President Biden on Friday touted the strength of the economy, suggesting during a speech in Maine that Republicans would move to impeach him because of progress on inflation.
Biden made his first visit to Maine since taking office, where he spoke at Auburn Manufacturing Inc., a textile manufacturer. The president’s trip was intended to highlight positive economic numbers and reinforce the White House’s belief that Biden’s policies are responsible for easing inflation and growing consumer confidence.
“While there’s more work ahead, earlier this week The Washington Post suggested Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for now that inflation is coming down,” Biden said. “Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down. I don’t know. I love that one. Anyway, that’s another story.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) earlier this week said he expects the House GOP’s investigations into the foreign business activities of Biden’s family to rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry. He later said House lawmakers would carry on with their investigations into the president and his family, as well as the president’s handling of the border.
Some House Republicans have been agitating for impeaching Biden for months, though many Republican senators have cautioned against moving forward with such a measure.
While in Maine, Biden signed an executive order to incentivize creating new inventions in the U.S. when those inventions are developed using taxpayer dollars. The order also aims to improve transparency to better track progress toward domestic manufacturing goals.
The White House has spent the past month pushing the message around “Bidenomics,” seeking to tie the president closely to an economy that has continued to show signs of strength.
The economy grew at a 2.4-percent rate in the second quarter in a surprisingly strong showing, according to data released this week.
In addition, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, a measure of inflation, rose 3 percent from June 2022 to June 2023, down from a 3.8 percent annual increase in May, the Commerce Department announced Friday.
Core PCE, which excludes more volatile food and energy costs, cooled from 4.6 percent year-over-year in May to 4.1 percent in June.
"I’m not here to declare victory on the economy. We have more work to do. We have a plan for turning things around," Biden said Friday. "Bidenomics is just another way of saying, ‘Restoring the American dream.’”
The U.S. economy is hitting a stride, growing at a 2.4-percent rate in the second quarter in a surprisingly strong showing that adds confidence to the idea that the nation may avoid a long-threatened recession.
The growing economy comes coupled with other good economic news: Inflation is slowing, and unemployment sits at just 3.6 percent.
Markets have noticed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 4 percent over the last month and more than 6 percent this year, despite dropping Thursday.
It's all good news for the White House and President Biden, who have used the recent string of positive economic announcements to tout their stewardship over the economy as they head into an election next year.
But it doesn't mean the administration can breathe easy — over the economy or Biden’s political future.
Some economists think a recession is still possible, and Republicans, while more focused in recent weeks on probes into Hunter Biden's legal difficulties, have not dropped their economic criticisms of the White House.
“It's entertaining to watch the administration sit here and say, ‘Oh everything’s great now,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said Thursday.
“Yes, inflation has come down, but the economy in no way is growing at the levels that it needs to be and we need to enact reasonable and responsible budget cuts going forward to right size our economy and get the country moving in the right direction,” added Lawler, who represents a swing district and is one of the more vulnerable House Republicans in next year’s election.
The White House rebuked GOP lawmakers, pointing remarks from to Fox Business Channel’s Cheryl Casone, who said Thursday: “There goes that recession talk, right?”
“Even Fox Business is welcoming today’s blockbuster economic growth numbers, the latest in a long line of proof points that Bidenomics is delivering for middle class families,” spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a memo. “That’s because this strong growth report is objectively good news for the American people, which elected officials should support regardless of their political party.”
The resilience of the economy has been a surprise for a number of reasons.
Market commentators for most of Biden’s term have been worried about a recession, and as the Federal Reserve launched a series of interest rate hikes in response to rising inflation, the fear was that a downturn would be hard to avoid.
The Federal Reserve itself in March predicted a “mild recession,” before reversing its position Wednesday after raising interest rates another quarter-percent.
“The staff now has a noticeable slowdown in growth starting later this year in the forecast, but given the resilience of the economy recently, they are no longer forecasting a recession,” Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday.
That resilience has taken several different forms but has been nowhere more noticeable than in the labor market. Unemployment has remained near historic lows even as the Fed has undertaken one of the fastest interest rate tightening cycles on record in response to prices that climbed as high as 9.1 percent annually last June.
Lower employment is usually associated with lower prices due to how much businesses have to pay workers and still turn a profit. But that relationship has been called into question during the recent inflation, as prices have been steadily falling since last June while unemployment has remained near record lows.
The unusual nature of the post-pandemic inflation, driven in part by massive consumer savings during the lockdown era and supply chain shutdowns, was likely the primary reason. Price fluctuations occurred in different sectors of the economy at different times, and companies raked in record profits, choosing to keep prices high.
