Joe Biden
US will share AstraZeneca vaccines with world
The U.S. will begin sharing its entire pipeline of vaccines from AstraZeneca once the COVID-19 vaccine clear federal safety reviews, the White House told The Associated Press on Monday, with as many as 60 million doses expected to be available for export in the coming months.
The move greatly expands on the Biden administration’s action last month to share about 4 million doses of the vaccine with Mexico and Canada. The AstraZeneca vaccine is widely in use around the world but not yet authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The move comes as the White House is increasingly assured about the supply of the three vaccines being administered in the U.S., particularly following the restart of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot over the weekend.
Also read: Governments give varying advice on AstraZeneca vaccine
“Given the strong portfolio of vaccines that the U.S. already has and that have been authorized by the FDA, and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized for use in the U.S., we do not need to use the AstraZeneca vaccine here during the next several months,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients. “Therefore the U.S. is looking at options to share the AstraZeneca doses with other countries as they become available.”
More than 3 million people worldwide have died of COVID-19.
About 10 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine have been produced but have yet to pass review by the FDA to “meet its expectations for product quality,” Zients said. That process could be completed in the next several weeks. About 50 million more doses are in various stages of production and could be available to ship in May and June pending FDA sign-off.
The U.S. has yet to finalize where the AstraZeneca doses will go, Zients said. Neighbors Mexico and Canada have asked the Biden administration to share more doses, while dozens of other countries are looking to access supplies of the vaccine. The doses will be donated by the U.S. government, which has contracted with the company for a total of 300 million doses — though the company has faced production issues.
AstraZeneca’s doses in the U.S. were produced at an Emergent BioSolutions plant in Baltimore that has come under increased regulatory and public scrutiny after botching batches of the J&J vaccine. The U.S. pressed J&J to take over the plant and, as part of the effort to ensure the quality of newly produced vaccines, directed the facility to stop making the AstraZeneca shot. AstraZeneca is still looking to identify a new U.S. production facility for its future doses.
Also read: Australia halts AstraZeneca vaccine for most people under 50
AstraZeneca’s vaccine was initially expected to be the first to receive federal emergency authorization, and the U.S. government ordered enough for 150 million Americans before issues with the vaccine’s clinical trial held up clearance. The company’s 30,000-person U.S. trial didn’t complete enrollment until January, and it has still not filed for an emergency use authorization with the FDA.
Biden's first 100 days: Where he stands on key promises
As he rounds out his first 100 days in office, President Joe Biden’s focus on reigning in the coronavirus during the early months of his administration seems to have paid off: He can check off nearly all his campaign promises centered on the pandemic.
Biden has delivered on a number of his biggest campaign pledges focused on climate change and the economy as well. But some issues have proven to be tougher for the administration — including immigration, where Biden is grappling with how to enact promised reforms in the face of a steep increase in unaccompanied minors seeking to cross the border. On some of his promises, Biden is waiting for Congress to act.
Where Biden stands on some of his key promises:
IMMIGRATION
— Raise refugee cap to 125,000, up from the 15,000 set by President Donald Trump.
Nowhere close. The White House first said it would stick to Trump’s 15,000 cap due to “humanitarian concerns.” After facing backlash from Democrats, it shifted gears and said Biden would increase the historically low cap on refugees set by Trump — but probably not all the way to the 62,500 that Biden previously had planned. And the numbers actually admitted this year are likely to be closer to 15,000.
— Surge humanitarian resources to the border and encourage public-private partnerships to deal with an increase in migration there.
Yes, but is it enough? The Department of Homeland Security has deployed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help deal with the crisis a major increase of border arrivals, and Biden signed an executive order asking officials to prepare plans for using humanitarian resources there. He has yet to establish any new public-private partnerships. The largest number of unaccompanied children ever at the border created massive overcrowding at Customs and Border Protection facilities and set off a mad scramble for temporary space at convention centers, military bases and other large venues.
— Reform the U.S. asylum system.
Incomplete. Biden signed an executive order in February directing his officials to craft a strategy for migration, including refugees and asylum seekers. Biden has promised to unveil a new “humane” asylum system but he and his aides have been mum on timing and offered no specifics. He’s eliminated some Trump-era policies, like a requirement that new asylum seekers to wait in Mexico. But he has kept a controversial Trump-era policy that allows Customs and Border Protection to expel undocumented migrants to avoid the spread of COVID-19. And Biden has yet to articulate a plan to manage asylum flows beyond proposing that billions of dollars be spent to address root causes in Central America.
— Deliver a comprehensive immigration reform bill to Congress within his first 100 days.
Done.
— End travel restrictions on people from a number of Muslim-majority countries.
Done.
— Reverse Trump-era order expanding criteria for deporting immigrants and return to Obama-era principle of prioritizing deportations of immigrants posing a national security, border security or public health risk.
Done.
— Stop funding and building the border wall.
Done.
— Reverse Trump’s public charge rule discouraging immigrants from using public benefits.
Done.
— Restore the Obama-era principle of deporting foreigners who are seen as posing a national security threat or who have committed crimes in addition to the crime of illegal entry.
Done.
— Freeze deportations for 100 days.
Attempted, but blocked in court.
— Streamline and improve the naturalization process for green card holders.
In progress. Biden signed an executive order in February ordering a plan to improve the naturalization process, and the Department of Homeland Security has since revoked some Trump-era rules, sought public input into naturalization barriers and reverted to a 2008 version of the U.S. civics test for applicants, considered more accessible than the Trump-era revamp.
— End family separation and create task force to reunite families separated at the border.
In progress. Biden signed executive orders ending the policy and establishing a task force focused on reuniting families. The task force is making slow progress as it pores over thousands of records.
