President Joe Biden
Watching al-Qaida chief's 'pattern of life' key to his death
As the sun was rising in Kabul on Sunday, two Hellfire missiles fired by a U.S. drone ended Ayman al-Zawahri's decade-long reign as the leader of al-Qaida. The seeds of the audacious counterterrorism operation had been planted over many months.
U.S. officials had built a scale model of the safe house where al-Zawahri had been located, and brought it into the White House Situation Room to show President Joe Biden. They knew al-Zawahri was partial to sitting on the home's balcony.
They had painstakingly constructed “a pattern of life," as one official put it. They were confident he was on the balcony when the missiles flew, officials said.
Years of efforts by U.S. intelligence operatives under four presidents to track al-Zawahri and his associates paid dividends earlier this year, Biden said, when they located Osama bin Laden’s longtime No. 2 — a co-planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. — and ultimate successor at the house in Kabul.
Bin Laden's death came in May 2011, face to face with a U.S. assault team led by Navy SEALs. Al-Zawahri's death came from afar, at 6:18 a.m. in Kabul.
His family, supported by the Haqqani Taliban network, had taken up residence in the home after the Taliban regained control of the country last year, following the withdrawal of U.S. forces after nearly 20 years of combat that had been intended, in part, to keep al-Qaida from regaining a base of operations in Afghanistan.
But the lead on his whereabouts was only the first step. Confirming al-Zawahri’s identity, devising a strike in a crowded city that wouldn’t recklessly endanger civilians, and ensuring the operation wouldn’t set back other U.S. priorities took months to fall into place.
That effort involved independent teams of analysts reaching similar conclusions about the probability of al-Zawahri’s presence, the scale mock-up and engineering studies of the building to evaluate the risk to people nearby, and the unanimous recommendation of Biden’s advisers to go ahead with the strike.
Read:Al-Zawahri's path went from Cairo clinic to top of al-Qaida
“Clear and convincing,” Biden called the evidence. "I authorized the precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield once and for all. This measure was carefully planned, rigorously, to minimize the risk of harm to other civilians.”
The consequences of getting it wrong on this type of judgment call were devastating a year ago this month, when a U.S. drone strike during the chaotic withdrawal of American forces killed 10 innocent family members, seven of them children.
Biden ordered what officials called a “tailored airstrike,” designed so that the two missiles would destroy only the balcony of the safe house where the terrorist leader was holed up for months, sparing occupants elsewhere in the building.
A senior U.S. administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the strike planning, said al-Zawahri was identified on “multiple occasions, for sustained periods of time” on the balcony where he died.
The official said “multiple streams of intelligence” convinced U.S. analysts of his presence, having eliminated “all reasonable options” other than his being there.
Two senior national security officials were first briefed on the intelligence in early April, with the president being briefed by national security adviser Jake Sullivan shortly thereafter. Through May and June, a small circle of officials across the government worked to vet the intelligence and devise options for Biden.
On July 1 in the White House Situation Room, after returning from a five-day trip to Europe, Biden was briefed on the proposed strike by his national security aides. It was at that meeting, the official said, that Biden viewed the model of the safe house and peppered advisers, including CIA Director William Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and National Counterterrorism Center director Christy Abizaid, with questions about their conclusion that al-Zawahri was hiding there.
Biden, the official said, also pressed officials to consider the risks the strike could pose to American Mark Frerichs, who has been in Taliban captivity for more than two years, and to Afghans who aided the U.S. war efforts who remain in the country. U.S. lawyers also considered the legality of the strike, concluding that al-Zawahri’s continued leadership of the terrorist group and support for al-Qaida attacks made him a lawful target.
The official said al-Zawahri had built an organizational model that allowed him to lead the global network even from relative isolation. That included filming videos from the house, and the U.S. believes some may be released after his death.
On July 25, as Biden was isolated in the White House residence with COVID-19, he received a final briefing from his team.
Each of the officials participating strongly recommended the operation’s approval, the official said, and Biden gave the sign-off for the strike as soon as an opportunity was available.
Read:Biden: Killing of al-Qaida leader is long-sought 'justice'
That unanimity was lacking a decade earlier when Biden, as vice president, gave President Barack Obama advice he did not take — to hold off on the bin Laden strike, according Obama's memoirs.
The opportunity came early Sunday — late Saturday in Washington — hours after Biden again found himself in isolation with a rebound case of the coronavirus. He was informed when the operation began and when it concluded, the official said.
A further 36 hours of intelligence analysis would follow before U.S. officials began sharing that al-Zawahri was killed, as they watched the Haqqani Taliban network restrict access to the safe house and relocate the dead al-Qaida leader’s family. U.S. officials interpreted that as the Taliban trying to conceal the fact they had harbored al-Zawahri.
After last year’s troop withdrawal, the U.S. was left with fewer bases in the region to collect intelligence and carry out strikes on terrorist targets. It was not clear from where the drone carrying the missiles was launched or whether countries it flew over were aware of its presence.
The U.S. official said no American personnel were on the ground in Kabul supporting the strike and the Taliban was provided with no forewarning of the attack.
In remarks 11 month ago, Biden had said the U.S. would keep up the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries, despite pulling out troops. “We just don’t need to fight a ground war to do it.”
“We have what’s called over-the-horizon capabilities," he said.
On Sunday, the missiles came over the horizon.
Biden: Killing of al-Qaida leader is long-sought 'justice'
President Joe Biden announced Monday that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, an operation he said delivered justice and hopefully “one more measure of closure” to families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The president said in an evening address from the White House that U.S. intelligence officials tracked al-Zawahri to a home in downtown Kabul where he was hiding out with his family. The president approved the operation last week and it was carried out Sunday.
