Biden news – live: President’s ‘cheat sheet’ reveals Putin talking points after incendiary remarks in Europe

As President Joe Biden refused to back down from comments he made at the weekend saying Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power, a photographer managed to snatch a picture of a list of “tough Putin Q&A talking points” he was carrying at a press conference. Under a question about what he meant when he said Mr Putin “cannot remain in power”, it reads “I was expressing moral outrage I felt toward the actions of this man” and “I was not articulating a change in policy”.

The pre-scripted responses tallied with the president’s given answers to questions about his remarks, which caused consternation among Russia’s allies. “I’m not walking anything back,” he told NBC News reporter Kelly O’Donnell on Monday at the White House. “The fact of the matter is, I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the actions of this man.”

Meanwhile, the president yesterday unveiled his budget proposal for the next fiscal year. Among other things, it calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, lower federal deficits, more money for law enforcement, and greater funding for education, public health, and housing.

Key points

• Biden refuses to walk back Putin comment

• Biden unveils 2023 budget proposal, lowering deficit, increasing taxes on billionaires

• Joe Biden appears to suggest removing Putin from power

• Allies in US and Europe raise concern about potential “escalatory” impact on conflict

• President’s approval ratings remain low despite broadly popular US response to Russia

Biden on funding the police

13:07 , Andrew Naughtie

At his press conference announcing his budget proposal yesterday, Joe Biden gave a full-throated defence of his plan to give money to law enforcement – flying in the face of elements in his party who have been banging the “defund the police” drum for nearly two years now.

His announcement followed a similar defence of the idea at his State of the Union address.

Watch: What Biden said about Putin in Poland

12:00 , Andrew Naughtie

Joe Biden and his administration are still trying to clear up after an off-the-cuff line on Sunday evening that set off a global row. Overshadowing a highly muscular and otherwise acclaimed speech about the war in Ukraine, the handful of words Mr Biden tossed to the crowd in Warsaw risk reframing the American and international debate on how Nato should respond to Russian aggression.

Watch the president’s apparent ad lib below.

Background: how the idea of taxing the rich evolved

11:29 , Andrew Naughtie

Joe Biden’s proposed new tax rate for households worth more than $100m has been a long time coming. At the start of the Democratic primary that he ultimately won, the idea of imposing higher taxes on the wealthy and making them pay their “fair share” had become near-orthodoxy in the Democratic mainstream – and Mr Biden himself was on board, at least in principle.

As Roxanne Roberts reported at the time, he laid out his public position thus: “I don’t begrudge anybody making a million or hundreds of millions of dollars. I really don’t. But I do think there’s some shared responsibility and it’s not being shared fairly for hardworking, middle-class and working-class people.”

Here’s her dispatch from early 2019.

When did ‘billionaire’ become a dirty word?

Pentagon likely to need more budget funding for Ukraine

10:35 , Andrew Naughtie

The Pentagon may have to ask Congress for additional money to support Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion, officials said Monday.

Rolling out the defence department’s $773bn request for fiscal year 2023, Pentagon leaders said the budget was finalised before the invasion so it has no specific money for the war.

Congress had approved a $13.5bn emergency funding package in early March.“We’ll have to look at this again, probably in the summer, to be prepared for some of the more difficult options,” Pentagon comptroller Michael McCord said.

Read more here:

Pentagon may need more budget funding to help Ukraine

Activist who met Biden in 2014 says ‘Putin war crimes could have been stopped’

10:10 , Andrew Naughtie

Ukrainian activist Oleksandra Matviichuk who pleaded with US president Joe Biden eight years ago to provide more military aid to her country, has said had he listened to her then, Russia may not have invaded her country and committed war crimes.

Ms Matviichuk, a lawyer who heads the Kyiv-based Center for Civil Liberties, recently posted a photograph showing her talking with Biden in April 2014, shortly after the protests in February that year which ended with the ousting of pro-Russian elected president Viktor Yanukovych.

“It was a very quick conversation. And he asked me, ‘What can the United States of America do for Ukraine’. And I answered ‘Give us weapons’. And now I repeat this call. Maybe it’s very surprising for a human rights lawyer,” she told The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe.