— Order a review of Temporary Protected Status
No review has been ordered, but Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has granted TPS for Venezuelans and Burmese, extended it for Syrians and extended a related program for Liberians.
— Convene a regional meeting of leaders, including officials from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Canada, to address the factors driving migration and propose a regional resettlement solution.
Not yet. Vice President Kamala Harris, tasked with dealing with the root causes of migration, has spoken to the leaders of Mexico and Guatemala, but no regional meeting is on the horizon.
— Protect those often described as “dreamers” — young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents — and their families by reinstating DACA, the Obama-era policy defending thems from deportation.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in March his agency was issuing a rule to “preserve and fortify DACA,” but the policy faces a Texas court challenge that could invalidate protections for those often decribed as “dreamers.”
— Ensure that personnel within Immigration and Customs Enforcement and within Customs and Border Protection abide by professional standards and are held accountable for inhumane treatment.
Biden included funding for training and investigating misconduct in his immigration bill and in the budget he proposed to Congress. His administration has faced questions about allegations of abuse in at least one Texas facility, which are being investigated.
— End prolonged migrant detention and invest in a case-management system to process people.
There’s been no announcement of added investments in case-management systems. The administration did roll out plans to release parents and children within 72 hours of their arrival in the United States in March. Officials subsequently acknowledged that hundreds of children have been held by Border Patrol for much longer, due to an increase in unaccompanied minors arriving at the border and a lack of facilities to house them.
___
DOMESTIC POLICY
— Reverse transgender military ban.
Done.
— Establish police oversight board.
Abandoned. The Biden administration said it was scrapping the idea, after consultations with civil rights groups and police unions that said it would be counterproductive.
— Direct attorney general to deliver a list of recommendations for restructuring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other Justice Department agencies to better enforce gun laws
Not yet.
— Direct FBI to issue report on delays in background checks for gun purchases.
Not yet.
— Reauthorize Violence Against Women Act
Requires congressional action.
— Sign Equality Act
Requires congressional action.
— Create Cabinet-level working group focused on promoting union organizing tasked with delivering a plan to increase union density and address economic inequality
Not yet.
___
COVID-19
— Rejoin World Health Organization
Done.
— Ensure 100 million vaccines have been administered before the end of his first 100 days, later increased to 200 million.
Done.
— Increase access to testing and establish pandemic testing board.
Done.
— Issue mask mandate on federal property and ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days.
Done.
— Extend nationwide restrictions on home evictions and foreclosures.
Done.
— Continue to pause student loan payments.
Done.
— Safely reopen a majority of K-8 schools.
According to data collected by Burbio, a school-tracking site, as of April 18 62% of schools offered in-person learning every day. It’s unclear what percentage of those schools are elementary schools.
— Push for passage of $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief legislative package announced last week.
Done; the bill passed in March.
___
CLIMATE
— Rescind Keystone XL oil pipeline permit, protect the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, rejoin the Paris Climate agreement and embrace the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to reduce harmful hydrofluorocarbons, or HFC’s.
Done.
— Convene climate world summit and persuade nations to set more ambitious emissions pledges.
Done.
— Ban new oil and gas leases on federal lands and offshore waters.
Sort of — he’s imposed an indefinite moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters.
— Reverse Trump rollbacks on 100 public health and environmental rules.
In progress. Biden signed an executive order on Inauguration Day ordering a review of Trump-era rules on the environment, public health and science, and has begun the process of rolling back some.
___
ECONOMY
— Roll back Trump’s 2017 cuts to corporate tax rates.
In progress. Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from the 21% rate set by Trump’s 2017 overhaul of the tax code.
— Provide $2,000 in direct payments as part of COVID-19 relief.
Done. The aid package approved right before Biden became president offered $600 in direct payments to eligible Americans. Biden said the payment should have been $2,000. His $1.9 trillion relief package included $1,400 in additional direct payments, which with the prior round adds up to $2,000.
— Pause federal student debt payments.
Done.
— Order a review of U.S. supply chains.
Done.
___
FOREIGN POLICY
— “End the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East” and terminate U.S. involvement in the Yemen civil war.
In progress. Biden announced that the American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan would begin by May 1 and the redeployment would be done no later than Sept. 11. Biden announced he was ending American support for the five-year Saudi Arabia-led military offensive in Yemen.
— Put human rights at the center of foreign policy.
Mixed. Biden has directly raised concerns with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Hong Kong, human rights abuses against Uyghur and ethnic minorities in the western Xinjiang province, and its actions toward Taiwan. He’s repeatedly raised concerns about the jailing and treatment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. But Biden declined to hold Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, directly responsible for the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi even after the publication of U.S. intelligence showing Salman approved of the hit.
— Improving relations with allies who had rocky relations with Trump.
Mostly accomplished. Allies like Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Germany’s Angela Merkel, who had stormy relationships with Trump, have praised Biden for his efforts reclaim U.S. leadership on climate issues, and leaders in the Indo-Pacific have been pleased by early efforts at coordination on China policy.
— Reversing the embrace of “dictators and tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong Un.”
Mostly accomplished. Biden has levied two rounds of sanctions against the Russians. His administration decided to be measured in its approach with Putin and has said that he’s interested in finding areas where the U.S. and Russia can find common ground. Biden’s team acknowledges they have sought to reengage with North Korea, but have been rebuffed.
— Quickly rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran so long as Tehran comes back into compliance.
Mixed. Indirect talks are under way among other signatories of the 2015 deal, including British, German, French, Chinese and Russian officials, with American officials down the hall. But the path forward is less than certain as Tehran has thus far refused to come into compliance with the old deal without sanctions relief and it recently began enriching uranium to its highest purity ever.
— Recognize World War I-era atrocities against Armenians as genocide.