Al-Zawahri and the better-known Osama bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks that brought many ordinary Americans their first knowledge of al-Qaida. Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, in operation carried out by U.S. Navy SEALs after a nearly decade-long hunt.
As for Al-Zawahri, Biden said, “He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we’re going to make sure that nothing else happens.”
“This terrorist leader is no more,” he added.
Also read: Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri killed in US missile attack
The operation is a significant counterterrorism win for the Biden administration just 11 months after American troops left the country after a two-decade war.
The strike was carried out by the CIA, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Neither Biden nor the White House detailed the CIA's involvement in the strike.
Biden, however, paid tribute to the U.S. intelligence community in his remarks, noting that “thanks to their extraordinary persistence and skill” the operation was a success.
Al-Zawahri’s death eliminates the figure who more than anyone shaped al-Qaida, first as bin Laden’s deputy since 1998, then as his successor. Together, he and bin Laden turned the jihadi movement’s guns to target the United States, carrying out the deadliest attack ever on American soil — the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings.
The house Al-Zawahri was in when he was killed was owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to a senior intelligence official. The official also added that a CIA ground team and aerial reconnaissance conducted after the drone strike confirmed al-Zawahri’s death.
Also read: Biden tests positive for COVID-19, returns to isolation
A senior administration official who briefed reporters on the operation on condition of anonymity said “zero” U.S. personnel were in Kabul.
Over the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the U.S. targeted and splintered al-Qaida, sending leaders into hiding. But America’s exit from Afghanistan last September gave the extremist group the opportunity to rebuild.
U.S. military officials, including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said al-Qaida was trying to reconstitute in Afghanistan, where it faced limited threats from the now-ruling Taliban. Military leaders have warned that the group still aspired to attack the U.S.
After his killing, the White House underscored that al-Zawahri had continued to be a dangerous figure. The senior administration official said al-Zawahri had continued to “provide strategic direction," including urging attacks on the U.S., while in hiding. He had also prioritized to members of the terror network that the United States remained al-Qaida's “primary enemy,” the official said.
The 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon made bin Laden America’s Enemy No. 1. But he likely could never have carried it out without his deputy. Bin Laden provided al-Qaida with charisma and money, but al-Zawahri brought tactics and organizational skills needed to forge militants into a network of cells in countries around the world.
U.S. intelligence officials have been aware for years of a network helping al-Zawahri dodge U.S. intelligence officials hunting for him, but didn’t have a bead on his possible location until recent months.
Earlier this year, U.S. officials learned that the terror leader’s wife, daughter and her children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul, according to the senior administration official who briefed reporters.
Officials eventually learned al-Zawahri was also at the Kabul safe house.
In early April, White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and Biden’s homeland security adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall were briefed on this developing intelligence. Soon the intelligence was carried up to national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan brought the information to Biden as U.S. intelligence officials built “a pattern of life through multiple independent sources of information to inform the operation,” the official said.
Senior Taliban figures were aware of al-Zawahri’s presence in Kabul, according to the official, who added the Taliban government was given no forewarning of the operation.
Inside the Biden administration, only a small group of officials at key agencies, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, were brought into the process. Through May and June, Biden was updated several times on the growing mound of intelligence that confirmed al-Zawahri was hiding out in the home. Over the last few weeks, Biden brought together several Cabinet officials and key national security officials to scrutinize the intelligence findings.
On July 1, Biden was briefed in the Situation Room about the planned operation, a briefing in which the president closely examined a scale model of the home Zawahri was hiding out in. He gave his final approval for the operation on Thursday. Al-Zawahri was on the balcony of his hideout on Sunday when two Hellfire missiles were launched from an unmanned drone, killing him.
Al-Zawahri's family was in another part of the house when the operation was carried out, and no one else was believed to have been killed in the operation, the official said.
“We make it clear again tonight: That no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out,” Biden said.
Al-Zawahri was hardly a household name like bin Laden, but he played an enormous role in the terror group's operations.
The two terror leaders' bond was forged in the late 1980s, when al-Zawahri reportedly treated the Saudi millionaire bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan as Soviet bombardment shook the mountains around them.
Al-Zawahri, on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, had a $25 million bounty on his head for any information that could be used to kill or capture him.
Al-Zawhiri and bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks that brought many ordinary Americans their first knowledge of al-Qaida.
Photos from the time often showed the glasses-wearing, mild-looking Egyptian doctor sitting by the side of bin Laden. Al-Zawahiri had merged his group of Egyptian militants with bin Laden’s al-Qaida in the 1990s.
“The strong contingent of Egyptians applied organizational know-how, financial expertise, and military experience to wage a violent jihad against leaders whom the fighters considered to be un-Islamic and their patrons, especially the United States,” Steven A. Cook wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations last year.
When the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan demolished al-Qaida’s safe haven and scattered, killed and captured its members, al-Zawahri ensured al-Qaida’s survival. He rebuilt its leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and installed allies as lieutenants in key positions.
He also reshaped the organization from a centralized planner of terror attacks into the head of a franchise chain. He led the assembling of a network of autonomous branches around the region, including in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Asia. Over the next decade, al-Qaida inspired or had a direct hand in attacks in all those areas as well as Europe, Pakistan and Turkey, including the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the 2005 transit bombings in London.
More recently, the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen proved itself capable of plotting attacks against U.S. soil with an attempted 2009 bombing of an American passenger jet and an attempted package bomb the following year.
But even before bin Laden’s death, al-Zawahri was struggling to maintain al-Qaida’s relevance in a changing Middle East.
