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How Biden’s 9 unscripted words could impact the war in Ukraine | CNN Politics

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How Biden’s 9 unscripted words could impact the war in Ukraine | CNN Politics



CNN
 — 

Simply 9 unscripted phrases put an already jittery world on edge once more.

President Joe Biden’s suggestion in Poland on Saturday that Vladimir Putin’s onslaught on Ukraine ought to disqualify him from energy triggered a global political storm.

Again in Washington Sunday night, Biden informed reporters that he was not calling for regime change in Russia – echoing a message spelled out a number of occasions by his subordinates even earlier than he had returned to the US.

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However the world reverberations from the remarks depart the administration going through grave questions. Some are strategic and will impression the longer term course of the battle and so-far elusive hopes for a ceasefire. Others are political and relate to Biden’s standing at residence, amid a torrent of Republican criticism, and internationally, as he seeks to maintain the Western coalition collectively.

They embody:

  • Did the President’s remark dangerously escalate already excessive tensions within the worst confrontation between the West and Russia in a long time?
  • Has Biden shaken worldwide confidence in his so-far robust management in bringing the NATO alliance collectively in a united entrance in opposition to Moscow? And can Putin be capable to exploit disquiet over Biden’s feedback in European capitals?
  • Will the notion that Biden hopes to topple Putin – even when the US says it’s not true – harden the embattled Russian chief’s resolve in opposition to negotiations or trigger him to additional escalate an already cruel battle in opposition to civilians?
  • Has Biden’s now stinging rhetoric about Putin successfully dominated out any future direct diplomacy or conferences between the world’s high nuclear powers – and will it endanger world peace if they’ll’t talk in a future disaster that threatens humanity?
  • Or will Biden’s human response to spending time with Ukrainian refugees quickly be overtaken by the every day unfolding horror of the battle or come to be seen as a powerful ethical stand that modified the way in which the world views the Russian chief? In any case, ex-President Ronald Reagan’s name for then-Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” in Berlin was initially opposed by a few of his personal aides as too provocative.
  • And eventually, since Moscow already sees terribly powerful Western sanctions as financial warfare and given Putin’s deeply conspiratorial view of the West and its function in vanquishing the Soviet Union, can a couple of unfastened presidential phrases that rile up everybody in Washington actually make issues any worse?

It was clear from the pace with which administration officers labored to make clear Biden’s comment that they knew it might be a giant drawback that would probably make an already fraught European geopolitical showdown a lot worse.

In a jab not in his scripted remarks, Biden stated, “For God’s sake, this man can’t stay in energy” in a reference to Putin. A White Home official stated Biden meant that “Putin can’t be allowed to train energy over his neighbors or the area” and stated Biden wasn’t referring to regime change. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was much more categorical throughout a visit to Jerusalem on Sunday.

“We don’t have a method of regime change in Russia, or wherever else for that matter,” Blinken stated. “On this case, as it’s in any case, it’s as much as the individuals of the nation in query. It’s as much as the Russian individuals.”

The clean-up language was hardly convincing given the clear context of the unique quote. However a comment with such implications in a time of excessive tensions clearly wanted strolling again. And shortly.

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Any concept that the US noticed the battle as an try to unseat Putin can be harmful since it will elevate the conflict to a direct confrontation between the US and Russia.

Biden has scrupulously tried to keep away from that state of affairs – notably blocking a Polish plan to ship Soviet-made fighter jets to Ukraine to keep away from the impression that NATO is taking a extra direct function within the battle. The scenario is already on a knife-edge since big Western shipments of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles are fueling Ukraine’s robust resistance and apparently inflicting heavy Russian casualties.

There’s little question that Biden handed Putin a propaganda present that would undermine the US President’s personal onerous work in conserving the concentrate on Ukraine. Moscow’s info complicated is definite to current the battle to the Russian individuals as a hostile push by the West so as to additional obscure the reality concerning the unprovoked assault on Ukraine. This might ease the political stress the West hopes will likely be constructed by harsh sanctions designed to alter Putin’s calculation.

However Biden’s preliminary efforts to keep away from personalizing the battle with Putin and characterizing the battle as a direct US-Russia showdown have been undermined by his personal hardening rhetoric towards the Russian chief in latest days. He made it recognized earlier this month that he believes that Putin is a battle felony after relentless assaults on Ukrainian cities and civilians that triggered an enormous refugee exodus.