Completed. As a candidate, Biden said, if elected, he’d make it U.S. policy to recognize the killings and mass deportations by Ottoman Empire forces of hundreds of thousands of Armenians more than a century ago — something past presidents have avoided doing out of concern of angering strategic ally Turkey. Biden followed through on the promise on the annual commemoration Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Turkey swiftly condemned the move.
The big Pentagon internet mystery now partially solved
A very strange thing happened on the internet the day President Joe Biden was sworn in. A shadowy company residing at a shared workspace above a Florida bank announced to the world’s computer networks that it was now managing a colossal, previously idle chunk of the internet owned by the U.S. Department of Defense.
That real estate has since more than quadrupled to 175 million addresses — about 1/25th the size of the current internet.
”It is massive. That is the biggest thing in the history of the internet,” said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, a network operating company. It’s also more than twice the size of the internet space actually used by the Pentagon.
After weeks of wonder by the networking community, the Pentagon has now provided a very terse explanation for what it’s doing. But it has not answered many basic questions, beginning with why it chose to entrust management of the address space to a company that seems not to have existed until September.
The military hopes to “assess, evaluate and prevent unauthorized use of DoD IP address space,” said a statement issued Friday by Brett Goldstein, chief of the Pentagon’s Defense Digital Service, which is running the project. It also hopes to “identify potential vulnerabilities” as part of efforts to defend against cyber-intrusions by global adversaries, who are consistently infiltrating U.S. networks, sometimes operating from unused internet address blocks.
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The statement did not specify whether the “pilot project” would involve outside contractors.
The Pentagon periodically contends with unauthorized squatting on its space, in part because there has been a shortage of first-generation internet addresses since 2011; they now sell at auction for upwards of $25 each.
Madory said advertising the address space will make it easier to chase off squatters and allow the U.S. military to “collect a massive amount of background internet traffic for threat intelligence.”
Some cybersecurity experts have speculated that the Pentagon may be using the newly advertised space to create “honeypots,” machines set up with vulnerabilities to draw hackers. Or it could be looking to set up dedicated infrastructure — software and servers — to scour traffic for suspect activity.
“This greatly increases the space they could monitor,” said Madory, who published a blog post on the matter Saturday.
What a Pentagon spokesman could not explain Saturday is why the Defense Department chose Global Resource Systems LLC, a company with no record of government contracts, to manage the address space.
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“As to why the DoD would have done that I’m a little mystified, same as you,” said Paul Vixie, an internet pioneer credited with designing its naming system and the CEO of Farsight Security.
The company did not return phone calls or emails from The Associated Press. It has no web presence, though it has the domain grscorp.com. Its name doesn’t appear on the directory of its Plantation, Florida, domicile, and a receptionist drew a blank when an AP reporter asked for a company representative at the office earlier this month. She found its name on a tenant list and suggested trying email. Records show the company has not obtained a business license in Plantation.
Incorporated in Delaware and registered by a Beverly Hills lawyer, Global Resource Systems LLC now manages more internet space than China Telecom, AT&T or Comcast.
The only name associated with it on the Florida business registry coincides with that of a man listed as recently as 2018 in Nevada corporate records as a managing member of a cybersecurity/internet surveillance equipment company called Packet Forensics. The company had nearly $40 million in publicly disclosed federal contracts over the past decade, with the FBI and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency among its customers.
That man, Raymond Saulino, is also listed as a principal in a company called Tidewater Laskin Associates, which was incorporated in 2018 and obtained an FCC license in April 2020. It shares the same Virginia Beach, Virginia, address — a UPS store — in corporate records as Packet Forensics. The two have different mailbox numbers. Calls to the number listed on the Tidewater Laskin FCC filing are answered by an automated service that offers four different options but doesn’t connect callers with a single one, recycling all calls to the initial voice recording.
Saulino did not return phone calls seeking comment, and a longtime colleague at Packet Forensics, Rodney Joffe, said he believed Saulino was retired. Joffe, a cybersecurity luminary, declined further comment. Joffe is chief technical officer at Neustar Inc., which provides internet intelligence and services for major industries, including telecommunications and defense.
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In 2011, Packet Forensics and Saulino, its spokesman, were featured in a Wired story because the company was selling an appliance to government agencies and law enforcement that let them spy on people’s web browsing using forged security certificates.
The company continues to sell “lawful intercept” equipment, according to its website. One of its current contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is for “harnessing autonomy for countering cyber-adversary systems.” A contract description says it is investigating “technologies for conducting safe, nondisruptive, and effective active defense operations in cyberspace.” Contract language from 2019 says the program would “investigate the feasibility of creating safe and reliable autonomous software agencies that can effectively counter malicious botnet implants and similar large-scale malware.”
Deepening the mystery is Global Resource Systems’ name. It is identical to that of a firm that independent internet fraud researcher Ron Guilmette says was sending out email spam using the very same internet routing identifier. It shut down more than a decade ago. All that differs is the type of company. This one’s a limited liability corporation. The other was a corporation. Both used the same street address in Plantation, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale.
“It’s deeply suspicious,” said Guilmette, who unsuccessfully sued the previous incarnation of Global Resource Systems in 2006 for unfair business practices. Guilmette considers such masquerading, known as slip-streaming, a ham-handed tactic in this situation. “If they wanted to be more serious about hiding this they could have not used Ray Saulino and this suspicious name.”
Guilmette and Madory were alerted to the mystery when network operators began inquiring about it on an email list in mid-March. But almost everyone involved didn’t want to talk about it. Mike Leber, who owns Hurricane Electric, the internet backbone company handing the address blocks’ traffic, didn’t return emails or phone messages.
Despite an internet address crunch, the Pentagon — which created the internet — has shown no interest in selling any of its address space, and a Defense Department spokesman, Russell Goemaere, told the AP on Saturday that none of the newly announced space has been sold.
