamber's rules in order to pass voting reform legislation due to the opposition of Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. That will underscore the constraints on Biden's influence barely a week after he delivered an impassioned speech in Atlanta comparing opponents of the measures to segregationists and exhorting senators to action.
Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin encouraged Biden to be “honest and realistic” in his comments to Americans, particularly about the harsh realities around what's possible in a 50-50 divided Senate where any single Democratic lawmaker can block Biden’s agenda. Biden, for his part, is signaling he's not ready for a major shift in direction after recent policy setbacks. Instead, his White House is promising dogged work to deliver on promises made.
“We’re now at a stage where Russia could, at any point, launch an attack in Ukraine,” Psaki said Tuesday, reiterating that the U.S. and its allies would impose stiff economic penalties on Russia if it seized any more Ukrainian territory.
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