Biden’s remark concerning the Russian chief’s tenure on energy was not the one putting rhetoric of his tour. After assembly refugees on Saturday, Biden referred to as Putin a “butcher.” Beforehand, Biden had referred to as him a “thug” and a “murderous dictator.” And the script from which he departed to make the now infamous comment was in itself hawkish, previewing what Biden stated was a protracted wrestle, which sounded quite a bit like a brand new Chilly Struggle.

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On condition that Biden is probably going feeling the burden of world peace on his shoulders and acute empathy for these visited by unspeakable tragedy in Ukraine, his outbursts on his European journey could also be comprehensible as a human response to nice struggling.

“He went to the Nationwide Stadium in Warsaw and actually met with lots of of Ukrainians,” US ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith informed CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday.

“Within the second, I feel that was a principled human response to the tales that he had heard that day,” Smith stated, underscoring once more that the US didn’t have a coverage of regime change in Russia.

However a President’s phrases should even be fastidiously chosen. As Saturday’s drama confirmed, it takes only a second to trigger a harmful diplomatic disaster.

Biden was largely profitable in reversing his propensity for gaffes throughout his 2020 election bid, throughout a marketing campaign robbed of spontaneous moments by the Covid-19 pandemic. It was unlucky that his previous habits of talking his thoughts at inopportune moments resurfaced now.

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Republicans seized on the President’s frank feedback on Sunday, searching for to dent an impression that Biden has responded effectively to Putin’s provocations up to now within the Ukraine disaster. Clearly, they didn’t simply have nationwide safety in thoughts but additionally politics forward of the midterm elections, that are being formed by the President’s diminished approval scores. And in a number of the criticism there was a way Republicans have been enjoying into the conservative media trope that Biden is previous, just isn’t in full management and will blunder the US right into a battle. Such a place conveniently forgets the tolerance of right-wing opinion hosts in the direction of ex-President Donald Trump’s volcanic rhetoric, but it surely has energy within the GOP grassroots.

Talking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Idaho Sen Jim Risch, the highest Republican on the Senate Overseas Relations committee, appeared each to be underlining the administration’s message about being against regime change in Moscow whereas additionally discovering a technique to hammer Biden’s capability to guide.

Whereas praising Biden’s speech in Poland, the Idaho Republican stated, “There was a horrendous gaffe proper on the finish of it. I simply want he would keep on script.”

“This administration has executed every part they’ll to cease escalating,” Risch stated. However he added: “There’s not an entire lot extra you are able to do to escalate than to name for regime change.”

Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman was barely extra temperate however no much less vital.

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“First, I feel all of us consider the world can be a greater place with out Vladimir Putin. However second, that’s not the official US coverage. And by saying that, that regime change is our technique, successfully, it performs into the palms of the Russian propagandists and performs into the palms of Vladimir Putin,” Portman stated on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Biden’s feedback despatched shockwaves by means of Europe in addition to Washington. They usually appeared to annoy French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been a key determine in making an attempt, with little success, to get Putin to comply with a ceasefire.

“I wouldn’t use phrases like that as a result of I’m nonetheless in talks with President Putin,” Macron informed the France 3 tv channel, when requested about Biden’s remark that the Russian chief was a “butcher.”

Any future ceasefire deal Putin agrees to is unlikely to emerge from US diplomacy given the deep and mutual hostility between Moscow and Washington.

However any remaining settlement – and certainly the long-term objective of stopping harmful escalations between the world’s high two nuclear powers – is dependent upon them speaking to 1 one other. It was already onerous to see how Biden might meet a Russian chief whom he has branded a battle felony. This weekend’s occasions made that much more troublesome. And whereas the US objective in Moscow just isn’t regime change, it’s onerous to see any significant dialogue whereas Putin remains to be in cost.

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Wanted: more bosses on the shop floor

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Wanted: more bosses on the shop floor

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On the day of the US election this week, I was struck by a familiar sense of anxiety, dismay and dread.

This had almost nothing to do with the election and everything to do with my decision to spend time that day on the FT’s main news desk. 

In the interests of research, I wanted to see what the job of news editing looked like since I last worked on that desk in London many years ago. 

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Clearly much has changed since. The homepage is all-consuming; an entirely different team of editors handles the printed paper. But much is still the same, like the stomach-grinding anxiety about inserting an error in the rush to publish. And the heart-stopping fear of receiving a late, garbled story needing not so much editing as open-heart surgery. And the remorseless speed of the work.