He tried with little success to coopt the wave of uprisings that spread across the Arab world starting in 2011, urging Islamic hard-liners to take over in the nations where leaders had fallen. But while Islamists gained prominence in many places, they have stark ideological differences with al-Qaida and reject its agenda and leadership.
Nevertheless, al-Zawahri tried to pose as the Arab Spring’s leader. America “is facing an Islamic nation that is in revolt, having risen from its lethargy to a renaissance of jihad,” he said in a video eulogy to bin Laden, wearing a white robe and turban with an assault rifle leaning on a wall behind him.
Al-Zawahri was also a more divisive figure than his predecessor. Many militants described the soft-spoken bin Laden in adoring and almost spiritual terms.
In contrast, al-Zawahri was notoriously prickly and pedantic. He picked ideological fights with critics within the jihadi camp, wagging his finger scoldingly in his videos. Even some key figures in al-Qaida’s central leadership were put off, calling him overly controlling, secretive and divisive.
Some militants whose association with bin Laden predated al-Zawahri’s always saw him as an arrogant intruder.
“I have never taken orders from al-Zawahri,” Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, one of the network’s top figures in East Africa until his 2011 death, sneered in a memoir posted on line in 2009. “We don’t take orders from anyone but our historical leadership.”
There had been rumors of al-Zawahri’s death on and off for several years. But a video surfaced in April of the al-Qaida leader praising a Indian Muslim woman who had defied a ban on wearing a hijab, or headscarf. That footage was the first proof in months that he was still alive.
A statement from Afghanistan’s Taliban government confirmed the airstrike, but did not mention al-Zawahri or any other casualties.
It said the Taliban “strongly condemns this attack and calls it a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,” the 2020 U.S. pact with the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of American forces.
“Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region,” the statement said.
Biden tests positive for COVID-19, returns to isolation
President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 again Saturday, slightly more than three days after he was cleared to exit coronavirus isolation, the White House said, in a rare case of “rebound” following treatment with an anti-viral drug.
White House physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor said in a letter that Biden “has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and continues to feel quite well.” O'Connor said “there is no reason to reinitiate treatment at this time.”
In accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, Biden will reenter isolation for at least five days. He will isolate at the White House until he tests negative. The agency says most rebound cases remain mild and that severe disease during that period has not been reported.
Just as when Biden first tested positive, the White House sought to show he was still working. The president sent out a picture of himself masked and tieless on Twitter, which showed him signing a declaration that added individual assistance for flood survivors in Kentucky.
The president followed up by tweeting out a 12-second video of him on a White House balcony with his dog, Commander.
“I'm feeling fine, everything is good,” said Biden, a pair of aviator sunglasses in his hand. “But Commander and I got a little work to do.”
The president also took time on Saturday to have a FaceTime conversation with people camping outside the U.S. Capitol who are seeking health benefits for military veterans exposed to toxic substances from burn pits during their service, according to White House chief of staff Ron Klain. A bill to provide expanded benefits failed to clear the Senate on Wednesday. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough brought the group pizza and the phone connection to talk with the president.
“Feel better,” a member of the group told Biden in a video of the call posted to Twitter. Later, in a tweet, the president said he had planned to meet with families at the Capitol but that his positive test “got in the way.”
Word of Biden’s positive test came — he had been negative Friday morning — just two hours after the White House announced a presidential visit to Michigan this coming Tuesday to highlight the passage of a bill to promote domestic high-tech manufacturing. Biden had also been scheduled to visit his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sunday morning, where first lady Jill Biden has been staying while the president was positive. Both trips have been canceled as Biden has returned to isolation.
Biden, 79, was treated with the anti-viral drug Paxlovid after he first tested positive on July 21. He tested negative for the virus on this past Tuesday and Wednesday. He was then cleared to leave isolation while wearing a mask indoors. His positive tests puts him among the minority of those prescribed the drug to experience a rebound case of the virus.
Read: Doctor: Biden’s COVID symptoms ‘almost completely resolved’
White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told reporters on Monday that data "suggests that between 5 and 8 percent of people have rebound” after Paxlovid treatment.
“Acknowledging the potential for so-called ‘rebound’ COVID positivity observed in a small percentage of patients treated with Paxlovid, the President increased his tested cadence, to protect people around him and to assure early detection of any return of viral replication,” O'Connor wrote in his letter.
O'Connor cited negative tests for Biden from Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning and Friday morning, before Saturday morning's positive result by antigen testing. “This in fact represents ‘rebound' positivity," he wrote.
According to the CDC, those with rebound COVID should isolate for at least five days, ending that if a fever has resolved itself for 24 hours without medication and symptoms have improved. The patient “should wear a mask for a total of 10 days after rebound symptoms started. Some people continue to test positive after day 10 but are considerably less likely to shed infectious virus.”
Both the Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer point out that 1% to 2% of people in Pfizer’s original study on Paxlovid saw their virus levels rebound after 10 days. The rate was about the same among people taking the drug or dummy pills, “so it is unclear at this point that this is related to drug treatment,” according to the FDA.
While Biden was testing negative, he returned to holding in-person indoor events and meetings with staff at the White House and was wearing a mask, in accordance with CDC guidelines. But the president removed his mask indoors when delivering remarks on Thursday and during a meeting with CEOs on the White House complex.
Asked why Biden appeared to be breaching CDC protocols, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “They were socially distanced. They were far enough apart. So we made it safe for them to be together, to be on that stage.”
Regulators are still studying the prevalence and virulence of rebound cases, but the CDC in May warned doctors that it has been reported to occur within two days to eight days after initially testing negative for the virus.
