Senate Majority Leader Chuck Sumer said yesterday that the White House is “more open to this now than ever” when it comes to canceling student loan debt. “Nothing has been done yet, but I really hope that the goal we had, the $ 50,000 student loans that were canceled, is becoming more and more likely,” Schumer was quoted as saying by NBC News. President Biden: “I am not considering reducing the $ 50,000 debt, but I am in the process of carefully considering whether or not there will be additional debt relief. I will have an answer to that in the next two weeks.” pic.twitter.com/gpwPf2ghs5 – CSPAN (@cspan) April 28, 2022 Biden poured cold water on the idea today, telling reporters he was not comfortable with the $ 50,000 figure, but was open to some debt relief. “I am not considering reducing the $ 50,000 debt, but I am in the process of taking a closer look at whether or not there will be additional debt relief,” Biden said. “And I will have an answer to that in the next two weeks.” Biden has previously said he is open to the idea of canceling student debt of up to $ 10,000 per borrower, but many progressives have criticized the proposal as inadequate. After completing his prepared remarks, Joe Biden received several questions from reporters about his request to Congress for more assistance to Ukraine and other legislative issues. Asked about his message to Ukrainian refugees waiting at the southern border to enter the United States, Biden said they were allowed to enter the country directly. “We said we do not need to go to the southern border,” Biden said. “Fly directly to the United States. “We have created a mechanism by which they can come directly with a visa.” Another journalist asked Biden how the United States would respond if Russia began to escalate its aggression against Ukraine’s allies in response to their continued aid to the country. “We are prepared for whatever they do,” Biden said. Updated on 17.12 BST As he called for more funding to help Ukraine, Joe Biden also stressed the importance of Congress allocating more money to efforts to tackle the American pandemic. “That is why I urge Congress once again to respond to our request for $ 22.5 billion in emergency funds so that the American people can continue to be protected by Covid-19,” Biden said. The president said the federal government would be able to prepare more vaccine doses to help protect against future variations only if Congress approves more money for pre-order treatments. Noting that the United States has also donated vaccine doses to other countries, Biden said: “Without additional funding, the United States will not be able to help stop the spread around the world.” After completing his prepared remarks, a journalist asked Biden if he believed that Ukraine’s aid and funding for the pandemic should be combined into a bill, which lawmakers are currently opposed to. “I do not care how they do it. “I’m sending them both,” Biden said. “They can do it separately or together, but we need them both.” Joe Biden is also taking steps to ensure that money raised from assets confiscated from sanctioned Vladimir Putin allies is directly helping Ukraine. According to a White House newsletter on Biden’s new request for assistance, the government is “proposing legislation to streamline the process of recovering confiscated and confiscated assets and using them to repair the damage done to Ukraine.” Some Russian oligarchs have been sanctioned by the invasion of Ukraine, and some lawmakers are working to ensure that the funds raised by these measures benefit the Ukrainian people. “We will seize their yachts, their luxury homes and other illicit profits,” Biden said. Updated at 16.39 BST
“We are not attacking Russia,” Biden said, calling for more funding from Ukraine.
Joe Biden stressed that his new request for $ 33 billion in aid to Ukraine should not be seen as an attack on Russia. “We are not attacking Russia. “We are helping Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression,” Biden told the White House. “Russia is the attacker – there is no if, and but or but for that.” Russia has warned the United States not to supply more weapons to Ukraine, but Biden government officials have made it clear they will not be intimidated into helping Ukraine. President Biden: “We are not attacking Russia. We are helping Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression … Russia is the attacker. There is no ‘if’ and ‘but’. Pic.twitter.com/z67IDobZvo – CSPAN (@cspan) April 28, 2022 Updated at 16.26 BST Joe Biden is now commenting on the White House, confirming that he has asked Congress to approve $ 33 billion in funding to help Ukraine’s fight against Russia. The US president said more funding for weapons and humanitarian aid was “crucial” in helping Ukraine deal with Russian aggression. “The cost of this battle is not cheap, but retreating to aggression will be more costly if we allow it to happen,” Biden said. “Either we support the Ukrainian people as they defend their country, or we stand by them as the Russians continue their atrocities and aggression in Ukraine.” Updated at 16.29 BST
Biden urges Congress to approve another $ 20 billion in military aid to Ukraine
The Guardian’s Julian Borger and Jon Henley report: Joe Biden has called on Congress to approve another $ 20 billion in military aid to Ukraine, significantly strengthening the US contribution to the fight against Russian occupation. Biden will also seek $ 8.5 billion in financial aid to Kyiv and $ 3 billion in humanitarian aid, as well as funds to help increase U.S. food and strategic mineral production to offset the impact of the Ukraine war on the world supplies. The total request for additional expenditure amounts to $ 33 billion. The last additional request approved by Congress in March was $ 13.6 billion. Russia has warned that an increase in arms supplies from the West to Ukraine would jeopardize European security. In a letter to Parliament Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Biden said: “What I want to make clear to Congress and the American people is this: the cost of failing to resist violent aggression in Europe has always been higher than cost. to remain steadfast in the face of such attacks. “ Updated on 16.02 BST Joe Biden blamed the shrinking US economy in the first quarter of 2022 on “technical factors” caused by the ongoing pandemic and the war in Ukraine. “The American economy – fueled by working-class families – continues to be resilient to historical challenges,” Biden said in a statement. “While the assessment of last quarter’s growth was influenced by technical factors, the United States is facing the challenges of COVID-19 around the world, Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and global inflation from a position of power.” The president again called on Congress to pass a bill to help families cope with the high cost of health care and utilities, and condemned a Republican plan to extend income taxes. “We must continue to make progress – cut costs for working families, earn more in America and create well-paying jobs where you can raise a middle-class family,” Biden said. “This is how we develop our economy and strengthen the middle class.”
The US economy contracted “unexpectedly severe” in the first quarter
Dominic Rushe The US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, shrinking by -0.4% in the first quarter or -1.4% on an annual basis, its weakest quarter since the first days of the pandemic. Economic growth slowed significantly at the beginning of the year. In the last three months of 2021, the US gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of the economy – grew by 1.7% or 6.9% on an annual basis. The Commerce Department said the slowdown was caused by falling investment in private equity, exports, federal government spending and state and local government spending. Consumer spending, the largest component of the US economy, rose 0.7% in the first quarter despite the effects of the coronavirus’s Omicron wave. The latest report was worse than economists expected and was drafted before the war in Ukraine sparked oil prices and China imposed a new lockdown on the coronavirus that could exacerbate supply chain problems. Joe Biden will comment on the need to provide more assistance to Ukraine in the White House in about 45 minutes. After his speech, Biden will meet with small business owners to “discuss the prosperity of small businesses under his leadership,” according to his official schedule. Later today, the president and first lady will also host their first official screening at the White House. Biden will play “The Survivor,” a film about a Jewish boxer who was forced to fight his captives in a Nazi concentration camp in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day today. John Henley The UN Secretary-General described the war in Ukraine as “absurd” in the 21st century during a visit to the scene of the killing of civilians outside Kyiv, as Russia warned the West that an increase in arms supplies to Ukraine would jeopardize European security. Antonio Guterres toured Borodyanka on Thursday, where Russian forces are accused of slaughtering civilians before leaving, on his first visit to Ukraine since the invasion began on February 24, before talks with President Volodymyr Zellen. “I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black,” said the UN secretary-general, who has been criticized for visiting Ukraine only after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in Moscow. . “I see my granddaughters running in panic,” Guterres said. “War is an absurdity in the 21st century. War is bad. “There is no way a war in the 21st century can be accepted.” In its daily update …