Activist who met Biden in 2014 says ‘Putin war crimes could have been stopped’

Photograph captures Biden’s ‘cheat sheet’ notes

08:16 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

US president Joe Biden was photographed carrying a cheat sheet containing notes related to his comments on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in an apparent attempt to avoid another faux pas.

Mr Biden was earlier spotted holding a cheat sheet during his first press conference as president last year that included the headshots of journalists present there who he planned to call on and that also included stats about the infrastructure bill.

Stuti Mishra has more.

Photograph captures Biden’s ‘cheat sheet’ notes as he tries to avoid repeating gaffe

Biden hits back at Ukraine questions from Fox News reporter

07:38 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

President Joe Biden has rebuffed questions about how the US would respond to a Russian chemical weapons attack in Ukraine.

Mr Biden refused to say what the US response would be and denied that he had not been calling for a regime change when he said Russian president Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”. When Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy pressed the president about chemical weapons, he said: “It will trigger a significant response.”

“What does that mean?” asked Mr Doocy. “I’m not gonna tell you that. Why would I tell you? You gotta be silly,” the president shot back.

Io Dodds reports.

‘You’ve got to be silly’: Biden hits back at Ukraine questions from Fox News reporter

US government to offer vaccinations to migrants

07:03 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

The Biden administration will offer Covid-19 vaccinations to migrants taken into custody at the Mexico border.

The department of homeland security will provide up to 2,700 vaccines per day, increasing the doses to 6,000 daily by the end of May, CNN reported.

Top White House officials reportedly rejected a proposal to vaccinate migrants last year because they thought it would encourage more people to cross the border to the US, sources said.

Remark on Putin’s power was about ‘moral outrage’, says Biden

06:27 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

US president Joe Biden on Monday said he is “not walking anything back” after his weekend comment that Russian president Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”.

“I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man,” he said. “I wasn’t articulating a policy change”. Mr Biden said he was not concerned that his comments would escalate tensions over the war in Ukraine.

“This is just stating a simple fact, that this kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable,” he said. The UK and France were among the countries, which distanced themselves from Mr Biden’s remarks on the Russian president in Warsaw.

French president Emanuel Macron said he “wouldn’t use those terms, because I continue to speak to President Putin, because what do we want to do collectively? We want to stop the war that Russia launched in Ukraine, without waging war and without escalation”.

British education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said it was “for the Russian people to decide how they are governed”.

Higher taxes on rich, lower deficits: Biden unveils 2023 budget

05:35 , Oliver O'Connell

President Joe Biden released a budget blueprint Monday that calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, lower federal deficits, more money for police and greater funding for education, public health and housing.

In essence, it tries to tell voters what a diverse and at times fractured Democratic party stands for.

The bottom line: Biden is proposing a total of $5.8 trillion in federal spending in fiscal 2023, which begins in October, slightly less than what was projected to be spent this year before the supplemental spending bill was signed into law this month. The deficit would be $1.15 trillion.

Biden’s budget plan: Higher taxes on rich, lower deficits

Biden accuses Trump of ‘financial mismanagement’

05:18 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

President Joe Biden on Monday accused his predecessor Donald Trump of running up the federal budget deficit.

Turning his fire on Mr Trump, the president said: “After my ... predecessor’s fiscal mismanagement, we’re reducing the Trump deficits and returning our fiscal house to order”.

Mr Biden delivered remarks at the White House flanked by his acting budget office director, Shalanda Young, and claimed that his plan for America’s finances would lead to “the largest one-year reduction in the deficit in US history”.

John Bowden reports.

Biden accuses Trump of ‘financial mismanagement’ as he unveils taxes for wealthy

Biden stands by Putin comment but insists he’s not indicating policy change

04:59 , Oliver O'Connell

President Joe Biden refused to back down from comments he made at the weekend saying Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power, but insisted that he was not advocating for a change in policy.

Mr Biden made the remarks on Monday when speaking to reporters after announcing his new budget proposal. His remarks come after he said over the weekend of Mr Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” The move set off a diplomatic scramble as there were concerns Mr Biden was advocating for regime change as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than a month.

“I’m not walking anything back,” he told NBC News reporter Kelly O’Donnell on Monday at the White House. “The fact of the matter is, I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the actions of this man.”