Biden recognizes atrocities against Armenians as genocide
The systematic killing and deportation of more than a millions Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century was “genocide,” the United States formally declared on Saturday, as President Joe Biden used that precise word after the White House had avoided it for decades for fear of alienating ally Turkey.
Turkey reacted with furor, with the foreign minister saying his country “will not be given lessons on our history from anyone.” A grateful Armenia said it appreciated Biden’s “principled position” as a step toward “the restoration of truth and historical justice.”
Biden was following through on a campaign promise he made a year ago Saturday — the annual commemoration of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day — to recognize that the events that began in 1915 were a deliberate effort to wipe out Armenians.
While previous presidents have offered somber reflections of the dark moment in history, they have studiously avoided using the term genocide out of concern that it would complicate relations with Turkey, a NATO ally and important power in the Middle East.
But Biden campaigned on a promise to make human rights a central guidepost of his foreign policy. He argued last year that failing to call the atrocities against the Armenian people a genocide would pave the way for future mass atrocities. An estimated 2 million Armenians were deported and 1.5 million were killed in the events known as Metz Yeghern.
“The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today,” Biden said in a statement. “We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a letter to Biden that recognition of the genocide “is important not only in terms of respecting the memory of 1.5 million innocent victims, but also in preventing the repetition of such crimes.”
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Turkish officials struck back immediately.
“We reject and denounce in the strongest terms the statement of the President of the US regarding the events of 1915 made under the pressure of radical Armenian circles and anti-Turkey groups,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that “words cannot change history or rewrite it” and Turkey “completely rejected” Biden’s statement.
Minutes before Biden’s announcement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the Armenian community and patriarch of the Armenian church calling for not allowing “the culture of coexistence of Turks and Armenians ... to be forgotten.” He said the issue has been “politicized by third parties and turned into a tool of intervention against our country.”
The U.S. Embassy and consulates in Turkey issued a demonstration alert, and announced their offices would be closed for routine services on Monday and Tuesday as a “precautionary measure.” They cautioned Americans to avoid areas around U.S. government buildings and exercise caution in locations where foreigners gather.
During a telephone call Friday, Biden had informed Erdogan of his plan to issue the statement, said a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The U.S. and Turkish governments, in separate statements following Biden and Erdogan’s call, made no mention of the American plan to recognize the Armenian genocide. But the White House said Biden told Erdogan he wants to improve the two countries’ relationship and find “effective management of disagreements.” The two also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting at the NATO summit in Brussels in June.
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In Armenia on Saturday, people streamed to the hilltop complex in Yerevan, the capital, that memorializes the victims. Many laid flowers around the eternal flame, creating a wall of blooms two meters (seven feet) high.
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Avet Adonts, speaking at the memorial before Biden issued his statement, said a U.S. president using the term genocide would “serve as an example for the rest of the civilized world.”
Biden’s call with Erdogan was his first since taking office more than three months ago. The delay had become a worrying sign in Ankara; Erdogan had good rapport with former President Donald Trump and had been hoping for a reset despite past friction with Biden.
Erdogan reiterated his long-running claims that the U.S. is supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria who are affiliated with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK. The PKK has led an insurgency against Turkey for more than three decades. In recent years, Turkey has launched military operations against PKK enclaves in Turkey and in northern Iraq and against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. The State Department has designated the PKK a terrorist organization but has argued with Turkey over the group’s ties to the Syrian Kurds.
Biden, during the campaign, drew ire from Turkish officials after an interview with The New York Times in which he spoke about supporting Turkey’s opposition against “autocrat” Erdogan. In 2019, Biden accused Trump of betraying U.S. allies, following Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, which paved the way for a Turkish military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish group. In 2014, when he was vice president, Biden apologized to Erdogan after suggesting in a speech that Turkey helped facilitate the rise of the Islamic State group by allowing foreign fighters to cross Turkey’s border with Syria.
Lawmakers and Armenian American activists had lobbied Biden to make the genocide announcement on or before remembrance day. The closest that a U.S. president had come to recognizing the World War 1-era atrocities as genocide was in 1981 when Ronald Reagan uttered the words “Armenian genocide” during a Holocaust Remembrance Day event. But he did not make it U.S. policy.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, lamented that “the truth of these heinous crimes has too often been denied, its monstrosity minimized.”
“History teaches us that if we ignore its darkest chapters, we are destined to witness the horrors of the past be repeated,” she added.
Rep. Adam Schiff, also a California Democrat, praised Biden for following through on the pledge.
“For Armenian-Americans and everyone who believes in human rights and the truth, today marks an historic milestone: President Biden has defied Turkish threats and recognized the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians for what it was — the first genocide of the 20th Century,” Schiff said in a statement.
California is home to large concentrations of Armenian Americans.
Salpi Ghazarian, director of the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies, said the recognition of genocide would resonate beyond Armenia and underscore Biden seriousness about respect for human rights as a central principle in his foreign policy.
“Within the United States and outside the United States, the American commitment to basic human values has been questioned now for decades,” she said. “It is very important for people in the world to continue to have the hope and the faith that America’s aspirational values are still relevant, and that we can in fact do several things at once. We can in fact carry on trade and other relations with countries while also calling out the fact that a government cannot get away with murdering its own citizens.”
White House offers new tax credit to help spur vaccinations
President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced new employer tax credits and other steps to encourage people reluctant to be inoculated to get the COVID-19 vaccine as his administration tries to overcome diminishing demand for the shots. The moves came as Biden celebrated reaching his latest goal of administering 200 million coronavirus doses in his first 100 days in office.
With more than 50% of adults at least partially vaccinated and roughly 28 million vaccine doses being delivered each week, demand has eclipsed supply as the constraining factor to vaccinations in much of the country.