“Limited information currently available from case reports suggests that persons treated with Paxlovid who experience COVID-19 rebound have had mild illness; there are no reports of severe disease,” the agency said at the time.
When Biden was initially released from isolation on Wednesday, O’Connor said the president would “increase his testing cadence” to catch any potential rebound of the virus.
Paxlovid has been proven to significantly reduce severe disease and death among those most vulnerable to COVID-19. U.S. health officials have encouraged those who test positive to consult their doctors or pharmacists to see if they should be prescribed the treatment, despite the rebound risk.
Biden is fully vaccinated, after getting two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shortly before taking office, a first booster shot in September and an additional dose March 30.
While patients who have recovered from earlier variants of COVID-19 have tended to have high levels of immunity to future reinfection for 90 days, Jha said that the BA.5 subvariant that infected Biden has proven to be more “immune-evasive.”
“We have seen lots of people get reinfected within 90 days,” he said, adding that officials don’t yet have data on how long those who have recovered from the BA.5 strain have protection from reinfection.
Biden, Xi talk more than 2 hours at time of US-China tension
President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping held the fifth conversation of their presidencies on Thursday, speaking for more than two hours as they chart the future of their complicated relationship at a time of simmering economic and geopolitical tensions.
The call began at 8:33 a.m. EDT and ended at 10:50 a.m. EDT, according to the White House. It took place as Biden aims to find new ways to work with the rising global power as well as strategies to contain China’s influence around the world. Differing perspectives on global health, economic policy and human rights have long tested the relationship — with China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine adding further strain.
“The two heads of state had in-depth communication and exchanges on China-U.S. relations and issues of mutual concern,” China Central Television reported on its website.
The latest pressure point has been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan, the island that governs itself democratically and receives informal defensive support from the U.S., but which China considers part of its territory. Beijing has said it would view such a trip as a provocation, a threat U.S. officials are taking with heightened seriousness in light of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
“If the U.S. insists on going its own way and challenging China’s bottom line, it will surely be met with forceful responses,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters earlier this week. “All ensuing consequences shall be borne by the U.S.”
Pelosi would be the highest-ranking U.S. elected official to travel to Taiwan since Republican Newt Gingrich visited the island in 1997 when he was House speaker. Biden last week told reporters that U.S. military officials believed it was “not a good idea” for the speaker to visit the island at the moment.
John Kirby, a U.S. national security spokesman, said Wednesday that it was important for Biden and Xi to regularly touch base.
Read: Doctor: Biden’s COVID symptoms ‘almost completely resolved’
“The president wants to make sure that the lines of communication with President Xi remain open because they need to,” Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing. “There are issues where we can cooperate with China on, and there are issues where obviously there are friction and tension.”
Biden and Xi last spoke in March, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“This is one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world today, with ramifications well beyond both individual countries,” Kirby said.
The conversation comes as Biden has moved to shift U.S. reliance off Chinese manufacturing, including Senate passage Wednesday of legislation to encourage semiconductor companies to build more high-tech plants in the U.S. Biden wants to marshal global democracies to support infrastructure investments in low- and middle-income nations as an alternative to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which aims to boost China trade with other global markets.
Kirby listed a number of areas of U.S,-China friction that he said would be part of the conversation, including “tensions over Taiwan, tensions over ... China’s aggressive course of behavior in the Indo-Pacific outside of Taiwan, tensions in the economic relationship” and over China’s reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Biden, who has kept in place Trump-era tariffs on many Chinese-manufactured goods in order to maintain leverage over Beijing, is weighing whether to ease at least some of them in a move to lessen the impact of soaring inflation on American households.
U.S. officials have also criticized China’s “zero-COVID” policy of mass testing and lockdowns in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 in its territory, labeling it misguided and fretting that it will further slow global economic growth.
Other points of strain include China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, which the U.S. has declared a genocide, its militarization in the South China Sea, and global campaign of economic and political espionage.
Doctor: Biden’s COVID symptoms ‘almost completely resolved’
President Joe Biden has improved enough from his coronavirus infection that he’s able to resume his regular exercise routine, according to an update Tuesday from his doctor.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor wrote in a new note that Biden’s COVID-19 symptoms “have now almost completely resolved,” and all of his vital signs are good.
Biden took his fifth and final dose of Paxlovid, which is intended to prevent severe symptoms from COVID-19, on Monday night.
Read: Biden’s COVID symptoms improve; WH says he’s staying busy
Tuesday is Biden’s fifth full day of isolation, and he plans to test for the virus on Wednesday.
If he tests negative, he will return to working in person.
“The moment that he turns negative, he’ll return to work,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, during Monday’s briefing at the White House.
Military say a Pelosi Taiwan trip 'not a good idea': Biden
President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that U.S. military officials believe it's “not a good idea” for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan at the moment.
Biden's comments in an exchange with reporters came a day after the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it would take “resolute and strong measures” should Pelosi proceed with reported plans to visit Taiwan in the coming weeks.
“Well, I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now," Biden said in response to a question about Pelosi's reported trip. “But I don’t know what the status of it is.”
The president stopped short of suggesting that Pelosi not travel to Taiwan.
Pelosi was originally scheduled to visit in April but had to postpone after she tested positive for COVID-19. She would be the highest-ranking American lawmaker to visit the close U.S. ally since Newt Gingrich, a Republican, traveled there 25 years ago when he was House speaker.
Read: Biden's realism approach runs head-on into liberal pressure
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Pelosi planned to move forward with her postponed visit to Taipei in the next month. Her office declined to comment, saying the office does not confirm or deny the speaker’s international travel in advance, due to longstanding security protocols.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijiang said such a visit would “severely undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, gravely impact the foundation of China-U.S. relations and send a seriously wrong signal to Taiwan independence forces."
