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Biden comes out fighting in pre-election reboot | CNN Politics

Published

3 years ago

May 6, 2022

Biden comes out fighting in pre-election reboot | CNN Politics

CNN
—

Most White Homes wait for his or her midterm election shellacking or thumping to shake up their message and technique store.

It’s a mark of the daunting political atmosphere, beset by excessive inflation, international wars and the worst public well being catastrophe in 100 years, that Joe Biden is beginning the method now.

The President, who ran in 2020 as a prophet of nationwide unity, and spent the primary yr of his administration reaching throughout the aisle – a course of that yielded a uncommon bipartisan infrastructure legislation – is finished turning down America’s political inferno.

In latest days, Biden has switched on a rhetorical blowtorch and blasted Republicans as followers of ex-President Donald Trump’s “Make America Nice Once more” demagoguery. And after a leaked Supreme Court docket draft opinion advised the best liberal defeat of the fashionable period is looming – the abolition of the constitutional proper to an abortion – Biden questioned which fundamental rights the right-wing excessive court docket majority usual by Trump will strip subsequent.

The President, in the meantime, on Thursday named a brand new White Home press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. Biden’s new prime spokesperson will exchange Jen Psaki, who’s reportedly heading for a TV job with MSNBC. Psaki has been one of many undoubted media stars of the administration. However her departure means a recent face on the podium and a press release of historical past that may probably please the Democratic base since Jean-Pierre, at present Psaki’s deputy, would be the first Black and out LGBTQ individual to do the job. Jean-Pierre’s household contains her associate, CNN nationwide correspondent Suzanne Malveaux, and their daughter.

Biden can also be bringing Anita Dunn, an out of doors adviser and one of the crucial revered Democratic consultants and communications specialists, into the West Wing full time, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Kaitlan Collins reported. Dunn shall be anticipated to sharpen Biden’s messaging techniques going into the midterm election in November. And he or she shall be in place to attempt to chart the President’s early 2024 marketing campaign and rebuild his picture if Republicans take over Capitol Hill and topic the White Home to the agony of fixed investigation.

In sharpening his midterm message and his assault on Trumpism, the President is doing precisely what occasion leaders should going into elections – supply their candidates a rationale for energy and a counter to their opponents’ assaults.

However modifications of message and personnel solely go up to now. The midterms have gotten a referendum on Biden himself after an administration that began strongly however started to sink below probably the most unprecedented slate of crises to face any President of the fashionable age.

Occasions on Thursday alone underscored simply how tough it is going to be for a President, whose approval rankings have dipped to 41% within the newest CNN ballot, to revive a time period that had majority help lower than a yr in the past.

It was a brutal day on Wall Road, because the Dow Jones Industrial Common crashed greater than 1,000 factors, reversing a rebound the day earlier than because the market struggles to make up its thoughts on the Federal Reserve’s technique to struggle hovering inflation, which is the disaster that seems to be hurting the administration probably the most.

As Biden leads the West in an efficient proxy warfare with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine triggered the most important navy conflagration in Europe since World Warfare II, a brand new international coverage disaster is rising that might once more check his authority. CNN’s Barbara Starr reported that North Korea could also be getting ready its first underground nuclear check in practically 5 years. The detonation might come as early as this month, three sources stated. It might not be a shock if Kim Jong Un, bristling that the US President is refusing to duplicate Trump’s self-importance summits, scheduled the blast for round Biden’s upcoming journey to South Korea. Such a situation would give Republicans one other information level for his or her deceptive, however nonetheless probably efficient marketing campaign trope that US enemies see Biden as weak.

In additional unhealthy information for the administration on Thursday, a CNN ballot confirmed that solely 26% of Individuals are not less than considerably assured the administration is ready to deal with any improve within the variety of migrants looking for to enter the US which may outcome from the ending of Title 42 – a pandemic-era border restriction that the administration had hoped to part out this month. The administration’s plans had been quickly blocked by a federal decide in Louisiana.

Immigration has emerged as an enormous political weak point for the White Home heading into the midterms. The problem leaves it uncovered to Republicans exaggerating the border disaster on the correct and liberals who complain that Biden has not executed sufficient to elevate hardline Trump restrictions.

And Democrats below menace in November are pissed off that the administration has prevaricated on border points.

Even Sen. Maggie Hassan, whose residence state of New Hampshire is 1000’s of miles from the southern border however who is probably going dealing with a tricky reelection, stated in a latest video from a piece of wall in Arizona that she would push the White Home to maintain Title 42 in place till it had a plan to safe the border.

Average Democrats are additionally expressing frustration on the administration’s failure to do extra to manage inflation – as costs of fundamental items and gasoline surge – even when outdoors components, just like the warfare in Ukraine and provide chain clogs introduced on by Covid-19 lockdowns in Asian manufacturing hubs, are largely guilty.