In a White House speech on Wednesday, Biden acknowledged entering a “new phase” in the federal vaccination effort that relies on increased outreach to Americans to get their shots, both to protect them and their communities.
“Vaccines can save your own life, but they can also save your grandmother’s life, your co-worker’s life, the grocery store clerk or the delivery person helping you and your neighbors get through the crisis,” Biden said. “That’s why you should get vaccinated.”
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Over the past week, the pace of inoculation in the U.S. has slowed slightly. That is partly a reflection of disruptions from the “pause” in administration of the Johnson & Johnson shot for a safety review, but also of softening interest for vaccines in many places even as eligibility has been opened to all those older than 16.
As the vaccination program progresses, the administration believes it will only get more difficult to sustain the current pace of about 3 million shots per day. Roughly 130 million Americans have yet to receive one dose.
Surveys have shown that vaccine hesitancy has declined since the rollout of the shots, but administration officials believe they have to make getting vaccinated easier and more appealing, particularly for younger Americans who are less at risk from the virus and do not feel the same urgency to get a shot. That means providing incentives and encouragement to get vaccinated, as well as reducing the friction surrounding the vaccination process.
Biden announced a tax credit for small businesses to provide paid leave for those getting vaccinated or potentially needing to take time off to recover from side effects. Paid for through the $1.9 trillion virus relief package passed last month, the tax change would provide a credit of up to $511 per day, per employee for businesses with fewer than 500 workers to ensure that those workers or businesses don’t suffer a penalty by getting vaccinated.
The White House is urging larger employers, which have more resources, to provide the same benefits to their workers, and educate them about the shots and encourage them to get vaccinated.
“We’re calling on every employer, large and small, in every state, give employees the time off they need with pay to get vaccinated,” Biden said.
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According to the White House, just 43% of working adults have received at least one shot.
As Biden celebrated the vaccine milestone, there is a different reality in the states.
In Iowa, nearly half of the counties are not accepting new doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from the state’s allotment because demand has fallen off. In Florida, Palm Beach County plans to close mass vaccination clinics at the end of May with thousands of available vaccine slots unclaimed. In rural West Virginia, a vaccine clinic at a casino/race track parking garage is opening shots to out-of-state residents to address lagging demand. The hope is that people from Washington, D.C., make the hour’s drive to get vaccinated. In Arizona, a plan collapsed that would have opened a federally run vaccine site in Tucson; demand is slipping and county officials preferred more targeted, mobile locations.
Asked about the dip in vaccinations, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said “fluctuation is not uncommon” and that “what we want to do is continue to encourage Americans to continue to get vaccinated.”
“The pace of vaccination isn’t linear,” Becerra said, adding that “we are on a pretty good pace.”
Through its partnership with more than 40,000 retail pharmacies, the White House says more than 90% of Americans now live within 5 miles of a vaccination site. The administration is encouraging state and local efforts to bring vaccines directly to people, whether through initiatives reaching the homebound or clinics at large employment sites.
Many states have also begun to open up vaccination sites to walk-in appointments, reducing reliance on often-cumbersome reservation systems.
Maximizing the number of Americans vaccinated in the coming months is critical for the White House, which is aiming to restore a semblance of normalcy around the July Fourth holiday and even more so by the beginning of the next school year.
Administration officials have been careful to avoid predicting when the country will have vaccinated enough people to reach herd immunity — when enough people become immune to a disease to make its spread unlikely. The U.S. is on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult by the end of May and for every American by July, but administering the shots will be another matter.
With its stockpile secure and demand dropping at home, the president spoke again of sharing excess doses with allies.
Biden said he talked with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for about 30 minutes on Wednesday. “We helped a little bit there, we’re going to try to help some more,” Biden said, referring to his decision last month to share about 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with Canada. “But there’s other countries as well that I’m confident we can help, including in Central America. But it’s in process.”
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He added. “We don’t have enough to be confident to send it abroad now. But I expect we’re going to be able to do that.”
Biden set his goal of 200 million shots last month after meeting his 100 million-in-100 days goal just over a month ago. That original benchmark was announced Dec. 8, days before the U.S. had even one authorized vaccine, let alone the three that have now received emergency authorization. Still, it was generally seen within reach, if optimistic.
By the time Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20, the U.S. had already administered 20 million shots at a rate of about 1 million per day, bringing complaints at the time that Biden’s goal was not ambitious enough. Biden quickly revised it upward to 150 million doses in his first 100 days.
At ‘moment of peril,’ Biden opens global summit on climate
President Joe Biden convened leaders of the world’s most powerful countries on Thursday to try to spur global efforts against climate change, drawing commitments from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to cooperate on cutting emissions despite their own sharp rivalries with the United States.
“Meeting this moment is about more than preserving our planet,” Biden declared, speaking from a TV-style set for a virtual summit of 40 world leaders. “It’s about providing a better future for all of us,” he said, calling it “a moment of peril but a moment of opportunity.”
“The signs are unmistakable. the science is undeniable. the cost of inaction keeps mounting,” he added.
Biden’s own new commitment, timed to the summit, is to cut U.S. fossil fuel emissions up to 52% by 2030. marking a return by the U.S. to global climate efforts after four years of withdrawal under President Donald Trump. Biden’s administration is sketching out a vision of a prosperous, clean-energy United States where factories churn out cutting-edge batteries for export, line workers re-lay an efficient national electrical grid and crews cap abandoned oil and gas rigs and coal mines.
Japan, a heavy user of coal, announced its own new 46% emissions reduction target Thursday as the U.S. and its allies sought to build momentum through the summit. South Korea used the summit to say it would stop all public financing of new coal-fired power plants, an important step that climate groups hope will help persuade China and Japan to slow their own building and funding of coal power.