Eric Garcia reports for The Independent from Washington, DC.

Biden stands by Putin comment but insists no policy change

Ron DeSantis signs Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill into law

04:15 , Oliver O'Connell

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed legislation into law blocking classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, a measure that the bill’s opponents and LGBT+ advocates have warned will marginalise already-vulnerable LGBT+ students and their families while chilling classroom speech.

During a ceremony surrounded by schoolchildren and administration officials, the governor said the bill will ensure that “parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination.”

Alex Woodward reports.

DeSantis signs ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill into law during ceremony surrounded by children

Trump v Clinton lawsuit part of longtime legal strategy

03:30 , Oliver O'Connell

When a Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic panned his plans for a new Manhattan skyscraper, Donald Trump responded with a lawsuit. When the tenants of a building he was trying to clear sued to halt their evictions, Trump slapped back by filing suit against the law firm representing the tenants. And when an author said the former president was worth far less than he’d claimed, Trump again took legal action.

So when Trump last week filed a sprawling suit accusing his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party of conspiring to sink his winning presidential campaign by alleging ties to Russia — renewing one of his longest-standing perceived affronts — it wasn’t a surprise.

Trump suit against Clinton part of longtime legal strategy

ICYMI: Chris Wallace describes ‘unsustainable’ life at Fox News when it began to ‘question the truth’

02:45 , Oliver O'Connell

Former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace says he left his employer of 18 years because he “no longer felt comfortable” with the network’s programming as it became dominated by conspiracy theories and false claims about the conduct of the 2020 election.

Speaking to the New York Times, Mr Wallace said he had no problem with the network’s outspoken opinion commentators, but rather its turn against reality. In the wake of the 2020 election, was too much for him to bear.

“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” he said.

“But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable”.

Andrew Feinberg reports.

Chris Wallace says life at Fox News became ‘unsustainable’ for him

Madison Cawthorn claims he was invited to an orgy and says ‘sexual perversion’ rife in DC

02:00 , Oliver O'Connell

Madison Cawthorn has claimed fellow lawmakers in Washington DC have invited him to orgies and snorted cocaine in front of him.

The North Carolina Republican, who was elected to Congress in 2020, claims the US capital is rife with “sexual perversion”, but failed to provide any evidence, or reveal names or party affiliations.

During an interview with Warrior Poet Society podcast host John Lovell, Mr Cawthorn was asked how closely Netflix series House of Cards resembled life in DC.

Bevan Hurley reports.

Madison Cawthorn says ‘sexual perversion’ rife in DC and he was invited to an orgy

January 6 committee releases contempt report for Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino

01:15 , Oliver O'Connell

The House select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the US Capitol released its report to hold former Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro and deputy White House chief of staff Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the committee.

The committee specifically cited that the two former White House advisers to Donald Trump refused to turn over documents or appear for a deposition. Specifically, the committee noted how Mr Navarro tried to develop a plan to delay the certification of the 2020 election.

Eric Garcia reports from Washington, DC.

January 6 committee releases contempt report for Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino

Judge says Trump ‘more likely than not’ committed a felony in attempt to overturn election

Tuesday 29 March 2022 00:30 , Oliver O'Connell

A federal judge railed against former president Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert democracy, saying he “more likely than not” committed a federal felony, when he ruled that the former presidents attorney, John C Eastman, must turn over emails that Mr Eastman attempted to withhold from the committee investigating the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

Eric Garcia reports.

Judge says Trump ‘more likely than not’ committed a felony with election scheme

Jan 6 committee likely to request Ginni Thomas appearance ‘in coming weeks’

Monday 28 March 2022 23:45 , Oliver O'Connell

Several members of the January 6 House Select Committee believe that Ginni Thomas should be called for an interview after it was revealed that she texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about overturning the 2020 election.

The committee is likely to contact Ms Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in the coming weeks, CNN reported.

Gustaf Kilander reports.

Jan 6 committee likely to request Ginni Thomas appearance ‘in coming weeks’

Report: Jan 6 committee probing Ted Cruz involvement in plans to overturn election result

Monday 28 March 2022 23:00 , Oliver O'Connell

Sen Ted Cruz, who was one of Donald Trump’s top allies in the Senate in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has fallen under the scrutiny of the House committee investigating the January 6 attack according to a new report in The Washington Post.