The U.S. has a longstanding commitment to the “One China” policy that recognizes Beijing as the government of China but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. China has stepped up its military provocations against democratic, self-ruled Taiwan in recent years as it looks look to intimidate it into accepting Beijing’s demands to unify with the communist mainland.
Biden also said that he expected to speak with Chinse President Xi Jinping sometime in the 10 next days.
Biden's national security and economic aides are in the process of completing a review of the U.S. tariff policy and making recommendations to the president.
The tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump applied a 25% duty on billions of dollars of Chinese products. The penalties were intended to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and force China to adopt fairer practices.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called for eliminating some of those tariffs as a way to help fight inflation in the United States. Others in the Biden administration, including U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, have raised concerns about easing tariffs when China has not upheld its agreements on purchasing U.S. products.
Biden sidestepped a reporter's question on Wednesday about what he might have to say to Xi about tariffs. “I’d tell him to have a good day," Biden responded.
Biden and Xi have their differences over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prosecution of his nearly 5-month-old war against Ukraine. Biden has sought to press the Chinese to resist directly providing economic or military assistance to Russia.
Biden's realism approach runs head-on into liberal pressure
On restoring access to abortion, President Joe Biden says his hands are tied without more Democratic senators. Declaring a public health emergency on the matter has downsides, his aides say. And as for gun violence, Biden has been clear about the limits of what he can do on his own.
“There’s a Constitution,” Biden said from the South Lawn in late May. “I can’t dictate this stuff.”
Throughout this century, presidents have often pushed aggressively to extend the boundaries of executive power. Biden talks more about its limits.
When it comes to the thorniest issues confronting his administration, the instinct from Biden and his White House is often to speak about what he cannot do, citing constraints imposed by the courts or insufficient support in a Congress controlled by his own party — though barely.
He injects a heavy dose of reality in speaking to an increasingly restive Democratic base, which has demanded action on issues such as abortion and voting rights before the November elections.
White House officials and the president's allies say that approach typifies a leader who has always promised to be honest with Americans, including about how expansive his powers really are.
But Biden's realpolitik tendencies are colliding with an activist base agitating for a more aggressive party leader — both in tone and substance. Although candidate Biden sold himself as the person who best knew the ways of Washington, he nonetheless is hamstrung by the same obstacles that have bedeviled his predecessors.
“I think that if you hesitate from important actions like this just because of a legal challenge, then you would do nothing,” said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., who has been pressing for more administrative actions on abortion. “People all across the country are expecting us — the leaders — to do something.”
Biden’s cautionary approach could be to protect himself if the White House falls short — like Democrats did in negotiating a party-line spending package centered on the social safety net and climate provisions. That sweeping effort had been steadily thwarted due to resistance from two moderate Democrats, one of them West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who on Thursday scuttled for the time being a scaled-back effort that focused on climate and taxes.
That development prompted calls from Democratic senators for Biden to unilaterally declare a climate emergency. In a statement Friday while in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Biden pledged to take “strong executive action to meet this moment” on climate. But in recent weeks, that gap between “yes, we can” and “no, we can’t” has been most glaring on abortion.
Since the Supreme Court last month overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973 with its constitutional protections for abortion, the White House has come under considerable pressure to try to maintain access to abortion in conservative states that are set to outlaw the procedure.
For instance, advocates have implored Biden to look into establishing abortion clinics on federal lands. They have asked the administration to help transport women seeking abortions to a state that offers the procedure. And Democratic lawmakers are pressing the White House to declare a public health emergency.
Without rejecting the ideas completely, White House aides have expressed skepticism about such requests. And even as he signed an executive order last week to begin addressing the issue, Biden had one clear, consistent message: that he could not do this on his own, shifting attention to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Read:Biden's Mideast trip aimed at reassuring wary leaders
“The only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law,” Biden said shortly after the court struck down Roe. “No executive action from the president can do that.”
Shortly after declaring that the filibuster — a Senate rule that requires 60 votes for most legislation to advance — should not apply for abortion and privacy measures, Biden acknowledged during a meeting with Democratic governors that his newfound position would not make a difference, at least not right away.
“The filibuster should not stand in the way of us being able to do that,” Biden said of writing the protections of Roe into federal law. “But right now, we don’t have the votes in the Senate to change the filibuster."
Biden, who served for 36 years in the Senate, is an institutionalist to his core and has tried to operate under the constraints of those institutions — unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, who repeatedly pushed the boundaries of executive power.
But some advocates don't want to hear from Biden about what he can’t do.
Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of the group We Testify, which advocates for women who have had abortions, said the administration should proceed with a public health emergency even if it's eventually blocked by the courts.
“It tells those people who need abortions that the president is trying to help them, and that the thing that’s stopping him is the court, not himself, or his own projections on what could possibly happen,” she said, later adding: “The fact that he’s an institutionalist and cannot look around and see the institutions around him are crumbling is the problem.”
Democratic lawmakers have also continued to prod senior administration officials behind the scenes. In a virtual meeting this past week, Chu urged Xavier Becerra, the health and human services secretary, to have the administration enact a public health emergency. Proponents of the idea say it would unlock certain powers and resources to not only expand access to abortion but to protect doctors who provide them.
Though Becerra did not rule out the idea, he told Chu and other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that the administration had two main questions: How would the administration replenish money for the public health emergency fund and what would this move actually accomplish?
The skepticism has not deterred Democratic lawmakers. But some of the most ardent proponents of expansive executive actions on abortion have similarly cautioned their voters and activists to be realistic.
