Biden aims for 4 July ‘return to normalcy’ in first national TV address – live reaction | US news

A quick one from Reuters here that the US has rather unusually joined in UN criticism of human rights in Egypt.

The United States, which has observer status at the UN Human Rights Council, was among 31 signatories of the joint statement on Egypt, the first since 2014, which called on the government to lift curbs on freedoms of expression and assembly and to end the prosecution of activists, journalists and perceived political opponents

Egypt is a close ally of the United States, but the Biden administration has vowed to speak out about human rights violations and abuses of the rule of law worldwide.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013, has overseen an extensive crackdown on political dissent that has steadily tightened in recent years. For his part, Sisi has insisted that there are no political prisoners in Egypt and that stability and security are paramount.

“We urge Egypt to guarantee space for civil society – including human rights defenders – to work without fear of intimidation, harassment, arrest, detention or any other form of reprisal,” Finland’s ambassador Kirsti Kauppi said, reading out the statement to the Geneva forum.

Most of the signatory countries are European, joined by Australia, Canada and New Zealand. No countries from the African or Middle East region backed the statement.

Under former president Donald Trump the US quit the UN Human Rights Council, complaining that it was biased against Israel. One of Biden’s earliest actions was to rejoin the body as an observer nation.

Fact-checking the US president may not be quite the rollercoaster it was under the previous incumbent, but Linda Qiu is still on that task with Joe Biden, and for the New York Times last night she identified two exaggerated and two misleading claims during the president’s address.

She says that Biden exaggerated saying that Donald Trump met the virus with “denials for days, weeks, then months”, saying Trump was not exactly silent and did not fail to respond completely.

She also says he exaggerated a claim that Covid has taken more American lives than “deaths than in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and 9/11 combined”, identifying a higher toll of “deaths that occurred in service but outside of combat” during those wars.

Biden also misled over vaccinations, Qiu writes. He said that the Trump administration had not ordered enough vaccine to cover the whole US adult population, but “the Trump administration had ordered at least 800 million vaccine doses.”

Read more here: New York Times – Here’s a fact-check of Biden’s first prime-time White House address

Just echoing that point from Aaron Blake, one of Donald Trump’s former rapid response people, Abigail Marone echoed what appeared to be the thoughts of a lot of Republicans last night, that Biden was doing a disservice to the vaccination efforts of the previous administration.

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post identified his three key takeaways from Biden’s national address last night:

An Independence Day goal line — with caveats. It’s been just under a year since Donald Trump set an ambitious goal for moving beyond the coronavirus, aiming to have things fully open again by an upcoming holiday: Easter 2020. Biden gave another holiday for which to aim: 4 July 2021. Biden cast it as a chance to “not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus.”

Some stern words for skeptics. With some states moving away from mask mandates and many Americans — especially Republicans — still resisting even voluntary masking, Biden labeled it the “easiest thing to do to save lives,” sounding a bit exasperated while adding “sometimes it divides us.”

Pumping up his vaccine record — a bit too much. The biggest early test of his administration has been the vaccine rollout. But as has been the case before, Biden’s effort to pitch it as a success story was overstated.

On that last point Blake elaborates:

When Biden came into office, there had already been several days of 1 million people being vaccinated — the daily number required to hit 100 million in 100 days. In other words, to hit the goal, he mostly just needed to keep things moving in the direction they were going. There is always some game-playing when it comes to setting expectations and then beating them, and vaccines continue to ramp up. But casting this as some unthinkable feat goes too far and detracts from legitimate claims to success.

Read more here: Washington Post – 3 takeaways from Biden’s first prime-time address to the nation

Joe Biden pledged yesterday that all US adults will be eligible for coronavirus vaccines by 1 May, as he addressed the nation on the one year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden outlined plans to speed up vaccinations around the country and hoped for a return to normalcy by 4 July.

He said the country was on track to reach his goal of 100 million shots in arms on his 60th day in office. Biden had previously set a goal of 100 million shots in arms within his first 100 days in office.

The president also condemned hate crimes against Asian Americans, and repeated his calls for unity, as he urged Americans to continue to wear masks

Welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Friday. Here’s where we are and what we might expect to see today…

• Joe Biden addressed the nation in a primetime speech on the one-year anniversary of the pandemic in the US. The president mourned those who have died and offered hope – suggesting that the US could regain a sense of normalcy by 4 July.
• Biden also said his administration will push states and local governments to make all adults eligible for the vaccine by 1 May.
• Earlier today, Biden signed into law his $1.9tn stimulus plan. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Americans could start receiving their stimulus checks as early as this weekend.
• The New York state assembly has authorized its judiciary committee to start an “impeachment investigation” into sexual misconduct allegations against Andrew Cuomo. The panel’s investigation would run parallel to one being led by the state attorney general, Letitia James, and would be authorized to interview witnesses, subpoena documents and evaluate evidence.
• The Los Angeles police department has been criticised over its handling of protests after the death of George Floyd, with an independent review finding that poor planning led to chaos and mass arrests.
• Actor Matthew McConaughey has announced he is “seriously considering” a run for Texas governor, a year before the state election.
• Heavy rains triggered flooding on multiple Hawaiian islands this week, destroying homes and bridges and setting off mass evacuations. The downpour, officials and climate scientists say, is an example of the more intense rainstorms that are occurring more frequently as the planet warms.
• Joe Biden has two main events in the dairy today. He has a virtual meeting with “the Quad” – the prime ministers of India, Australia and Japan. That’s at 8.30am EST (1330 GMT).
• At 2.30pm, the president and vice president Kamala Harris will deliver remarks on the American Rescue Plan in the White House Rose Garden. Members of Congress will also attend.
• He will also lunch with Harris, and in the afternoon the president and Dr Jill Biden will head to Wilmington, Delaware for the weekend.