The Post reports that the House select committee is investigating whether Mr Cruz had any communications with John Eastman, a controversial attorney who represented the former president in his efforts to claim that election fraud had robbed him of victory and who is now alleged by the committee to have been a part of a criminal conspiracy to push false claims about the election and overturn the rightful results.

John Bowden reports.

Jan 6 committee probing Ted Cruz involvement in plans to overturn election result

Monday 28 March 2022 22:40 , Oliver O'Connell

‘Russian war crimes could have been stopped’ if Biden had listened to activist’s plea for help

Monday 28 March 2022 22:20 , Oliver O'Connell

‘We have no time for emotions, or reflection, or for pain, for we are in a war’ lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk tells Andrew Buncombe.

Activist who met Biden in 2014 says ‘Putin war crimes could have been stopped’

SCOTUS: Justice Clarence Thomas participates in hearings by phone after hospital stay

Monday 28 March 2022 22:00 , Oliver O'Connell

Following his release from hospital, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took part in hearings by phone.

After spending almost a week in hospital, Justice Thomas was yet again involved in court proceedings on Monday.

Chief Justice John Roberts said that Justice Thomas, 73, was going to be “participating remotely this morning”. He didn’t specify a reason.

Gustaf Kilander reports from Washington, DC.

Clarence Thomas participates in hearings by phone after release from hospital

Schumer also hits out at Scott tax plan

Monday 28 March 2022 21:45 , Oliver O'Connell

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has joined in on Democrat attacks on Senator Rick Scott’s tax plan when compared to the Biden 2023 Budget plans for higher taxes on billionaires.

He tweeted: “Spot the difference - President Joe Biden’s budget makes sure billionaires pay their fair share. Senator Rick Scott’s platform for the Republican Party raises taxes on seniors and working families.”

Monday 28 March 2022 21:30 , Oliver O'Connell

White House jabs at Rick Scott tax plans

Monday 28 March 2022 21:11 , Oliver O'Connell

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said the proposed budget raises tax revenue from “billionaires and hundred millionaires,” whereas the Republican Party wants to raise taxes on the bottom half of the US — a clear reference to the tax plan put forward by Senator Rick Scott of Florida.

Biden to Doocy: ‘Why would I tell you?'

Monday 28 March 2022 20:55 , Oliver O'Connell

The traditional White House back and forth with Fox News’ Pete Doocy continues as he asked the president about recent comments he has made that have been misconstrued by the media — at times causing some consternation.

Monday 28 March 2022 20:53 , Oliver O'Connell

‘I’m not walking anything back’

Monday 28 March 2022 20:39 , Oliver O'Connell

President Joe Biden refused to back down from comments he made this weekend saying Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power, but insisted that he was not advocating for a change in policy.

Mr Biden made the remarks when speaking to reporters after announcing his new budget proposal. His remarks come after he said over the weekend, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” The move set off a diplomatic scramble as there were concerns Mr Biden was advocating for regime change.

“I’m not walking anything back,” he told NBC News reporter Kelly O’Donnell. “The fact of the matter is, I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the actions of this man.”

Eric Garcia reports from Washington, DC.

Biden stands by Putin comment but insists no policy change

Biden on Justice Thomas

Monday 28 March 2022 20:27 , Oliver O'Connell

Asked about whether Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from any cases related to the 2020 election given his wife’s text messages with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the president demurred saying: “I leave that to two entities. One, the January 6 Committee, and two the Justice Department.”

Biden asked about Putin remarks

Monday 28 March 2022 20:16 , Oliver O'Connell

“Number one - I’m not walking anything back,” President Joe Biden says when asked about his comments in Warsaw that “that man [Putin] can’t remain in power”.

“I was expressing the moral outrage I felt, I wasn’t articulating a policy change,” he added.

Biden says 2023 budget proposal will fund not defund police

Monday 28 March 2022 20:15 , Oliver O'Connell

President Joe Biden when outlining his budget includes more funding for law enforcement.

“The answer is not to defund our police departments. It’s to fund our police and give them all the tools they need,” he says.