In making the case for its handling of the economy, the Biden administration Thursday pointed to investments it made when Democrats held majorities in Congress in 2021 and 2022. Those investments were mostly in the Inflation Reduction Act, a bipartisan transportation and infrastructure bill and a major semiconductor bill.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) touted the investment in plants and equipment in a blog post Thursday, noting its contribution to the beefy GDP number.
“Nonresidential private fixed investment accelerated, contributing 1 percentage point to [second quarter] growth. Private construction of manufacturing facilities alone, such as factories, contributed about 0.4 percentage point, this category’s largest growth contribution since 1981,” economists with the CEA wrote.
Some key factors do leave a number of economists wary of another ding on the economy later this year. Millions will see an end to the three-year pause in student loan payments later this year, which could put a crunch on consumer spending.
Interest rate hikes have also weighed heavily on the housing market for more than a year, driving high mortgage rates and dampening demand.
Demand is beginning to rise again, but so are prices with would-be sellers reluctant to give up their low mortgage rates and put their homes on the market.
Powell said Wednesday that the housing market has “a ways to go” before it reaches a balance and prices cool.
The news of economic growth comes just weeks after the White House launched its “Bideonomics” messaging, which was met with speculation at the time about whether they were taking a victory lap too soon.
Throughout Biden’s presidency, Republicans have hammered him for high inflation, and they sought to use it against Democrats in the 2022 midterms. They are expected to focus on the economy, along with their investigations into the Biden family, again in 2024.
Biden celebrated that the GDP number Thursday, arguing that the economic progress “wasn’t inevitable or accidental” but was due to Bidenomics — a message voters can expect to keep hearing as Biden and officials traverse the country to tout their work on the economy.
“[H]ard-working Americans are seeing the results: Our unemployment rate remains near record lows, inflation has fallen by two thirds, real wages are higher than they were before the pandemic, and we’ve seen more than half a trillion dollars in private sector investment commitments in clean energy and manufacturing,” he said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday sharply rebuffed the notion of President Biden pardoning his son Hunter Biden, who is working out another plea deal with the Justice Department over an investigation of evading taxes.
When asked by a reporter if there is any possibility the president would end up pardoning his son, Jean-Pierre replied sharply: "No."
When the reporter began asking a follow-up question, Jean-Pierre interrupted him and said, "I just said no," and moved on to another reporter.
It was a rare moment in which the White House gave a definitive answer to any question involving Hunter Biden's legal troubles. It came one day after the president's son appeared at a federal court in Delaware, where an initial plea deal was scrambled by the end of a nearly three-hour court hearing.
The White House spent that day sidestepping questions over Hunter Biden’s legal dilemma.
“Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter,” Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. “As we have said, the president, the first lady, they love their son, and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life.”
The White House has stressed the Justice Department (DOJ) acts independently, referring questions to the agency, and stressing the case with Hunter Biden was overseen by a prosecutor appointed by former President Trump.
On Thursday, Jean-Pierre also firmly stated the DOJ was operating independently when asked if the president has ever pushed for preferential treatment for himself, his family, members of his administration or former President Trump.
Hunter Biden on Wednesday was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay income taxes as part of a deal announced last month with the Justice Department.
Biden instead pleaded not guilty on Wednesday and the plea deal involving tax and gun charges was put on hold when the judge presiding over the case questioned the parameters of the agreement.
The White House on Thursday bashed Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over pushback from fellow Republicans in his conference over his floating the idea of pursuing impeachment.
McCarthy this week signaled that the House could move forward with an impeachment inquiry against Biden, though he made it clear no decision has been made.
The White House, in a statement exclusively obtained by The Hill, called McCarthy’s comments “a ridiculous, baseless stunt, intended to attack the President at a time when House Republicans should instead be joining the President to focus on the important issues facing the American people.”
“But just as soon as McCarthy floated this stunt, he was met with resistance — from members of his own party and even his own caucus,” the statement continued.
The statement highlights quotes from Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who called McCarthy’s move “impeachment theater” on CNN; Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), who told reporters “no one is seriously talking about impeachment”; and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who told reporters that people in his district are worried about “real issues” like inflation and the border.
“The American people want their leaders in Congress to spend their time working with the President on important issues like continuing to lower costs, create good-paying jobs, and strengthen health care,” the White House statement read. “Regardless of these baseless stunts, President Biden will always be focused on delivering real results that improve the lives of the American people.”
The White House also outlined comments from GOP senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who told reporters Wednesday that impeachment is “not good for the country.”
The House GOP has launched investigations into Biden’s family business dealings while Republicans in the Senate have largely distanced themselves from the efforts.
The president’s son Hunter Biden was in a Delaware court Wednesday, where his plea deal — which has been criticized by Republicans — was put on hold by a judge who questioned the scope of the agreement.
The White House on Wednesday released a memo arguing that Republicans’ attacks against Biden are disjointed and a “clown carousel.”