“You all right?” muttered the news editor, a man I’ve known for close to 20 years, as I faffed about trying to log in to the first morning news meeting of top editors. Flustered, I finally got the sound on as he was explaining why I was there, whereupon I thanked him and called him Tim instead of his actual name, which is Tom.

This was a reminder of something I had forgotten in my years away from that work. It is so much harder than it looks from the outside.

The experience confirmed that business leaders who do what Boeing’s new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, did the other week deserve much credit. 

When Ortberg set out his plans to restore faith in the beleaguered aerospace giant, he highlighted one in particular: putting executives on factory floors as part of “a fundamental culture change”.

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“We need to know what’s going on, not only with our products, but with our people,” he said. “We need to prevent the festering of issues and work better together to identify, fix, and understand root cause.”

This seems obvious for any company, let alone one reeling from the aftermath of two fatal crashes of its top-selling 737 Max aircraft.

Yet if it really were apparent, there wouldn’t be headlines whenever someone like Ortberg issues such an edict. Or Home Depot tells corporate office staff to work a full day at one of its stores each quarter, as it did this year. Or Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, reveals he has been moonlighting as a driver, as he did last year. 

Maybe more bosses than we hear about spend time answering customer complaints on social media, such as Greg Jackson, chief executive of the UK’s Octopus Energy power supplier. Or decide a human can adjust a car window seal faster than a robot by trying it himself on an assembly line, as Elon Musk did at Tesla. 

But I doubt it. For one thing, few CEOs are like Musk. Also, running a business is hard. It can be easy to get caught up in the daily crossfire of drama. When Khosrowshahi was driving a customer to the airport one night, he had to ignore what the Wall Street Journal said were frantic phone calls from his chief legal officer trying to tell him the company’s network had been hacked.

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It also takes a lot of confidence to expose yourself to the ridicule of underlings who know more about how a job is done, especially for CEOs unfamiliar with the industry they join.

But I suspect many executives shy away from the shop floor because they have succumbed to an aspect of power poisoning, or the way behaviour changes when you reach the top.

In this case, they think that, because they are in charge, they understand everything they need to know in order to lead well, even when they palpably don’t. Academics call this the fallacy of centrality and it can be a dismaying thing to watch. Ask any worker repeatedly asked to do something provably unworkable by a clueless boss. 

Of course, hands-on experience alone does not guarantee success. Laxman Narasimhan did 40 hours of barista training before taking over as CEO of Starbucks and last year said he would keep working behind the counter for half a day each month. He was ousted 17 months later. Falling sales and an activist investor will probably always beat even the finest Frappuccino technique.

pilita.clark@ft.com

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Camarillo homeowners return to burned homes after devastating Mountain Fire

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Camarillo homeowners return to burned homes after devastating Mountain Fire

Camarillo homeowners have started to return to their scorched neighborhoods after the devastating Mountain Fire ripped through the area earlier this week. 

While some homes remain standing, many others have been reduced to rubble, with random pieces of furniture and appliances left behind. 

The fire, which has so far engulfed more than 20,000 acres and destroyed over 100 homes, broke out on Wednesday and quickly grew with the help of strong winds blowing through the area. 

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Flowers and a message of hope left behind in a decimated neighborhood in Camarillo after the Mountain Fire.

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It began in Moorpark before jumping SR-118 and entering neighborhoods in the foothills of Camarillo, where Jamie Randall and her husband Tyler Farnworth returned earlier this week to find that their home was gone. 

“I feel like the shock if wearing off a little bit,” Randall said. “It’s hard to see this. It’s harder today for me then it was even a few days ago to wrap my head around the gravity of what has happened to our home.”

The couple lived at the home with their children and were among the more than 10,000 residents forced to gather what they could and flee at a moment’s notice as the fire ripped through the neighborhood. 

Randall said that she packed two suitcases and grabbed some important documents, anticipating that they would be able to return home after the blaze was handled by firefighters. 

“I never thought in my wildest dreams this would be the last time I would be standing at my house,” she said. 

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They say that the fire hollowed out their home, reducing everything inside to ash. 

“There’s a few things that we wish we would have grabbed. Some things from my parents that are no longer with us,” said Farnworth. “Silly little things, you know.”

They say that it was more than just their home, but a community for the family, who owns a dance studio named Bobbie’s School of Performing Arts. 

After news was spread about their home, they say that they were contacted by an overwhelming amount of friends and families showing them love and support. 

“It spread so wide, the amount of love they’ve shown us and they continue to show us,” the family said. 