The coronavirus pandemic compelled the summit to play out as a climate telethon-style livestream, limiting opportunities for spontaneous interaction and negotiation. The opening was rife with small technological glitches, including echoes, random beeps and off-screen voices.
But the U.S. summit also marshaled an impressive display of the world’s most powerful leaders speaking on the single cause of climate change.
China’s Xi, whose country is the world’s biggest emissions culprit, followed by the United States, spoke first among the other global figures. He made no reference to nonclimate disputes that had made it uncertain until Wednesday that he would even take part in the U.S. summit, and said China would work with America in cutting emissions.
Also read: EU reaches major climate deal ahead of Biden climate summit
“To protect the environment is to protect productivity, and to boost the environment is to boost productivity. It’s as simple as that,” Xi said.
Putin, whose government has been publicly irate over Biden’s characterization of him as a “killer” for Russia’s aggressive moves against its opponents, made no mention of his feuding with Biden in his own climate remarks, a live presentation that also saw moments of dead air among production problems.
“Russia is genuinely interested in galvanizing international cooperation so as to look further for effective solutions to climate change as well as to all other vital challenges,” Putin said. Russia by some measures is the world’s fourth-biggest emitter of climate-damaging fossil fuel fumes.
The pandemic made gathering world leaders for the climate summit too risky. That didn’t keep the White House from sparing no effort on production quality. The president’s staff built a small set in the East Room that looked like it was ripped from a daytime talk show.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the summit from separate lecterns before joining Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and White House climate envoy John Kerry at a horseshoe-shaped table set up around a giant potted plant to watch fellow leaders’ livestreamed speeches.
The format meant a cavalcade of short speeches by world leaders, some scripted, some apparently more impromptu. “This is not bunny-hugging,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the climate efforts. “This is about growth and jobs.”
The Biden administration’s pledge would require by far the most ambitious U.S. climate effort ever, nearly doubling the reductions that the Obama administration had committed to in the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord.
The new urgency comes as scientists say that climate change caused by coal plants, car engines and other fossil fuel use is already worsening droughts, floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters and that humans are running out of time to stave off most catastrophic extremes of global warming.
But administration officials, in previewing the new target, disclosed aspirations and vignettes rather than specific plans, budget lines or legislative proposals for getting there.
Biden excused himself in the midst of the first session for other duties, but planned to join a second session of the livestreamed summit later in the morning on financing poorer countries’ efforts to remake and protect their economies against global warming.
Also read: FM: Bangladesh’s points to be on agenda of Biden's Climate Summit
With the pledge from the United States and other emissions-cutting announcements from Japan, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom, countries representing more than half the world’s economy will have now committed to cutting fossil fuel fumes enough to keep the earth’s climate from warming, disastrously, more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), the administration said.
As of 2019, the last year before the pandemic, the U.S. had reduced 13% of its greenhouse gases compared with 2005 levels, which is about half way to the Obama administration goals of 26 to 28%, said climate scientist Niklas Hohne of Climate Action Tracker. That’s owing largely to market forces that have made solar and wind, and natural gas, much cheaper
Biden, a Democrat, campaigned partly on a pledge to confront climate change. He has sketched out some elements of his $2 trillion approach for transforming U.S. transportation systems and electrical grids in his campaign climate plan and in his infrastructure proposals for Congress.
His administration insists the transformation will mean millions of well-paying jobs. Republicans say the effort will throw oil, gas and coal workers off the job. They call his infrastructure proposal too costly.
“The summit is not necessarily about everyone else bringing something new to the table — it’s really about the U.S. bringing their target to the world,” said Joanna Lewis, an expert in China energy and environment at Georgetown University.
Political divisions in America that were exposed by Trump’s presidency have left the nation weaker than it was at the 2015 Paris accord. Unable to guarantee that a different president in 2024 won’t undo Biden’s climate work, the Biden administration has argued that market forces — with a boost to get started — will soon make cleaner fuels and energy efficiency too cheap and consumer-friendly to trash.
Having the United States, with its influence and status, back in the climate game is important, said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Helsinki.
But hoping the world will forget about the last four years seems like wishful thinking, he said.
“There is too much of an impulse in the U.S. to just wish away Trump’s legacy and the fact that every election is now basically a coin toss between complete climate denial and whatever actions the Democrats can bring to the table,” he said.
Hasina places 4 suggestions to deal with climate challenge
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday put forward four suggestions to global leaders to fight climate change challenges with a strong collective response.
The Prime Minister made the suggestions in her prerecorded video statement screened in the opening session of the two-day ‘Leaders’ Summit on Climate’ hosted by US President Joe Biden.
Joe Biden invited 40 world leaders, including Sheikh Hasina, to join the virtual Summit to galvanise efforts by major economies to tackle the climate crisis.
Sheikh Hasina’s suggestions include announcing an immediate and ambitious action plan by developed countries to reduce their carbon emissions to keep the global temperature at 1.5 degrees Celsius with focus on mitigation measures; and ensuring the annual target of 100 billion US dollars which should be balanced 50:50 between adaptation and mitigation with a special attention to the vulnerable countries while pursuing losses and damages.
The other two suggestions are: Major economies, international financial institutions and private sectors should come forward with plans for concessional climate financing as well as innovation; and focusing on green economy and carbon neutral technologies with a provision of technology transfer among nations.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has reminded us that any global crisis can only be addressed through a strong collective response,” she said.
Also read: FM: Bangladesh’s points to be on agenda of Biden's Climate Summit
Hasina thanked US President Biden for convening the Summit and inviting her to speak at this gathering saying that Bangladesh deeply appreciates the United States’ return to the Paris Climate Agreement and its keen to engage with the international community.
“Despite being a climate vulnerable country with resource constraints, Bangladesh has emerged as a global leader on adaptation and mitigation,” she said.