“I’m not glad as a result of, you already know, costs for Arizonans are nonetheless too excessive. They should work on it,” Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly advised CNN’s Manu Raju Thursday. The primary-term Democrat is among the many most endangered incumbents within the fall.

Jared Bernstein, a member of Biden’s Council of Financial Advisers, stated on CNN’s “New Day” on Thursday that folks should be “nuanced” once they assess an financial system that options each the best price of residing in 40 years and a close to 50-year low unemployment charge. However nuance is the primary casualty of political campaigns, and Republicans have a straightforward opening given excessive costs to say Biden has wrecked the financial system.

The President’s toughened tone went up a notch when he appeared within the White Home on Wednesday to say credit score for slashing the federal deficit – an achievement to make certain, however one which may not placate voters hit by excessive fuel costs. Biden singled out a plan put ahead by Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who heads the GOP’s Senate marketing campaign committee, that the President stated would elevate taxes and put cherished entitlements like Social Safety and Medicare in danger.

“It’s a MAGA agenda all proper. Let me inform you about this ultra-MAGA agenda – it’s excessive, as most MAGA issues are,” Biden stated, riffing off Trump’s signature slogan.

“Below this new plan, this tax plan, the ultra-MAGA agenda, whereas huge firms and billionaires are going to pay nothing extra, the working class people pays a hell of much more,” Biden stated.

Republican Senate chief Mitch McConnell, who is aware of a vote-loser when he sees one, has rebuked Scott’s plan. But when Republicans gained’t play the nuance sport of their messaging, Biden gained’t both.

The President additionally lashed out on the conservative majority on the Supreme Court docket after Politico printed a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that advised the highest bench is poised to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade choice. Biden argued that by rejecting Roe’s discovering {that a} proper to privateness existed within the Structure, the court docket might goal all different fundamental rights that many Individuals might take without any consideration.

“That is about much more than abortion,” Biden stated.

“What are the subsequent issues which might be going to be attacked? As a result of this MAGA crowd is admittedly probably the most excessive political group that’s existed in American historical past, in latest American historical past,” he stated.

Biden’s invoking of Trumpism will not be coincidental for the reason that ex-President’s enduring affect within the Republican Get together is mirrored within the spectacle of GOP major candidates battling for his endorsement. And in spite of everything, Biden did handily beat Trump in 2020, honest and sq., regardless of the defeated, twice-impeached, one-term former President says.

Nonetheless, rooting a midterm election marketing campaign on the concept all Republicans share Trump’s extremist, anti-democratic tendencies is a threat. Such a technique failed for Democrats final yr, when Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin captured the governor’s mansion. The Republican pioneered a marketing campaign focusing on rising costs and concern amongst dad and mom over schooling after a yr of pandemic lockdowns and conservative complaints about how colleges handled race and transgender points.

For all his visibility, Trump isn’t on the poll this yr and voters are squarely centered on the financial system. However given Democrats’ uphill midterm battle, a White Home message that targets MAGA-world extremism and seeks to capitalize on threats to abortion rights could also be Biden’s solely guess.

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Demand slump fuelled by Trump tariffs hits US ports and air freight

Published

2 hours ago

April 27, 2025

Press Room

Demand slump fuelled by Trump tariffs hits US ports and air freight

Donald Trump’s trade war with Beijing is starting to affect the wider US economy as container port operators and air freight managers report sharp declines in goods transported from China.

Logistics groups said container bookings to the US have fallen sharply since the introduction of 145 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports to the US.

The Port of Los Angeles, the main route of entry for goods from China, expects scheduled arrivals in the week starting May 4 to be a third lower than a year before, while airfreight handlers have also reported sharp falls in bookings.

Bookings for standard 20-foot shipping containers from China to the US were 45 per cent lower than a year earlier by mid-April, according to the latest available data from container tracking service Vizion.

John Denton, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce, said the upheaval in China-US trade flows reflected traders “kicking decisions down the road” as they waited to see how quickly Washington and Beijing could reach a deal to lower tariffs.

A survey of ICC members conducted in more than 60 countries after Trump’s April 2 “liberation day” tariff announcement showed expectations that trade would be permanently impacted, whatever the result of coming negotiations.

The cost of access to the US market would be the highest since the 1930s, Denton said. Referring to the baseline tariff for all countries, he said there was “almost an acceptance that 10 per cent will be the minimum charge to access US market, whatever other uncertainties there may be”.

Washington and Beijing showed signs of starting to feel the effects — with both sides announcing some tariff exemptions this week on important products for their respective economies and Trump predicting the 145 per cent tariff would “come down substantially”. However, China said on Friday it was not in talks with the US.

As the first container shipments from China to face tariffs are due to land in the US in the coming week, freight operators said supply chains were shifting.

