Biden signs last-gasp congress spending bill to avert government shutdown: live

A wave of state-level anti-abortion laws that followed the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to reverse the decades-long precedent established by Roe v Wade appeared to fuel an increase of “advance provision” prescriptions of medication abortion drugs across the country.

But another looming Supreme Court decision on abortion rights threatens the availability of a widely used abortion drug that was approved by the federal government more than 20 years ago – and is used in more than half of all abortions nationwide.

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President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump are hosting competing campaign rallies this weekend in the state where Mr Biden narrowly won in 2020.

Mr Biden will hold an event in Atlanta while Mr Trump will host a rally in Rome – a city approximately 50 miles northwest of Atlanta.

Georgia is expected to be a competitive state for both candidates, just as it was four years ago. This time, the stakes are even higher, especially for Mr Trump who was criminally indicted for allegedly trying to overturn election results in the state in 2020.

Mr Trump, who is expected to be the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) nominee, is defending himself criminally in the state while also trying to pick up support from moderate-conservative voters who initially supported Nikki Haley.

Meanwhile, Mr Biden, who is expected to be the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) nominee, is coming off a firey State of the Union address where he launched attacks at the former president. Mr Biden has taken a more aggressive campaign approach in recent weeks as polling shows voters are skeptical of the president’s age.

It’s basically an aphorism at this point that American voters almost never make a decision about their choice for president based on foreign policy. The only exception comes when Americans are in harm’s way, as Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush and Barack Obama can all attest.

At the same time, presidential candidates’ foreign policy reveals plenty about how what they value at home. Harry Truman’s desegregation of the US military reflected Democrats’ larger shift away from being the party of Southern racists to becoming the party of civil rights. Reagan’s ardent opposition to communism abroad reflected his desire to slash government spending at home.

That makes President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump’s choices of foreign heads of state to meet this week particularly interesting. They reflect much about what values they want to promote at home.

President Joe Biden is embracing criticism about his age in a new Biden campaign advertisement by addressing the issue head-on.

“Look I’m not a young guy, that’s no secret. But here’s the deal I understand how to get things done for the American people,” Mr Biden says in the advertisement.

The ad features the Biden administration’s accomplishments over the last four years, like steering the country through the Covid-19 pandemic, lowering prescription drug prices, passing infrastructure legislation and more.

Mr Biden’s new ad comes just as recent polling reveals Americans are uneasy about Mr Biden’s re-election given he is the oldest president in history.

Immigrants’ rights groups and Democratic officials have criticised President Joe Biden’s off-script description of an undocumented immigrant as “an illegal,” drawing comparisons to Donald Trump’s dehumanising language and warning that the administration is bending to Republican pressure on immigration.

Responding to jeers from far-right US Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene in the middle of his State of the Union address on Thursday, the president echoed Ms Greene by calling the Venezuelan immigrant who allegedly killed Laken Riley “an illegal”.

“An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right,” Mr Biden said. “But how many thousands of people, being killed by legals? To her parents I say, and my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself, I understand.”

Though he appeared to be referencing Ms Greene’s remarks, Latino members of Congress and members from immigrant backgrounds reminded the president that “no human being is illegal.”

Mr Biden’s own campaign chair Mitch Landrieu agreed that “he probably should’ve used a different word, and I think he would know that.”

“But what you should notice about that is not that he made a small mistake,” he told CNN on Friday. “The big thing that he didn’t write, and this is what this president always does, is express empathy to people, he expressed kindness to people. He understands because, as you know, he lost a number of children in his life.”

Democratic US Rep Chuy Garcia, among Latino members of Congress who criticised Mr Biden’s remarks, said he was “beyond disappointed” to hear the president’s use of the word “illegal” as a noun.

“Beyond this, the president missed an opportunity to unite our country on immigration. He did not lay out a plan that addresses the root causes of what brings people to our border or ensures immigrants are treated with dignity and respect in our communities,” he added.

“Republicans will never be satisfied with this rightward march on immigration, and that should not be our goal,” Mr Garcia said. “They have no interest in serious reform.”

Invoking Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech in 1941 warning of Hitler’s armies being “on the march” in Europe, Mr Biden said he’d come to the same chamber to tell the nation that it is facing an “unprecedented moment in the history of the Union” and to “wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment”.

“What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond,” he said.

“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not. But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself.”

Mr Biden’s denunciation of Mr Trump and the GOP for refusing to support Ukraine’s fight against Russia was just an opening salvo in what became a full-throated defence of his administration’s policies and repeated exhortations to the assembled legislators to take up bipartisan legislation that has been blocked at Mr Trump’s behest. In a fiery address he challenged his opponents over the border, women’s health and Republicans’ efforts to rewrite history over the January 6 riot.

The president stressed that Ukraine isn’t asking for Americans to give their lives overseas, and said he is working to keep American soldiers from having to fight there. But he warned that funding for Ukraine is being blocked by “those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world,” referring to Republicans who oppose aid to Kyiv because it would be a political win for the president.

As the nation’s political elite filed into the United States House of Representatives for this year’s State of the Union address, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wasn’t expecting much from President Joe Biden. “I would love to take bets and hear from doctors on what kind of medical cocktail they’re giving him to be able to do this tonight,” Ms Greene, a Republican and staunch ally to former president Donald Trump, told The Independent as she entered the House.

Ms Greene had plenty of reason to make such a snide remark. Polling has consistently shown that most voters have serious doubts about whether Mr Biden, who turns 82 in November, could actually be up to the job of president.

(Those voters have the same concerns, however, about Mr Trump, according to the polls.)

Polling has also consistently shown the president trailing Ms Greene’s political benefactor, Mr Trump. A report from special counsel Robert Hur about Mr Biden’s handling of classified documents mentioned the president’s age and portrayed him as a senile man who could not remember the date of his eldest son Beau’s death.

But there were no signs of Grandpa Joe during his State of the Union on Thursday evening. Rather, Mr Biden chose to confront anxieties about his age head-on and showed a side of himself that many political observers –including in his own party – thought had faded in his advanced years.

“Let me close with this: I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while,” Mr Biden told the nation. “And when you get to my age certain things become clearer than ever before. I know the American story. Again and again, I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation.”