“It’s unrealistic to think that they have the power and the authority to protect access to abortion services in every part of this country because of what the Supreme Court has done," said Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.
In one sense, the recent success on gun s was a validation of Biden’s art-of-the-possible approach, advocates say. Rather than promising what he could not achieve, Biden instead spoke of his limitations and cautioned that any substantive changes would require the support of at least 10 Senate Republicans — a goal that seemed implausible at the start.
That culminated this past week with a ceremony marking the signing of the first substantial gun restrictions into law in roughly three decades.
“I think that the president has struck the absolute right balance,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Concerns about the limitations on Biden’s executive powers aren’t mere hypotheticals. His administration’s efforts to tame the coronavirus pandemic, for example, were repeatedly foiled by the courts, including a requirement to wear masks on mass transit and a vaccination mandate for companies with at least 100 workers.
Then-President Barack Obama sounded similar warnings when confronted by immigration activists urging him to use his power to issue a deportation reprieve for millions of young immigrants who did not have legal status in the U.S.
Obama in 2012 unilaterally enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which is still standing today. Two years later, Obama more fully embraced the pen-and-phone strategy, signaling to Congress that he would not hesitate to use executive orders if lawmakers continued to imperil his domestic agenda.
“Nobody thinks he’s got a magic wand here. Folks understand there are limitations,” said Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of the Indivisible Project. “What they want to see is him treating this like the crisis it is for folks in red states losing access to abortion.”
Biden tells Dems to quickly pass pared-down economic package
President Joe Biden seemed to bow Friday to Sen. Joe Manchin’s demand for a slimmed-down economic package, telling Democrats to quickly push the election-year measure through Congress so families could “sleep easier” and enjoy the health care savings it proposes.
Biden’s statement came hours after Manchin, the West Virginian who is one of Congress’ more conservative Democrats, said that if party leaders wanted to pass a measure before next month’s recess, it should be limited to provisions curbing prescription drug prices, extending subsidies for people buying health insurance and reducing the federal deficit.
Even so, Biden’s directive would mean postponing congressional action on easing climate change and raising taxes on higher earners and large companies, components he and Democrats have long wanted in the economic package. That would represent a jarring setback for goals that rank among the party’s most deeply held aspirations and would delay a risky showdown over the plan until the cusp of November’s elections.
The president’s remarks underscored a growing sentiment among Democrats that after months of bargaining with Manchin that only made the president’s top-tier domestic priority ever smaller, it was time to declare victory. Reducing pharmaceutical costs, helping consumers purchase health coverage and trimming federal red ink are Democratic priorities and passage would let them flash achievements before voters that Republicans are on track to solidly oppose.
“Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action. The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
He thanked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who has spent months negotiating with Manchin, for “his dogged and determined effort to produce the strongest possible bill” and “even offering significant compromises to try to reach an agreement.”
That seemed like an unspoken dig at Manchin, whom Biden’s statement did not mention and who in December sunk a much broader, $2 trillion, 10-year version of the package.
Though its final scope remained unclear, a slimmed-down measure contoured to Manchin’s latest demands could generate around $288 billion in savings over 10 years by letting Medicare negotiate prices for the pharmaceuticals it buys, requiring rebates from drug makers if price increases exceed inflation and other cost reductions. It would spend just a fraction of that on health insurance subsidies that expire in January, with the rest going to deficit reduction, according to early estimates.
Also read: Biden’s Saudi visit aims to balance rights, oil, security
In a sign of movement, Democrats planned to begin vetting the prescription drug language next week with the Senate parliamentarian, said a Democratic aide, to make sure there are no provisions that violate the chamber’s rules and must be dropped. The aide was not authorized to discuss the plans publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Manchin, whose vote is necessary for Democrats to succeed in the 50-50 Senate, had also said Friday that if party leaders want to pursue a broader measure aimed at global warming and raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, they should wait until later this summer. He argued that would allow time to see what happens to inflation and interest rates this month.
“Let’s wait until that comes out so we know we’re going down the path that won’t be inflammatory to add more to inflation,” Manchin said on “Talkline,” a West Virginia talk radio show hosted by Hoppy Kercheval.
After months of citing inflation fears among his reasons for seeking to trim Biden’s overall package, Manchin raised sharpened concerns this week after the government said annual inflation hit 9.1% in June, the heftiest increase in 41 years. Polls show inflation is voters’ top concern as November elections approach in which Republicans could well win control of the House and Senate.
In his statement, Biden said action on climate and clean energy “remains more urgent than ever” but acknowledged a willingness to accept delays in congressional action.
“If the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment,” he said.
Biden’s options for executive action or Environmental Protection Agency regulations could include rejecting permits for oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters, tightening pollution allowed from coal-fired plants and restricting natural gas pipelines.
Biden’s comments marked the latest retreat he and congressional Democratic leaders have made since initially pushing wider-ranging goals early last year that would have cost $3.5 trillion or more.
Those priorities would have also provided free pre-kindergarten, low-cost child care, paid family leave and more. They ultimately fell victim to Democrats’ slender majorities in Congress and changes in the political and economic climate that have seen voters’ concerns over the inflation and the economy intensify.
Any plan that emerges faces certain unanimous opposition from Republicans, who argue its boosts in spending and taxes would further inflame inflation.
Manchin had told Schumer on Thursday that he could not support a bill now that would include other party goals like battling climate change and raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, according to a Democrat briefed on those talks.
The two lawmakers have been negotiating over a package that had been expected to reach around $1 trillion over 10 years, with about half used to reduce federal deficits.