Nathan Strang, ocean freight director at US logistics group Flexport, said companies were waiting to ship goods in anticipation of Washington and Beijing agreeing a deal to mitigate the levies.

US importers are looking to use up stockpiled inventories before importing fresh stock from China, said logistics executives. They are also holding stock in bonded warehouses where inventory can be stored duty-free with taxes paid on withdrawal, or diverting it to other nearby countries such as Canada.

“They’re sitting on goods at origin, sitting on goods at destination,” Strang said, warning that if a deal was done to cut tariffs, shipping rates would then jump sharply.

Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s largest container shipping lines, said Chinese customers had cancelled roughly 30 per cent of its bookings out of China.

Column chart of Year on year % change in TEUs* showing Container bookings from China to the US are falling sharply

Hong Kong-listed Taiwanese container shipping company TS Lines has suspended one of its Asia to US west coast services in recent weeks. “Demand is not there,” one person at the group said.

The declines in order volumes have fed through to landings in Los Angeles, according to shipping data analysts Sea-Intelligence, which reported a surge in ‘blank sailings’, where scheduled vessels from China were being cancelled.

Almost 400,000 fewer containers are booked on Asia to North America routes during the four weeks from May 5 than planned — a 25 per cent drop from the amount scheduled for the same period at the start of March, before tariffs were imposed.

The Port of Los Angeles alone expects 20 blank sailings in May, representing more than 250,000 containers — up from six in April.

That is a sharp fall from this week, when arrivals were up by 56 per cent year-on-year — a sign that importers have been frontloading deliveries from other south-east Asian manufacturing hubs such as Cambodia and Vietnam that are enjoying a 90-day “pause” in tariffs.

Container prices reflected the supply chain shift, according to data from logistics hub Freightos, with a 15 per cent increase in the price of a 40-foot container from Vietnam compared with a 27 per cent fall on major China-US routes.

“Rates from other Asian countries to the US may continue to climb ahead of the July tariff deadline,” Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, said.

Airfreight volumes have also fallen sharply, according to US industry association the Airforwarders Association, with its members’ bookings from China falling roughly 30 per cent.

“A lot of members have just stopped receiving orders from China,” said executive director Brandon Fried. “It’s also creating a whipsaw effect on prices and booking rates as traders reacted to each piece of news from the White House.”

The industry is expected to be further hit by a US decision to close its ‘de minimis’ scheme that allowed goods valued at under $800 to be imported tariff-free, an important route for e-commerce retailers such as Shein and Temu. Chinese goods are set to lose the exemption from May 2.

Lavinia Lau, chief commercial officer at Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific, whose air cargo business contributes about a quarter of its revenue, said it expected a “softening” of demand between China and the US because of the tariffs and de minimis rule changes.

Hong Kong freight forwarder Easyway Air Freight said business from China to the US dropped roughly 50 per cent following the tariff increases.

E-commerce executives noted waning freight demand. Wang Xin, head of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, said: “We are seeing noticeably fewer price quotation requests in relation to air cargo shipments.”

Even though stockpiling and supply-chain reorientation have helped buffer consumers from the sharp falls in freight volumes, hauliers and retailers are starting to feel the effects of the slowdown in imports.

Arizona-based Knight-Swift Transportation, one of the largest US trucking companies, warned of lower anticipated volumes, citing uncertainty caused by the tariffs threat.

Chief executive Adam Miller said some of the group’s largest customers were “expressing concern” that the cost of tariffs would feed into lower volumes in May.

“There are some that have told us that, yes, they’ve cancelled orders or they’ve stopped ordering, particularly from China, and we’ll figure out how to adjust their supply chain to avoid the cost,” he said.

Retail consultants said purchasing patterns were reflecting the three successive months of softening consumer confidence indices.

John Shea, the chief executive of Momentum Commerce, which helps consumer companies sell about $7bn annually on Amazon, warned of a potential “double whammy” of rising prices and falling consumer spending.

“We’re seeing evidence that consumers are starting to trade down . . . while at the same prices are creeping up,” he said.

Data visualisation by Clara Murray

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The DEA says 114 immigrants in the U.S. illegally were arrested at a Colorado nightclub

Published

3 hours ago

April 27, 2025

Press Room

The DEA says 114 immigrants in the U.S. illegally were arrested at a Colorado nightclub

This screenshot from a video posted on X by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Rocky Mountain Division shows law enforcement officers raiding a nightclub in Colorado Springs.

Drug Enforcement Administration Rocky Mountain Division

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Drug Enforcement Administration Rocky Mountain Division

The Drug Enforcement Administration says a raid carried out with other law enforcement agencies in Colorado Springs on Sunday led to the capture of more than 100 immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.

The DEA’s Rocky Mountain Division said in a post on X that 114 immigrants were arrested and placed “on buses for processing and likely eventual deportation.”

