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No Haitian migrants remain in Del Rio bridge encampment – live updates Psaki: Biden will not invoke executive privilege to block access to Capitol riot records – live
(32 minutes later)
At White House briefing Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of Department of Homeland security, confirms ‘there are no longer any migrants at the camp’ Psaki’s comments come one day after House select committee investigating insurrection issued subpoenas to four former Trump aides
Hugo Lowell reported on the select committee’s latest round of subpoenas last night:
The House select committee scrutinizing the Capitol attack on Thursday sent subpoenas to Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and a cadre of top Trump aides, demanding their testimony to shed light on the former president’s connection to the 6 January riot.
The subpoenas and demands for depositions marked the most aggressive investigative actions the select committee has taken since it made records demands and records preservation requests that formed the groundwork of the inquiry into potential White House involvement.
House select committee investigators targeted four of the closest aides to the former president: deputy White House chief of staff Dan Scavino, former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon, and the former acting defense secretary’s chief of staff Kash Patel as well as Meadows.
Politico has some more details on how the process will play out as the select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection subpoenas records from the Trump White House:
And now the White House has indicated Biden is opposed to using executive privilege to block lawmakers’ access to subpoenaed documents, likely setting up a historic clash between the current and former presidents.
During her briefing, Jen Psaki also called on Republicans to help Democrats in reforming the immigration system, as the Biden administration weathers criticism over its treatment of Haitian migrants.During her briefing, Jen Psaki also called on Republicans to help Democrats in reforming the immigration system, as the Biden administration weathers criticism over its treatment of Haitian migrants.
The White House press secretary argued it would take congressional action to substantially improve “our broken immigration system,” saying such action was “long overdue”.The White House press secretary argued it would take congressional action to substantially improve “our broken immigration system,” saying such action was “long overdue”.
“There are a lot of Republicans out there giving speeches about how outraged they are about the situation at the border, not many who are putting forward solutions or steps that we could take,” Psaki said.“There are a lot of Republicans out there giving speeches about how outraged they are about the situation at the border, not many who are putting forward solutions or steps that we could take,” Psaki said.
“So we’re a little tired of the speeches. We’d like to partner on solutions and working together to address this problem that has not been partisan in the past.”“So we’re a little tired of the speeches. We’d like to partner on solutions and working together to address this problem that has not been partisan in the past.”
Jen Psaki said Joe Biden has decided he will not invoke executive privilege to block access to Trump White House records related to the Capitol insurrection.Jen Psaki said Joe Biden has decided he will not invoke executive privilege to block access to Trump White House records related to the Capitol insurrection.
“The president has already concluded it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege,” the White House press secretary said at her briefing.“The president has already concluded it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege,” the White House press secretary said at her briefing.
Psaki’s comments come one day after the House select committee investigating the insurrection issued subpoenas to four former aides of Donald Trump.Psaki’s comments come one day after the House select committee investigating the insurrection issued subpoenas to four former aides of Donald Trump.
The former president responded to the news by claiming he would “fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds”.The former president responded to the news by claiming he would “fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds”.
But because Trump is not president anymore, he would need to seek Biden’s permission to prevent lawmakers from gaining access to subpoenaed records. And now Biden is signaling he will not exercise his executive privilege on the matter.But because Trump is not president anymore, he would need to seek Biden’s permission to prevent lawmakers from gaining access to subpoenaed records. And now Biden is signaling he will not exercise his executive privilege on the matter.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki took over the podium after homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas departed the briefing room.White House press secretary Jen Psaki took over the podium after homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas departed the briefing room.
Asked about the timing of the House vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Psaki said, “We want to win the vote when it happens. That’s our objective.”Asked about the timing of the House vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Psaki said, “We want to win the vote when it happens. That’s our objective.”
According to CNN, House Democratic leaders are signaling they still plan to bring the bill up for a vote on Monday, as speaker Nancy Pelosi looks to simultaneously advance the reconciliation package.According to CNN, House Democratic leaders are signaling they still plan to bring the bill up for a vote on Monday, as speaker Nancy Pelosi looks to simultaneously advance the reconciliation package.
Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged that the footage of border agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants was “horrifying”.Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged that the footage of border agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants was “horrifying”.
However, Mayorkas seemed to temper his comments about the images more than Joe Biden has, saying that he was not willing to “pre-judge” the agents until the investigation into their actions was concluded.However, Mayorkas seemed to temper his comments about the images more than Joe Biden has, saying that he was not willing to “pre-judge” the agents until the investigation into their actions was concluded.
“We do not conduct ourselves in an immoral way,” Mayorkas said of his department. “We do not conduct ourselves in an unethical way.”“We do not conduct ourselves in an immoral way,” Mayorkas said of his department. “We do not conduct ourselves in an unethical way.”
Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there have been 17 expulsion flights to Haiti, carrying about 2,000 people.Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there have been 17 expulsion flights to Haiti, carrying about 2,000 people.
According to Mayorkas, another 8,000 migrants have voluntarily returned to Mexico. And 5,000 others are being processed by the department of homeland security.According to Mayorkas, another 8,000 migrants have voluntarily returned to Mexico. And 5,000 others are being processed by the department of homeland security.
Mayorkas said border officials have been expelling migrants under Title 42 when applicable.Mayorkas said border officials have been expelling migrants under Title 42 when applicable.
Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also addressed the outrage over footage of border agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants.Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also addressed the outrage over footage of border agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants.
“In the midst of meeting these challenges, we, our entire nation, saw horrifying images that do not reflect who we are, who we aspire to be, or the integrity and values of our truly heroic personnel in the department of homeland security,” Mayorkas said.“In the midst of meeting these challenges, we, our entire nation, saw horrifying images that do not reflect who we are, who we aspire to be, or the integrity and values of our truly heroic personnel in the department of homeland security,” Mayorkas said.
“We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.”“We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.”
Mayorkas noted there is an investigation underway into the agents’ behavior, and they have been reassigned to “administrative duties”. The department has also ended the use of horse patrol units in Del Rio.Mayorkas noted there is an investigation underway into the agents’ behavior, and they have been reassigned to “administrative duties”. The department has also ended the use of horse patrol units in Del Rio.
The homeland security secretary pledged to make public the findings of the investigation into the agents’ actions.The homeland security secretary pledged to make public the findings of the investigation into the agents’ actions.
The White House press secretary Jen Psaki is now holding her daily briefing, and she is joined by homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.The White House press secretary Jen Psaki is now holding her daily briefing, and she is joined by homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Mayorkas provided an update on the situation in the border city of Del Rio, Texas, where many Haitian migrants have been attempting to enter the US in recent weeks.Mayorkas provided an update on the situation in the border city of Del Rio, Texas, where many Haitian migrants have been attempting to enter the US in recent weeks.
The Biden administration has faced criticism for the treatment of the Haitians after images showed migrants camping underneath a bridge in the punishing Texas heat.The Biden administration has faced criticism for the treatment of the Haitians after images showed migrants camping underneath a bridge in the punishing Texas heat.
“As of this morning, there are no longer any migrants at the camp underneath the Del Rio International Bridge,” Mayorkas said.“As of this morning, there are no longer any migrants at the camp underneath the Del Rio International Bridge,” Mayorkas said.
Joe Biden is now holding the first-ever in-person Quad leaders summit at the White House.Joe Biden is now holding the first-ever in-person Quad leaders summit at the White House.
Biden is joined by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.Biden is joined by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The US president sat down with Modi in the Oval Office this morning, and he will hold a separate meeting with Suga this afternoon.The US president sat down with Modi in the Oval Office this morning, and he will hold a separate meeting with Suga this afternoon.
Biden also held a one-on-one meeting with Morrison earlier this week, during which the two leaders “affirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” per the White House readout of their conversation.Biden also held a one-on-one meeting with Morrison earlier this week, during which the two leaders “affirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” per the White House readout of their conversation.
Karen Bass, a Democratic congresswoman from California, is reportedly planning to run for Los Angeles mayor. The Washington Post first reported the news.