Manchin said he considered his talks with Schumer “still going.” Yet his latest stance provoked a mixture of anger and pragmatism from fellow Democrats.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters she was unsure what remained in her party’s proposal but added, “I would be very, of course, disappointed if the whole saving the planet is out of the bill.” A spokesperson for Schumer did not return requests for comment.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she was skeptical about Manchin’s acceptance of a health care-focused package. “Look, the guy has changed his mind” before, Jayapal told reporters. “So let’s see. I have no confidence.”
“If there was a guarantee that we could get the bigger deal in September, I’m open to that,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., who chairs the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “But to go to the altar, at some point we need to say, ‘I do.’”
Delaying action until after the August break would leave Democrats facing a dangerously ticking clock. Special budget powers expire Oct. 1 that would let them push the legislation through the 50-50 Senate over solid GOP opposition, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
That would pose a risk that any Democratic absences because of COVID-19 or other reasons would leave them lacking the votes they need. It would also push congressional action until just weeks before the November elections, when any votes can be quickly spun into a damaging campaign attack ad.
Manchin said he was concerned that raising corporate taxes would prompt layoffs and some of his party’s environmental proposals would hinder “what this country needs to run the economic engine.”
Other Democrats say the broader measure’s initiatives would be more than paid for by making high earners and large corporations pay the costs. And they’ve noted that deficit reduction helps control inflation by reducing the government’s need for borrowing, which would otherwise help boost interest rates.
Biden’s Saudi visit aims to balance rights, oil, security
President Joe Biden met Friday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man he once pledged to shun for human rights violations, and shared a cordial fist bump as he tried to reset an important diplomatic relationship, bolster Mideast security and increase the global flow of oil.
It was the first encounter for the two leaders, and their chummy gesture was swiftly criticized. But Biden insisted that he did not shy away from pressing the crown prince on the kingdom’s abuses, particularly the 2018 murder of the U.S.-based writer Jamal Khashoggi, which U.S. intelligence believes was approved by the heir to the throne.
“I said, very straightforwardly, for an American president to be silent on an issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am,” Biden said after the meeting. “I’ll always stand up for our values.”
Biden said Prince Mohammed claimed that he was “not personally responsible” for the death of Khashoggi, who wrote for The Washington Post. “I indicated I thought he was,” the president said he replied.
Though he brushed off any focus on the fist bump, it was described as “shameful” by Fred Ryan, the Post’s publisher.
Read: ‘Free Palestine’: Protesters in major US cities decry airstrikes over Gaza
“It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking,” Ryan said, referring to the crown prince by his initials.
Biden had long refused to speak to Prince Mohammed. But concerns about human rights have been somewhat eclipsed by other challenges, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and rising gas prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia wants to strengthen its security relationship with the United States and secure investments to transform its economy into one less reliant on pumping oil.
For now, it appears the two leaders are taking incremental steps together. Biden announced that U.S. peacekeepers would leave the Red Sea island of Tiran by the end of the year, paving the way for Saudi Arabia to develop tourist attractions there.
Because of a complex diplomatic arrangement governing control of the strategically located island, America’s departure required Israel’s assent, and the deal was the latest reflection of warmer relations between the Israelis and Saudis.
The agreement followed an earlier announcement that the Saudis were ending strict limits on Israeli commercial flights over their territory.
Biden also said progress was being made on extending a cease-fire in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia had been battling Iran-backed militants for years, leading to a humanitarian crisis.
The United States played down expectations for any immediate increases in Saudi oil production, which could help alleviate high gas prices that are politically damaging to Biden back home. But after his meeting with the crown prince, Biden hinted that relief could be on the way, although “you won’t see that for another couple of weeks.”
The current OPEC+ agreement expires in September, opening the door to potentially higher production after that, although questions remain about how much excess capacity the Saudis have.
Biden’s nearly three hours at the royal palace were widely seen as a diplomatic victory for Prince Mohammed, who has tried to rehabilitate his image, draw investments to the kingdom for his reform plans and bolster the kingdom’s security relationship with the U.S.
The Saudis carefully controlled the visit, even trying to bar Post reporters from a briefing with government officials before relenting.
They also released a steady stream of photos and videos from private meetings that journalists were barred from attending. Biden was shown shaking hands with King Salman, the 86-year-old monarch who suffers from poor health, including two hospitalizations this year, while the crown prince looked on.
Afterward, reporters were only briefly allowed into a meeting that Biden and the crown prince held with their advisers. The two men sat across from each other, an arrangement that burnished the perception that they are counterparts. It’s an image that the crown prince has been eager to foster as he solidifies his path to the throne after sidelining, detaining and seizing the assets of royal rivals and critics.
Prince Mohammed’s rise to power has ushered with it a new era for the kingdom, one in which Saudi Arabia is more assertive on the world stage as it expands its relations with Russia and China. In addition, budding ties with Israel are not only underpinned by shared enmity with Iran, but also a possible hedge against the perception that the U.S. has increasingly disengaged from the region.
Biden has spent his first trip to the Middle East since taking office trying to convince people otherwise.
During an earlier stop in Israel, he said he was going to Saudi Arabia to “promote U.S. interests in a way that I think we have an opportunity to reassert what I think we made a mistake of walking away from: our influence in the Middle East.”
On Saturday, he’ll participate in a gathering of leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — before returning to Washington. The leaders of Mideast neighbors Egypt, Iraq and Jordan are also to attend, and Biden’s national security adviser said Biden would make a “major statement” on his vision for the Middle East.
The Saudi visit is one of the most delicate that Biden has faced on the international stage.
Any success in soothing relations could pay diplomatic dividends as the president seeks to ensure stability in the region. But it has also opened Biden, already floundering in public opinion polls at home, to deeper criticism that he is backtracking on his pledges to put human rights at the center of foreign policy. During his campaign for president, he had vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.”