PM to highlight challenges, efforts on climate front at Leaders' Summit on Climate
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will deliver her speech virtually at the "Leaders Summit on Climate" on Thursday highlighting the climate-related challenges Bangladesh faces and the efforts it is undertaking.
Prime Minister Hasina, also President of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), will address the inaugural session of the Summit titled "Raising Our Climate Ambition" with other global leaders, an official told UNB.
US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will open the inaugural session of the two-day Summit at 6pm (Bangladesh Time).
This session will underscore the urgent need for the world’s major economies to strengthen their climate ambition by the time of COP 26 to keep the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.
It will provide an opportunity for leaders to announce new steps to strengthen climate ambition.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry will also join.
Also read: FM: Bangladesh’s points to be on agenda of Biden's Climate Summit
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Russian President Vladimir Puti, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are among participants invited by the US President.
The second session will be on "Investing in Climate Solutions."
Biden pressed on emissions goal as climate summit nears
When President Joe Biden convenes a virtual climate summit on Thursday, he faces a vexing task: how to put forward a nonbinding but symbolic goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that will have a tangible impact on climate change efforts not only in the U.S. but throughout the world.
The emissions target, eagerly awaited by all sides of the climate debate, will signal how aggressively Biden wants to move on climate change, a divisive and expensive issue that has riled Republicans to complain about job-killing government overreach even as some on the left worry Biden has not gone far enough to address a profound threat to the planet.
The climate crisis poses a complex political challenge for Biden, since the problem is harder to see and far more difficult to produce measurable results on than either the coronavirus pandemic relief package or the infrastructure bill.
Also read: US, China agree to cooperate on climate crisis with urgency
The target Biden chooses “is setting the tone for the level of ambition and the pace of emission reductions over the next decade,″ said Kate Larsen, a former White House adviser who helped develop President Barack Obama’s climate action plan.
The number has to be achievable by 2030 but aggressive enough to satisfy scientists and advocates who call the coming decade a crucial, make-or-break moment for slowing climate change, Larsen and other experts said.
Scientists, environmental groups and even business leaders are calling on Biden to set a target that would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.
The 50% target, which most experts consider a likely outcome of intense deliberations underway at the White House, would nearly double the nation’s previous commitment and require dramatic changes in the power and transportation sectors, including significant increases in renewable energy such as wind and solar power and steep cuts in emissions from fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
Anything short of that goal could undermine Biden’s promise to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, experts say, while likely stirring up sharp criticism from international allies and Biden’s own supporters.
The target is significant, not just as a visible goal for the U.S. to achieve after four years of climate inaction under President Donald Trump, but also for “leveraging other countries,″ Larsen said. “That helps domestically in the battle that comes after, which is implementing policies to achieve that target. We can make a better case politically at home if other countries are acting at the same level of ambition as the U.S.”
The 2030 goal, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC, is a key part of the Paris climate agreement, which Biden rejoined on his first day in office. It’s also an important marker as Biden moves toward his ultimate goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
“Clearly the science demands at least 50%” in reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, said Jake Schmidt, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group.
The 50% target “is ambitious, but it is achievable,″ he said in an interview. It’s also a good climate message, he said: “People know what 50% means — it’s half.″
Whatever target Biden picks, the climate summit itself “proves the U.S. is back in rejoining the international effort″ to address climate change, said Larsen, now a director at the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm.
Also read: FM: Bangladesh’s points to be on agenda of Biden's Climate Summit
The summit is “the starting gun for climate diplomacy” after a four-year “hiatus” under Trump, she said. John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, has been pressing global leaders in person and online ahead of the summit for commitments and alliances on climate efforts.
Nathaniel Keohane, another former Obama White House adviser and now a vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said experts have coalesced around the need to reduce emissions by at least 50% by 2030.
“The number has to start with 5,” he said, adding, “We’ve done the math. We need at least 50%.″
The 2030 target is just one in a sometimes overlapping set of goals that Biden has outlined on climate. He also has said he expects to adopt a clean energy standard that would make electricity carbon-free by 2035, along with the wider goal of net-zero carbon emissions economy-wide by 2050.
Biden’s climate adviser, Gina McCarthy, acknowledged that the sheer volume of numbers can be confusing. At a forum last week, she and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said climate activists should focus on actions in the next decade.
“Let’s stop talking about 2050,″ said McCarthy, who is leading White House efforts to develop U.S. climate commitments for 2030.
Bloomberg, 79, was even more blunt: 2050 “is a good number for people who give speeches, but I don’t know anyone giving those speeches who’s going to be alive in 2050.″
Some Republican lawmakers call the focus on reducing U.S. emissions counter-productive, saying Biden’s plan would raise energy costs and kill American jobs while allowing Russia, China and other countries to increase greenhouse gas emissions.
“The Biden administration will set punishing targets for the United States, while our adversaries keep the status quo. That won’t solve climate change,″ said Sen. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee. The United States already leads the world in reducing carbon emissions, Barrasso said, adding that Biden should try to “make American energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, without raising costs for consumers.”
Some on the left think Biden is not going far enough.
Also read: Bangladesh, US to work together to address challenges of climate change
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has called for a massive Green New Deal, said Biden deserves “a lot of credit” for his infrastructure plan’s vision and scope, but said it falls far short of what is needed to meaningfully combat the climate crisis. She and her supporters are calling for at least $10 trillion in federal spending over the next decade to address climate change and other problems.
McCarthy disputed the notion that Biden has backtracked from campaign promises to lead on climate.
“We’re always either doing too little or too much,″ she told reporters earlier this month. “But rest assured that the president put a (spending) number out here that he felt was not just defensible but required to meet this moment in time.″
Much of the proposed spending to address climate change is included in Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill.
If Republicans think less money should be spent on clean energy and infrastructure, McCarthy added, “then we’ll have those conversations.”