Although the field is still shaping up, Bass’ national profile and broad popularity would make her a top contender for the position Eric Garcetti is vacating to be ambassador to India.
Bass, 67, was on the short list to be Joe Biden’s vice-president. Her name has also come up in discussions of who might replace Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker.
In California, she has built a reputation as a progressive and a pragmatist: a community organizer who fought police brutality and addiction in Los Angeles and a practical politician who helped dig the state out of a historical fiscal crisis in 2008.
She was elected to Congress in 2010 to lead one of the most diverse districts in California, a constituency in Los Angeles that is 25% white, 25% Black, 40% Latino and 8% Asian American.
In the House, she took the lead in pushing for a police reform bill which passed her chamber twice but failed this week after negotiators conceded that Senate Democrats and Republicans would be unable to reconcile their differences.
“It’s sad,” she told the LA Times in an interview published Friday morning. “But at this point, I just felt like we were just running around in circles and we were never going to get to yes on anything.”
Still, she told reporters earlier this week, “our sense of urgency remains”.
Bass urged Biden and his administration to “use the full extent of their constitutionally mandated power to bring about meaningful police reform”.
In LA, Bass is interested in addressing homelessness and public health in the aftermath of the pandemic, a spokesperson said.
Other mayoral candidates include city council member and former state Senate leader Kevin de León, city attorney Mike Feuer and council member Joe Buscain.
Telling Democrats “that intensity continues”, the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has confirmed plans to press ahead with efforts to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and Joe Biden’s huge budget and spending package.
“We move forward to pass two jobs bills next week: the Build Back Better Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework,” Pelosi wrote in a widely reported letter to her party on Friday.
On the spending bill, which runs to 2,465 pages or more than two War & Peaces if you go by the first edition of Leo Tolstoy’s voluminous potboiler, Manu Raju of CNN more succinctly reports: “House Democratic leaders emerge from meeting saying they could vote as soon as next week on the reconciliation bill. Rules [committee] could act on Tuesday. [Majority leader Steney] Hoyer will soon announce it’s possible.”
Reconciliation is the process by which budgetary legislation can pass the Senate with a simple majority. That chamber is split 50-50, with Vice-President Kamala Harris the deciding vote.
“It’s unclear what version they could bring to floor since Democrats are still in significant disagreement,” Raju added.
He was referring to splits between moderates and progressives over spending priorities and ambitions, all playing out in a way that a) threatens to tank Biden’s domestic agenda in a bloody tableau of intra-party dysfunction and b) has Republicans rubbing their hands with glee, what with their complete opposition to such plans and also their determination to force a showdown over the debt ceiling and with it a possible government shutdown.
In short, Pelosi’s right. The intensity will continue.
An extraordinary confrontation outside the Capitol today, between the Michigan Democrat Debbie Dingell and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far right Republican from Georgia.
As reported by Ben Siegel of ABC News, the confrontation developed as Democrats prepared to host a press conference on the Capitol steps about abortion rights, after voting to protect them in the face of concerted assault from Republican-run states.
“Stand with women,” Greene shouted.
“You’re performative,” Pete Aguilar, a Democrat from California, replied.
Dingell then shouted: “You should practice the basic thing you’re taught in church: respect your neighbour!”
Greene shouted back: “Church?! Are you kidding me? Try being a Christian and supporting life.”
Dingell responded: “You try being a Christian and try treating your colleagues decently.”
Greene said: “Watch your step.”
She may have meant it literally, as Dingell briefly and slightly unsteadily stepped down towards her.
If the confrontation was not quite reminiscent of those described in The Field of Blood (a well-received book by the historian Joanne B Freeman, about brutal spats in Congress in the years before the civil war) it was certainly indicative of the bitter split between most members of Congress – and the US at large.
Here’s Lauren Gambino’s report on the vote on abortion rights which preceded the confrontation at the Capitol:
Here’s where the day stands so far:
The sham election “audit” in Maricopa county found that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 360 more votes than previously thought. A draft report of the audit’s findings affirmed that Biden won Arizona’s most populous county last year. The investigation, which was overseen by a firm whose CEO had promoted lies about election fraud, had attracted many allegations of political bias.
