Biden using executive orders to overturn ‘immoral’ policies of Trump administration
Joe Biden and aides are showing touches of prickliness over growing scrutiny of the new administration’s heavy reliance on executive orders in its first days in office.
The US president in just over a week has already signed more than three dozen executive orders and directives aimed at addressing the coronavirus pandemic as well as a gamut of other issues including environmental regulations, immigration policies and racial justice.
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield bristled at the criticism of Mr Biden’s executive orders in a series of tweets, adding, “Of course we are also pursuing our agenda through legislation. It’s why we are working so hard to get the American Rescue Plan passed, for starters.”
It comes as former president Donald Trump faces up to fresh claims he was cultivated by Moscow over a period of decades in a bid to damage US interests.
Yuri Shvets, an ex-KGB spy posted to Washington DC in the 1980s, told The Guardian that Mr Trump was the subject of a “charm offensive” by the spy agency.
“They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery,” Mr Shvets said.
Trump ‘cultivated by Russia for 40 years’, claims explosive new report
Russia has been cultivating Donald Trump as an asset for 40 years, claims an ex-KGB spy in explosive new allegations against the former US president.
Yuri Shvets, who was posted to Washington DC in the 1980s, told The Guardian that Mr Trump’s alleged willingness to repeat anti-Western propaganda was met with celebrations in Moscow at the time.
“For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery,” Mr Shvets said.
“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.”
After returning from a trip to the USSR in 1987, Mr Trump began exploring the possibility of a presidential run, held a campaign rally and took out newspaper adverts criticising US foreign policy.
Mr Shvets claims Moscow treated Mr Trump’s moves as a successful “active measure” by a new KGB asset – one which was “unprecedented … until Trump became president of this country”.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 14:34
Biden under increasing scrutiny over executive orders
Joe Biden and aides are showing touches of prickliness over growing scrutiny of the new president’s heavy reliance on executive orders in his first days in office.
The president in just over a week has already signed more than three dozen executive orders and directives aimed at addressing the coronavirus pandemic as well as a gamut of other issues including environmental regulations, immigration policies and racial justice.
Mr Biden has also sought to use the orders to erase foundational policy initiatives by former president Donald Trump, such as halting construction of the US-Mexico border wall and reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy that largely barred transgender people from serving in the military.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday that Mr Biden’s early reliance on executive action is at odds with the Democrat’s pledge as a candidate to be a consensus builder.
The New York Times editorial board on Thursday also ran a much criticised opinion piece headlined “Ease up on the Executive Actions, Joe.”
Mr Biden, for his part, on Thursday framed his latest executive actions as an effort to “undo the damage Trump has done” by fiat rather than “initiating any new law”.
During a brief exchange with reporters in the Oval Office after signing two more executive orders, he noted he was working simultaneously to push his $1.9 trillion Covid aid package through Congress.
After being asked by a reporter if he was open to splitting up the relief package, the president responded: “No one requires me to do anything.”
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 14:15
Why Trump’s Senate impeachment creates a headache for everyone
Ron Klain was wearing a face covering, but you could tell he was not really smiling. Yes, he told the CNN anchor. He did believe it was possible for Congress to work together in a bipartisan fashion to produce a major Covid-relief package, while also overseeing the impeachment trial of Donald Trump in the Senate.
A week earlier, Joe Biden’s chief of staff said the same thing in an interview with the Washington Post. “I think they are going to have to work on both simultaneously,” he said.
“Obviously a committee will work on the proposal that [Biden] put forward, and this can obviously go on while the impeachment trial is taking place. And hopefully the [impeachment] trial will not be a lengthy trial.”
Our chief US correspondent Andrew Buncombe has more:
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 13:55
Robinhood chief roasted by CNN’s Cuomo over decision to limit trading on GameStop
Robinhood chief Vlad Tenev received a brutal grilling from CNN’s Chris Cuomo over the app’s decision to limit traders’ ability to buy shares in certain companies, including GameStop.