Marcella Burke, a former Trump administration official who now is an energy lawyer in Houston, gives Biden an “A-Plus for enthusiasm” on climate, but an incomplete on details. “We’ve had a lot of goals, but not a lot of strategy announced to get there,″ she said. “So the jury is still out.
As Biden improves with vets, Afghanistan plan a plus to some
Patrick Proctor Brown says the war in Afghanistan was lost within a year of its start. The suburban Milwaukee lawyer, who was an infantry captain in Iraq, said the trillions of dollars spent and the thousands of lives lost, including a lieutenant he trained with, make it “a tragedy.”
“And the Taliban will be back in power in a year,” said Brown, 35, who also studied diplomacy at Norwich, a military university in Vermont. “It’s insane.”
Brown supports President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, and by voting for the Democrat, he represents a subtle but potent shift in the voting behavior of some in the military.
Voters who served in the military have long leaned toward Republicans. But there are signs that Biden may have cut into that advantage last year. Biden carried several counties with large military communities — as well as the most concentrated military congressional district last year — that former President Donald Trump and previous Republican presidential nominees counted on for decades.
Also read: A growing challenge for Iraq: Iran-aligned Shiite militias
Veteran groups and pollsters attribute Biden’s gains to a handful of factors, including an increase in female, Black, Latino and college-educated service members, all keys to the Democratic coalition.
But strategists also point to the stark contrast in Biden’s and Trump’s approaches to the military. Biden, the father of an Iraq War veteran, often closes his speeches with a short prayer for U.S. troops. Trump, meanwhile, was quick to praise veterans in public, but also made Islamophobic attacks on the parents of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq — a Gold Star family — and made comments mocking American war dead.
The contrast raises the question of whether Democrats’ fledgling momentum with military voters is more than a momentary anti-Trump blip. It also heaps pressure on Biden to fulfill policy promises and perfect the political outreach to veterans getting underway.
“This president has got to end these wars,” said Jon Soltz, a former Army tank captain who formed the Democratic-leaning VoteVets.org in 2006. “He’s got to fulfill some of these promises. There’s a war-weariness in the military.”
Results from around the country last year suggest Biden has an edge with some military voters unlike his recent predecessors.
Among several military-leaning spots on the national map, Biden carried Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, which contains the most active duty and veteran service members in the country. It includes the world’s largest naval base, Naval Station Norfolk, and is home to more than 110,000 active and retired service members. Trump won the district in 2016, as did Republicans Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008.
Biden also flipped New Hampshire’s Rockingham County, home of Portsmouth and the U.S. Navy’s oldest continuously operating shipyard. He was also the first Democrat ever to carry Riley County, Kansas. It’s the home of Kansas State University, but also Fort Riley Army base, where the National Bio Defense research has drawn an educated and racially and ethnically diverse military workforce.
“In all of the data we saw, Biden was doing better with veterans and active duty,” than previous Democratic nominees going back decades, said Celinda Lake, one of the Biden campaign’s two main pollsters. “And the campaign was very active in targeting veterans, including talking about his son being a veteran of the current engagements, and that resonated with active military and veterans.”
Also read: Pope visits Iraq's war-ravaged north on last day of tour
Early in the 2020 campaign, aides recognized the former vice president’s unique profile as a potential commander in chief. Having been to Iraq and Afghanistan dozens of times as vice president and, before that, a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he also is the father of an Iraq War veteran, his late son Beau.
“We ran commander in chief ads in Iowa because we thought the country needed it,” said Greg Schultz, Biden’s campaign manager through the early 2020 primaries and caucuses. “But it was also a signal to military veterans and their families that Biden gets it.”
The Afghanistan decision is a priority for many on active duty and especially post-9/11 veterans like Brown, though there are others who served there who may think the U.S. is abandoning Afghans they worked with or who feel the sacrifices of the more than 3,500 U.S. troops who died there were in vain.
The move is a longtime promise of Biden, who advocated it as vice president, though it never happened during the eight years of the Obama administration.
“It is the responsibility of the Afghans to take care of their own security,” Biden said during a 2012 vice presidential debate, pledging that the U.S. would be gone in two years. “We’ve been in this war for over a decade.”
There’s no sign that veterans’ views on the war differ dramatically from other Americans’. A July 2019 Pew Research Poll found 58% of veterans said the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting, nearly identical to the general public’s view at 59%.
VoteVets is taking actions to keep Biden’s momentum from slowing. The group has hired Schultz, Biden’s former campaign manager, as a consultant to help build a veteran voter database to improve outreach.
Beyond Trump’s insensitive remarks about some troops and their families, his decisions to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, which left Kurdish allies unprotected, angered some military leaders. In an extraordinary rebuke after the 2020 election, all 10 living former secretaries of defense cautioned against involving the military in pursuing Trump’s false claims of election fraud, calling any such move “dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.”
Likewise, the Trump administration’s Pentagon policy barred transgender people from joining the military, while Trump was seen as doing little to distance himself from far-right racist groups at a time when the military has become more diverse.
Unless Biden runs against Trump in 2024, Republicans could likely recoup some of those military voters, said Peter Feaver, a Duke University professor and former special adviser to President George W. Bush’s National Security Council.
“From a military voter point of view, it is Trumpism more than Republicanism that is off-putting,” Feaver said. “The more Trump recedes from view, the greater the attention on the problems within the Democratic coalition on national security and defense issues will be.”
VoteVets’ Soltz sees the Afghanistan decision as one that his group can cite as it promotes support for Biden in the years leading up to the next presidential election, especially as the administration moves to confront Russia and China, considered more direct threats to U.S. security.
“There is an intellectual conversation at the highest level of the military about meeting tomorrow’s demands that aren’t yesterday’s,” Soltz said. “And Afghanistan is a yesterday.”