Biden pledged that there would be “consequences” for border agents accused of mistreating Haitian migrants. Taking reporters’ questions after delivering prepared remarks on vaccination efforts, Biden said the footage of border agents on horseback confronting migrants was “horrible”. “It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay,” the president said.
House Democrats passed a bill to establish a federal right to abortion. The nearly party-line vote came weeks after a highly controversial six-week abortion ban went into effect in Texas, leading to copy cat bills in other states. The House-approved legislation is considered dead on arrival in the evenly controlled Senate.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
The debate ahead of the abortion vote was passionate and personal, as was expected for what has become one of the most polarizing issues in American politics.
Some Democrats recalled the days before 1973, when the supreme court decided Roe v Wade, establishing a legal right to abortion nationwide.
“Roe v Wade was not the beginning of women having abortions,” said Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois. “It was the end of women dying from abortions.”
Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat of Texas, waved a wire coat hanger as a symbol of the dangerous – and sometimes deadly – methods women would use to attempt an abortion before it was legalized.
Republicans rose to denounce the bill, arguing that it would allow “abortion on demand” at every stage of pregnancy, even until birth.
The measure “isn’t about freedom for women,” said Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler, a Republican from Missouri. “It’s about death for babies.”
House Democrats voted on Friday to establish a federal right to abortion, moving swiftly to advance the measure after the supreme court declined to stop a Texas law effectively outlawing the procedure and as they await a separate ruling next year that could further erode access.
The legislation, named the Women’s Health and Protection Act, is part of the party’s strategy to push back against the rush of state laws restricting abortions and to show their determination to defend reproductive rights, an issue they believe will resonate ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Joe Biden has urged support for the measure, but Republican opposition in the Senate all but ensures the bill will not reach his desk.
With the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, presiding over the vote, the House passed the measure 218-211. All Republicans and one Democrat opposed the bill.
The scramble to secure a remote connection for Kamala Harris severely delayed her interview with The View, so the conversation kicked off with about ten minutes left in the show.
When the interview finally began, the View hosts pressed Harris on the Biden administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and immigration policies.
Asked about the alarming footage of border agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas, Harris said she was “outraged” by the images.
Noting that there is an investigation underway into the border agents’ behavior, Harris said, “There needs to be consequence and accountability. Human beings should not be treated that way.”
Asked whether the Biden administration would halt deportation flights to allow those migrants to apply for asylum, Harris deflected, simply saying the US must “do more” to support Haiti.
Kamala Harris’ plans to appear in-studio for an interview on The View were scrapped after two of the talk show’s hosts tested positive for coronavirus.
Moments before the vice-president was supposed to come onstage, it was announced that hosts Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro had tested positive for Covid.
So the interview, which was meant to be Harris’ first in-studio conversation since becoming vice-president, was conducted remotely.
When the interview finally began, Harris offered her best wishes to Hostin and Navarro, both of whom are fully vaccinated.
“Sunny and Ana are strong women, and I know they’re fine, but it really also does speak to the fact that they’re vaccinated and vaccines really make all the difference because otherwise we would be concerned about hospitalization and worse,” Harris said to applause from the studio audience.
Joe Biden will host the first in-person summit of the Quad countries – the US, India, Japan and Australia – at the White House on Friday as he ratchets up the reorientation of US foreign policy towards the Pacific and the containment of China.
The summit, which will seek to deepen ties within the ad hoc grouping, will take place just nine days after the surprise announcement of the Aukus security agreement between Australia, the UK and US, built around the sharing of nuclear-propulsion technology with Australia for its new submarine fleet.
Aukus and an invigorated Quad are the two central pillars of the US president’s signature foreign policy, which some are calling the Biden doctrine: bolstering the world’s democracies against the spread of authoritarianism by building a web of alliances.
Joe Biden is now meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Oval Office, ahead of the first-ever in-person Quad leaders summit this afternoon.
Welcoming Modi to the White House, Biden said, “Mr Prime Minister, we’re going to continue to build on our strong partnership.”
The Guardian’s David Smith shared a photo from the two leaders’ meeting: