Joe Biden, American voters on different pages when it comes to COVID
New Rasmussen poll: voters increasingly fear worst of pandemic isn’t over but they’re ready to move on from restrictions any way
Dec. 31 - As the pandemic enters its third year in the midst of another soaring outbreak, the American people and their president are on different pages of this non-fiction horror story.
Joe Biden prematurely declared the virus defeated in July, but Americans are increasingly convinced the worst of a pandemic that has already killed 800,000 citizens lies ahead.
Biden and his COVID sidekick, Dr. Anthony Fauci, also are preaching to cancel indoor New Year’s parties and to mask up as the Omicron variant speeds across the country on the same path as its Delta variant predecessor a few months back.
But the American people are signaling they want to move on from such restrictions, returning to life as normal while cognizant of the risks.
In other words, they’re tired of the big government lockdowns and flip-flopping advice and increasingly trust themselves to navigate the peril that lies ahead.
Those are the messages inherent in the latest polling from Scott Rasmussen unveiled this week, which found just 27% of voters now believe that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. The December figure is a stunning 29-point decline from Americans' peak optimism in May, Rasmussen said.
Nearly half of America – 46% to be exact -- now believes COVID-19’s worst wrath is yet to come... more
'We're Prepared': Biden Speaks With Governors About Covid Response Efforts
Dec 28, 2021
Dec 28, 2021
Biden discuss Ukraine tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Dec 31, 2021
Dec 31, 2021
Background Press Call by a Senior Administration Official on President Biden’s Call with President Putin of the Russian Federation
DECEMBER 30, 2021•PRESS BRIEFINGSVia Teleconference
MODERATOR: Thank you. Good evening, everyone. And thanks for joining us. A reminder that this call will be on background, attributed to a “senior administration official,” and the contents are going to be embargoed until the conclusion of the call.
We will have an official readout of the call out shortly, attributed to Jen Psaki. But for now, we’ll go ahead and begin the background portion of our readout.
Our speaker today is going to be [senior administration official].
[Senior administration official], over to you.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks very much. And thanks, everybody.
So while this call took place at the government of Russia’s request, it’s consistent with our view that head of state engagements, particularly between these two countries, and particularly going into the intensive period of diplomacy that is to come, not next week but the week after, is appropriate and the best way of moving forward on the very serious situation that we face.
The tone of the conversation between the two presidents was serious and substantive. They each framed their positions as they’ve done in previous calls and also as they have done publicly.
President Biden laid out two paths, two aspects of the U.S. approach that will really depend on Russia’s actions in the period ahead. One is a path of diplomacy leading toward a de-escalation of the situation, and the other is a path that’s more focused on deterrence, including serious costs and consequences should Russia choose to proceed with a further invasion of Ukraine.
And those costs include economic costs, include adjustments and augmentations of NATO force posture in Allied countries, and include additional assistance to Ukraine to enable it to further defend itself and its territory, as we’ve laid out previously.
The leaders agreed to the sequence of Strategic Stability Dialogue starting on the 9th and 10th in Geneva, a NATO-Russia Council conversation on the 12th, and an OSCE meeting on the 13th. They both discussed the importance of pragmatic, results-oriented diplomacy. And I think President Biden very much saw this call as seeking to set the conditions for that.
President Biden was very clear that the United States will be operating on the principle of “nothing about you without you”: no conversations about issues that are of ultimate concern to our partners and allies without the full consultation and participation of our partners and allies — which President Putin said that he understood.
Both leaders acknowledged that there were likely to be areas where we could make meaningful progress as well as areas where agreements may be impossible, and that the upcoming talks would determine more precisely the contours of each of those categories. That’s what diplomacy is. That’s what negotiations are for... more
3 Key Takeaways From Joe Biden's Phone Call With Vladimir Putin
Dec. 30 -...Russia has in recent weeks asked NATO to refuse membership to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union. The country has also instructed the U.S. and allied countries to remove or reduce their military support for Ukraine.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone. After the call, Zelensky tweeted that the U.S. said it will provide "full" support against "Russian aggression"...
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Dec. 30 -...Russia has in recent weeks asked NATO to refuse membership to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union. The country has also instructed the U.S. and allied countries to remove or reduce their military support for Ukraine.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone. After the call, Zelensky tweeted that the U.S. said it will provide "full" support against "Russian aggression"...
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President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin to speak today amid tensions over Ukraine
Dec 31, 2021
Dec 31, 2021
Biden, Putin to talk Thursday amid heightened tensions over Ukraine
It's the leaders' second call this month as Russia menaces its neighbor.
Dec. 30 - President Joe Biden will speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday -- their second conversation this month amid heightened fears of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The call, which the Biden administration said comes at Putin's request, is the latest effort to defuse those tensions diplomatically.
But tens of thousands of Russian troops remain near Ukraine's borders, and bellicose rhetoric from Russian officials and state propaganda have Western officials on edge still.
The U.S. and European allies have threatened unprecedented economic penalties for Moscow if it attacks Ukraine, nearly eight years after its forces seized the Crimean Peninsula and sparked a war in Ukraine's eastern provinces known as Donbas.
Sanctions and other penalties have not brought that conflict to an end, with approximately 14,000 people killed and Russian-led separatists still fighting Ukrainian forces. U.S. officials say it's unclear if Putin has decided to attack again in an all-out invasion, but Biden has already made clear U.S. forces will not come to Kyiv's aid on the battlefield.
Instead, the Biden administration is hoping deterrence and diplomacy will stop Putin. A senior administration official said they "cannot speak to why the Russian side has requested the call," but added both leaders believe there is "genuine value in direct leader to leader engagement."
"I think we are at a moment of crisis and have been for some weeks now given the Russian build-up and that it will take a high level of engagement to address this and to try to find a path of de-escalation," the official told reporters Wednesday... more
It's the leaders' second call this month as Russia menaces its neighbor.
Dec. 30 - President Joe Biden will speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday -- their second conversation this month amid heightened fears of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The call, which the Biden administration said comes at Putin's request, is the latest effort to defuse those tensions diplomatically.
But tens of thousands of Russian troops remain near Ukraine's borders, and bellicose rhetoric from Russian officials and state propaganda have Western officials on edge still.
The U.S. and European allies have threatened unprecedented economic penalties for Moscow if it attacks Ukraine, nearly eight years after its forces seized the Crimean Peninsula and sparked a war in Ukraine's eastern provinces known as Donbas.
Sanctions and other penalties have not brought that conflict to an end, with approximately 14,000 people killed and Russian-led separatists still fighting Ukrainian forces. U.S. officials say it's unclear if Putin has decided to attack again in an all-out invasion, but Biden has already made clear U.S. forces will not come to Kyiv's aid on the battlefield.
Instead, the Biden administration is hoping deterrence and diplomacy will stop Putin. A senior administration official said they "cannot speak to why the Russian side has requested the call," but added both leaders believe there is "genuine value in direct leader to leader engagement."
"I think we are at a moment of crisis and have been for some weeks now given the Russian build-up and that it will take a high level of engagement to address this and to try to find a path of de-escalation," the official told reporters Wednesday... more