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The smiling statue of Buddha that survived the devastating Mountain Fire that ripped through a Camarillo neighborhood on Nov. 6.

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While they’re still unsure what their next steps may be, they’re taking one sign from the rubble as a bit of positivity — a smiling Buddha statue that survived the flames. 

“This is our home. This is our home, this is our street, these are our neighbors,” Farnworth said. “Everyone, I feel like, feels the same way.”

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Poorer voters flocked to Trump and other data points from the election

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Poorer voters flocked to Trump and other data points from the election

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Donald Trump’s win gave Republicans their highest share of the popular vote in two decades — and revealed big shifts in the US electorate, from the Democratic party’s reliance on wealthier, college-educated voters to the power of issues like immigration.

Low turnout by Democrats also hurt Kamala Harris’s chances while support from traditional left-leaning voting groups, such as Hispanic and Black voters, fell.

The results also show that poorer and less-educated voters now think Republicans best represent them — a reversal from 12 years ago, when Democrat Barack Obama was president.

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After a deep-dive into the data, here are five takeaways.

Democratic support depends on high-income voters

Economic realignment has been under way for some time, but hastened in this election. The Democratic party now appears to be the party of high-income voters, not those with low incomes.

For the first time in decades, Democrats received more support from Americans in the top third of the income bracket than from poorer groups, according to an FT analysis of voter surveys.

In contrast to 2020, the majority of lower-income households or those earning less than $50,000 a year voted for Trump this election. Conversely, those making over $100,000 voted for Harris, according to exit polls.

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At the same time, Trump enjoyed enduring support from voters without a college degree, with nearly two-thirds voting for the former president, according to exit polling in ten states by NBC News.

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Immigration probably pushed voters to Trump

A poll by Gallup before the election found that US voters saw immigration as the most important problem facing the country, with 55 per cent saying that it was a “critical threat” to the US.

The results from Tuesday show just how damaging the issue was for Harris, who was blamed by Trump for the record high number of border crossings during the Biden administration.

Some of the areas that swung furthest to the former president were on the US south-western border, including Hidalgo and Zapata counties in Texas and Santa Cruz County in Arizona.

In Texas, Trump managed to flip four counties on the US-Mexico border that had voted for Democratic presidential candidates since the 1970s.

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Trump captured the suburbs and cities became less Democratic

Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 owed much to the big Democratic turnout in swing-state suburbs, including a blue wave in the majority-white suburbs of Pennsylvania and Georgia, as well as both majority-white and majority-Latino areas in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.

But on Tuesday, Trump captured more votes than Harris everywhere outside large cities, including suburban areas. In large urban areas, Democrats lost more than 1mn votes compared to 2020, according to an FT analysis of the results.

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The rural-urban divide has increasingly become an entrenched dimension of US politics, but this election saw a sharp drop in Democratic support in large cities, while rural areas continued to become more red.

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Hispanic-majority areas swung to Trump

Days before the election, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s disparaging remarks about Puerto Rico at a Trump rally cast doubt on the Republican candidate’s ability to win over Latino voters.

But the results showed that Latinos, as well as other non-white voters, are increasingly drawn to Trump. The shift could have lasting implications given Latinos are among the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the US.

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Even in liberal enclaves like Philadelphia, the most populous city in the swing state of Pennsylvania, voters swung towards Trump in majority-Hispanic areas, even while Harris won those precincts overall, according to an FT analysis of municipal data.

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In Texas, some of the largest swings towards Trump also came from majority-Hispanic counties, including Starr County on the US-Mexico border, which has a Hispanic population of over 96 per cent.

Trump even managed to flip Florida’s most populous county, the majority-Hispanic Miami-Dade County, for the first time since 1988.

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Low turnout among Democrats accentuated the swing towards Trump

Not all of the swing towards Trump across the country was attributable to an increase in support for the Republican.

While New York swung to Trump by 12 points in 2024, fewer than 190,000 additional people voted for him than in 2020. But 800,000 fewer people voted for Harris than Biden in the state. Illinois and Ohio followed a similar trend.

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Of the swing states, only in Pennsylvania did Democrats lose more votes than Trump gained. In Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina, the party increased their vote count — albeit only by 300 in the North Carolina.

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Harris’s turnout effort did bear some fruit, with current estimates showing that the proportion of the voting-eligible population who voted increased in all but two of the swing states.

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Additional reporting by Radhika Rukmangadhan in New York and Alan Smith in London

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