The memo was titled “The message behind Republicans’ haphazard non-message: they can’t beat Bidenomics,” reflecting the Biden argument that the GOP is stepping up attacks on Hunter Biden and talk of impeachment because the economy is getting stronger and is now a less effective avenue for attack.
The White House on Wednesday criticized House Republicans for their attacks against President Biden, saying that their disjointed messaging about the president is a “clown carousel.”
“Instead of having a consistent, disciplined message, the congressional GOP’s public criticisms of the Biden-Harris Administration are now a fragmented grab-bag that runs the gamut from bizarrely opposing our fentanyl crackdowns to blasting us for trying to end rural poverty (not a joke, sadly),” the White House said in a memo from spokesperson Andrew Bates.
In a day, the memo said, Republicans will move from bashing drag queens to calling Biden old to calling Ukraine a U.S. adversary.
“By the time 4 o’clock shows up, it’s a game of mad libs with bizarre conspiracies about the President’s family and then something about 'wokeness' (we keep asking them what 'wokeness' is, but then they leave the chat),” the memo said. “Apparently, this clown carousel wasn’t weird enough. Now House Republicans are channeling their frustrated energy into a measured and purposeful urge to impeach… someone… somewhere… for something.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) this week signaled the House could move forward with an impeachment inquiry against Biden, though he made it clear no decision has been made. The House GOP has launched investigations into Biden’s family business dealings.
Hunter Biden was in a Delaware court Wednesday, where his plea deal — which has been criticized by Republicans — appeared to be on hold.
More on recent House GOP attacks against Biden from The Hill
The White House memo was titled “The message behind Republicans’ haphazard non-message: they can’t beat Bidenomics,” reflecting the Biden argument that the GOP is stepping up attacks on Hunter Biden and talk of impeachment because the economy is getting stronger and is now a less effective avenue for attack.
“[They] could keep telling the American people that they want to ship the new manufacturing jobs we’re delivering back overseas (we didn’t make it up — we couldn’t). I guess they could triple down on cutting Medicare benefits. Big constituency behind that one. Or the most likely: all of the above,” the memo said. “The bottom line is this. The subtitle to everything that makes up congressional Republicans’ disjointed message is this: ‘Bidenomics is working.’”
The Biden administration recently launched the term "Bidenomics" to tout its economic agenda, which includes boosting manufacturing and job creation.
The president and top officials have traversed the country in the past month to spread the message that Bidenomics has been a success because of low unemployment and falling inflation.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of "problematic behavior," from China during his visit to the Polynesian island of Tonga on Wednesday.
"What I think one of the things that we've seen is that as China's engagement in the region has grown, there has been some, from our perspective, increasingly problematic behavior," Blinken said, pointing to concerns over China's "unlawful maritime claims," "predatory" economic activity and investments that "promote corruption."
The comment follows Blinken's high-stakes trip to China last month, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping amid rising tensions between the countries. The trip to Tonga is Blinken's third visit to the Asia-Pacific region over the past two months, having also visited Indonesia.
The trip comes as part of the White House's efforts to push back on China's growing influence in the Pacific islands region and increase the U.S. presence. In a notice sent to Congress earlier this month, the State Department said it is planning a sharp increase in diplomatic personnel and spending for new U.S. embassies in the Pacific islands.
Meeting with Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi ‘Ofakivahafolau Sovaleni on Wednesday, Blinken dedicated a new U.S. embassy in Tonga that opened two months ago.
"We acknowledged a changing global landscape, the impacts of conflict and the strategic importance of the Pacific Island region," Sovaleni said.
He also told reporters that Tonga's growing partnership with the U.S. is rooted in a "shared respect for democracy, the rule of law, and the rights of freedom of others." Solvaleni said he and Blinken discussed the focuses of the partnership, including the climate crisis, education and defense.
When asked about Tonga's debt to China, Sovaleni said the country has officially started to pay off the debt and does not "have any problems or concerns," about it.
"When we talk about 'free and open,' we mean a region where all countries are free to choose their own path and their own partners; where problems are dealt with openly; where rules are reached transparency and applied fairly; where goods, where ideas, where people can move freely and lawfully," Blinken said.
The secretary of State will next head to New Zealand to meet with officials and watch the Women's World Cup soccer match between the U.S. and Netherlands. He will then visit Brisbane, Australia, to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their Australian counterparts.
A federal judge Tuesday blocked a new Biden administration rule that limited access to asylum, issuing a decision that will take effect in two weeks.
The ruling from a federal judge in California is a major loss for the Biden administration, which imposed new restrictions on asylum-seekers, including that they must first seek the protections if offered in another country along their route to the U.S.