Alleged members of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang and MS-13 gang, who were deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador by the U.S. on March 31.

The DEA said in a separate post earlier in the day that the “multi-agency enforcement operation” at an “underground nightclub” early on Sunday had also resulted in the seizure of drugs and weapons.

The raid appears to be one of the largest single-day arrests of people without legal status since Trump was inaugurated in January, with a promise to conduct mass deportations.

Video posted online by the DEA showed an agent bashing through a glass window on the front of the building before people began streaming out of the front door, where law enforcement authorities were waiting. Officers, some of whom had guns drawn, shouted at the patrons to stop and get down. Many put their hands up or got on the ground.

The agency said it gave multiple warnings urging people inside to come out before the raid. More than 200 people were in the club, authorities said, and arrests began around 3:45 a.m. local time.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the club was “frequented by Tda and MS-13 terrorists.” That is likely a reference to Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that has been a target of Trump administration deportations in the U.S.

NPR could not immediately verify the legal status of those arrested, and whether there’s any evidence of gang membership.

Bondi said two people were also arrested on existing warrants, and that authorities seized “cocaine, meth, and pink cocaine.”

In a video posted online by Denver7 News, DEA Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Pullen said “what was happening inside was significant drug trafficking, prostitution, crimes of violence — we seized a number of guns in there.”

Pullen added that there were over a dozen active duty service members in the club either as patrons or working as armed security guards.

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Ex-Disney Worker Who Hacked Menus Gets 3 Years in Prison

Published

18 hours ago

April 27, 2025

Press Room

Ex-Disney Worker Who Hacked Menus Gets 3 Years in Prison

A former employee of Walt Disney World who hacked into menus used by its restaurants and edited them — changing prices, adding profanity and altering listed allergens — was sentenced to three years in prison by a federal judge in Florida this week.

None of the changes, including falsified information about food allergens that could have been harmful to visitors, ever appeared before the public, according to court records. The menu alterations were caught and court records show that none of the changes ever reached the printing stage.

The former employee, Michael Scheuer of Winter Garden, Fla., was sentenced on Wednesday in federal court in Orlando, Fla., after pleading guilty in January to one count of computer fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

Mr. Scheuer, 40, was ordered to pay restitution of about $620,000 to Disney and $70,000 to the unidentified software company that provides Disney with its menu creation program.

While court documents do not mention Disney World, menus that were entered into evidence in Mr. Scheuer’s case are from the hundreds of restaurants at Walt Disney World in Orlando.

Disney World representatives did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In early June 2024, Mr. Scheuer had returned from paternity leave, court documents show. A few days later, he had an argument with a supervisor about menu creation, according to the documents, and he was told that he would be suspended.

Instead, he was fired for unspecified misconduct, the documents state.

An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation later revealed that, beginning around that time and over approximately the next three months, there were multiple hacks into servers that hosted the menu creation program.

Those changes included price cuts or hikes of a few dollars, profanities and altering allergens in certain items.

On a drink called the “Giddy-Up” — a blend of vodka, lemonade and iced tea — he lowered the price by $2, according to court records, and took two ounces off a 10-ounce filet mignon. In another instance, “shellfish” was changed to “hellfish.”

On a couple of menus, either the prices or the descriptions of the items disappeared.

He changed a wine region — Golden, Colo. — to the location of a mass shooting, Aurora, Colo. He also edited “Infamous Goose” — high-quality imported wine from New Zealand — to “Infamous Moose.”

More crucially, Mr. Scheuer edited certain menu items, falsely showing that they were safe for people with allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish and milk, according to his plea agreement.

Prosecutors said “the discreet way in which these changes were made was likely by design, specifically to avoid detection.”

But Mr. Scheuer’s lawyer, David Haas, said that his client had only been trying to get the attention of Disney so that it would respond to him.

“He knew the menu changes would be identified in Disney’s extensive menu review process,” Mr. Haas said in a court document.

Disney had indeed noticed, and it had contacted the F.B.I., identifying Mr. Scheuer as a possible suspect. In September, the F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mr. Scheuer’s home and seized several electronic devices.

The criminal complaint also shows that Mr. Scheuer blocked 14 Disney employees from their company accounts through denial-of-service attacks. Some of the targeted workers were former colleagues involved in his firing, according to court records.

On one occasion, Mr. Scheuer drove to the home of one of the targeted employees shortly before 11 p.m., walked to the front door and gave a thumbs-up to the Ring doorbell camera before leaving, court records show.

Gregory W. Kehoe, the interim U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, said that Mr. Scheuer’s actions were at least partly attributable to a mental health episode. Prosecutors asked for a 70-month sentence.

Mr. Haas said in an interview on Friday that “Mr. Scheuer remains remorseful and apologetic to his former co-workers,” adding that he was grateful to the judge for imposing only a 36-month sentence.

Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.