The explosive Wall Street saga has triggered the unusual sight of left and right uniting in Washington DC against the apparent move to placate billionaire hedge fund managers at the expense of amateur traders.
Mr Tenev denied the move was in anyway influenced by wealthy investors being hurt by the buying up of GameStop shares, and insisted it was done to “comply with financial requirements”.
Needless to say it did not go down well with Mr Cuomo.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 13:34
Trump adviser who vowed to eat his own shoe if Biden won is refusing to fulfil his promise
A former adviser to Donald Trump’s failed re-election campaign is refusing to make good on a promise to eat his own shoe after Joe Biden won the race for the White House.
Harlan Hill, a consultant to the 45th president, made the rash pledge to McKay Coppins of The Atlantic, who interviewed him at an Election Night party in Washington, DC, last November hosted by ex-Trump strategist Steve Bannon.
The gathering, taking place inside a large tent on a city rooftop, was described by the journalist as “giddy, almost fevered”, its over-confident atmosphere one in which “bravado reigned”.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 13:14
Biden public schedule for Friday
Joe Biden’s public schedule for Friday shows the president will this morning receive the president’s daily brief – a briefing and document featuring the most sensitive US national security concerns – before he has lunch with vice-president Kamala Harris.
He will later make a visit to Walter Reed hospital, in order to meet with wounded service members.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 12:55
AOC tells Cruz she doesn’t want to work with him because he ‘almost had me murdered’
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made it clear to Ted Cruz that the events of the Capitol insurrection were still fresh in her mind, and that the recent frenzy of attention on the stock market battle between Reddit investors, hedge funds and the Robinhood app would not cloud her memory.
On Thursday, Ms Ocasio-Cortez called for a probe in stock trading app Robinhood after the company barred its users from purchasing GameStop, AMC and Nokia stocks, among others.
The stocks in question were the focus of a war of attrition between investors from Reddit’s WallStreetBets board and various hedge funds attempting to short sell the stock.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 12:36
Sanders weighs in on battle between amateur investors vs Wall Street firms
Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has said Wall Street’s business model “is fraud”, amid a battle between corporate hedge funds and amateur investors who have outfoxed the professionals in the stock market.
In recent days, investors online have been flocking to buy shares in companies like video games retailer GameStop and movie theatre chain AMC that Wall Street firms had bet against, driving their share prices up so dramatically that trading platforms like Robinhood and Interactive Brokers placed restrictions on certain trades coming through their platform, and causing firms like Melvin Capital Management to lose billions of dollars.
These restrictions, which seemed to some to tip the scales against everyday investors, provoked prominent officials in both parties like senator Ted Cruz and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to call for inquiries into what happened.
“The business model of Wall Street is fraud,” Senator Sanders said overnight, in a tweet shared more than 69,000 times.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 12:14
QAnon ‘Shaman’ offers to testify against Donald Trump
Jacob Chansley, the face-paint and fur wearing Trump supporter whose images from inside the Capitol came to define the 6 January riots in Washington, is now offering to testify against the president, saying he feels betrayed.
Albert Watkins, the lawyer of the man popularly known as the “QAnon Shaman”, has said his client will testify at Mr Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, which is scheduled to begin in the second week of February.
Mr Watkins emphasised that his client was “horrendously smitten” by Donald Trump but now feels let down after the former president’s refusal to grant pardons to him and others involved in the 6 January riots. “He felt like he was betrayed by the president,” he said.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 11:54
State Department says willing to return to Iran nuclear agreement
The State Department’s official Twitter account has posted a clip in which new secretary of state Antony Blinken says the US is willing to return to the Iran nuclear agreement that the Trump administration pulled out of “if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations” under the agreement.
Mr Blinken says such a return for both parties would allow them to “deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic in the relationship with Iran”.
Tom Embury-Dennis29 January 2021 11:35