“If we ever needed a visual reminder of the continuing grip oil-rich autocrats have on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, we got it today,” tweeted Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. “One fist bump is worth a thousand words.”
Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said that, with the visit to Saudi Arabia, Biden was backing down on human rights.
She told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday, “It’s heartbreaking and disappointing. And Biden will lose his moral authority by putting oil and expediency over principles and values.”
Biden heads to West Bank, with little to offer Palestinians
Without a clear path for jumpstarting peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, President Joe Biden offered American money as a balm while visiting a local hospital on Friday.
“Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity,” he said at the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, which serves Palestinians. "And access to healthcare, when you need it, is essential to living a life of dignity for all of us.”
Although $100 million in proposed healthcare funding requires U.S. congressional approval, Biden is also announcing $201 million for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, plus smaller amounts for other assorted programs.
Israel has also committed to upgrading wireless networks in the West Bank and Gaza, part of a broader effort to improve economic conditions.
After leaving the hospital, Biden traveled to Bethlehem to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and visit the Church of the Nativity. He was welcomed by a pair of Palestinian children, who gave him a bouquet of flowers, and a band that played the U.S. national anthem.
Biden's trip to the West Bank is being met with skepticism and bitterness among Palestinians who believe Biden has taken too few steps toward rejuvenating peace talks, especially after President Donald Trump sidelined them while heavily favoring Israel.
When Biden finished speaking at the hospital, a woman who identified herself as a pediatric nurse at another healthcare facility thanked him for the financial assistance but said “we need more justice, more dignity.”
The last serious round of negotiations aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state broke down more than a decade ago, leaving millions of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule.
Israel’s outgoing government has taken steps to improve economic conditions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. But Yair Lapid, the caretaker prime minister, does not have a mandate to hold peace negotiations, and Nov. 1 elections could bring to power a right-wing government that is opposed to Palestinian statehood.
Meanwhile, the 86-year-old Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority administers parts of the occupied West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security, is more representative of the status quo than Palestinian aspirations.
His Fatah party lost an election, and control of Gaza, to the Islamic militant group Hamas more than 15 years ago. He called off the first national elections since then last year — blaming Israel — when Fatah appeared to be heading for another crushing defeat. Polls over the past year have consistently found that nearly 80% of Palestinians want him to resign.
Biden acknowledged this week that while he supports a two-state solution, it won't happen “in the near-term.” The U.S. also appears to have accepted defeat in its more modest push to reopen a Jerusalem consulate serving the Palestinians that was closed when Trump recognized the contested city as Israel's capital.
Read: Biden says US won’t wait ‘forever’ for Iran on nuclear deal
Palestinian leaders also fear being further undermined by the Abraham Accords, a diplomatic vehicle for Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel despite the continuing occupation. Biden, who heads next to Saudi Arabia to attend a summit of Arab leaders, hopes to broaden that process, which began under Trump.
Hours before Biden was set to become the first U.S. leader to fly directly from Israel to the kingdom, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation announced early Friday “the decision to open the Kingdom’s airspace for all air carriers that meet the requirements of the Authority for overflying.”
It signaled the end of its longstanding ban on Israeli flights overflying its territory — an incremental step toward the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel that builds on the strong, but informal ties the erstwhile foes have developed in recent years over their shared concerns about Iran’s growing influence in the region.
Biden hailed the decision in a statement Friday as an important step to “help build momentum toward Israel's further integration into the region."
There's been hardly any mention of the Palestinians over the past two days, as Biden has showered Israel with praise, holding it up as a democracy that shares American values. At a news conference with Biden, Lapid evoked the U.S. civil rights movement to portray Israel as a bastion of freedom.
It all reeked of hypocrisy to Palestinians, who have endured 55 years of military occupation with no end in sight.
“The idea of shared values actually makes me sick to my stomach,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst. “I don’t think Israeli values are anything that people should be striving towards.”
Both Biden and Lapid said they supported an eventual two-state solution in order to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish-majority state. But their approach, often referred to as “economic peace,” has limitations.
“Mr. Biden is trying to marginalize the Palestinian issue,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a veteran Palestinian activist. “If he does not allow Palestinians to have their rights, then he is helping Israel kill and end the very last possibility of peace.”
At this point, the Palestinian goal of an independent state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war — appears more distant than ever.
Israel is expanding settlements in annexed east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which are now home to some 700,000 Jewish settlers. The Palestinian view the settlements — many of which resemble sprawling suburbs — as the main obstacle to peace, because they carve up the land on which a Palestinian state would be established. Most of the world considers them illegal.
Well-known human rights groups have concluded that Israel's seemingly permanent control over millions of Palestinians amounts to apartheid. One of those groups, Israel's own B'Tselem, hung banners in the West Bank that were visible from the presidential motorcade.
Israel rejects that label as an attack on its very existence, even though two former Israeli prime ministers warned years ago that their country would be seen that way if it did not reach a two-state agreement with the Palestinians. The U.S. also rejects the apartheid allegations.
Other banners along the motorcade route called for justice for Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank in May. Israel says she might have been struck by Palestinian gunfire, while investigations by The Associated Press and other media outlets support Palestinian witnesses who say she was shot by Israeli forces.
The U.S. says she was likely killed unintentionally by Israeli troops, without saying how it reached those conclusions. That angered many Palestinians, including Abu Akleh's family, who accused the U.S. of trying to help Israel evade responsibility for her death.
In Bethlehem, Palestinian journalists covering Biden's visit wore black T-shirts with Abu Akleh’s image on the front in solidarity with their slain colleague.