The rule, finalized in May, also limits the ability to seek asylum between ports of entry.
In blocking the rule, U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar repeatedly referenced U.S. asylum law, writing that the new policy undermines the clear intent of Congress in establishing a safe haven for those fleeing persecution and danger.
“Requiring noncitizens to present at ports of entry effectively [constitutes] a categorical ban on migrants who use a method of entry explicitly authorized by Congress,” Tigar wrote in the ruling.
“Conditioning asylum eligibility on presenting at a port of entry or having been denied protection in transit conflicts with the unambiguous intent of Congress,” he added later.
The suit stems from a challenge led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), though the policy also generated lawsuits from GOP-led states.
“The ruling is a victory, but each day the Biden administration prolongs the fight over its illegal ban, many people fleeing persecution and seeking safe harbor for their families are instead left in grave danger,” Katrina Eiland, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case, said in a statement.
“The promise of America is to serve as a beacon of freedom and hope, and the administration can and should do better to fulfill this promise, rather than perpetuate cruel and ineffective policies that betray it.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which promulgated the rule, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though the Department of Justice is expected to appeal the ruling.
“We strongly disagree with today’s ruling and are confident that the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule is lawful,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement, referencing the formal title of the rule.
He noted the Department of Justice will appeal the decision and seek a stay pending appeal.
“Because the district court temporarily stayed its decision, today’s ruling does not change anything immediately. It does not limit our ability to deliver consequences for unlawful entry. Do not believe the lies of smugglers. Those who fail to use one of the many lawful pathways we have expanded will be presumed ineligible for asylum and, if they do not have a basis to remain, will be subject to prompt removal, a minimum five-year bar on admission, and potential criminal prosecution for unlawful reentry,” he said.
The rule had prompted howls from critics who argued DHS was turning to policies strikingly similar to those proposed under former President Trump. While the Biden rule had some mechanisms for migrants to fight determinations that they were ineligible for asylum, like the Trump-era third country transit ban it effectively blocked asylum for those who did not first seek it along their route.
Immigration advocates have argued few other countries have functional asylum systems to offer such protections.
But in some regard, DHS appeared to have reservations about the rule.
“To be clear, this was not our first preference or even our second,” a senior administration official told reporters when previewing the policy in February.
The court’s ruling follows the decision by the Biden administration to lift Title 42, another Trump-era policy that used the pandemic as a rationale for expelling migrants without letting them seek asylum — another contravention of asylum law.
Border crossings have dipped since the rescission of Title 42, a factor the administration credits both to the new limitations on asylum as well as the creation of new parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans that allows temporary admittance to the country.
Commander, the Bidens’ German shepherd, has been involved in several aggressive incidents that injured Secret Service officers — with emails obtained by a conservative legal activist group describing encounters similar to those that got another Biden dog booted from the White House.
The emails released Tuesday by Judicial Watch, which it said were obtained following a Freedom of Information Act request lawsuit, detail 10 alleged attacks by Biden’s nearly 2-year-old dog from October 2022 through January of this year.
Commander was involved in a biting incident last November, according to the emails, which left an officer with injuries on both the upper right arm and the thigh. The officer “had to use a steel cart to [shield]” themself “from another attack.” The officer, the email says, was “in a considerable amount of pain.”
Other communication includes an officer warning that the dog had been “exhibiting extremely aggressive behavior.”
“Today, while posted, he came charging at me. The First Lady couldn’t regain control of [Commander] and he continued to circle me,” the email said.
“I believe it’s only a matter of time before an agent/officer is attacked or bit,” the note said.
In another November message, an officer wrote in a memorandum that as they were walking towards a post assignment, “I noticed Commander and the First Lady” in the Kennedy Garden.
“As I continued walking, I saw Commander exit the Kennedy Garden and sprint towards me. I immediately stopped and put my hands up. Commander then bit me on my left thigh and then ran back towards the First Lady.”
“I am currently experiencing bruising, tenderness, and pain in the bite area,” the officer said.
Other emails recall a series of more minor biting incidents involving the dog.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday that the White House is "unique and it is stressful for all of us, so you can imagine what it's like for a family pet."
Jean-Pierre said the first family has been working with Secret Service and executive residence staff on additional leashing protocols and training for Commander, as well on establishing designated areas for the dog to run and exercise.
The incidents involving the dog were handled similarly to past comparable episodes involving pets at the White House, she said.
In 2021, Major, another German shepherd belonging to President Biden, was removed from the White House and relocated to the family’s home in Delaware following several reported aggressive episodes.
Major’s removal came after a “biting incident” with a security team member at the White House, as well as another instance when the animal “charged” at staff and security employees, CNN reported at the time.
Commander arrived at the White House in 2021. The presidential pup and Willow, first lady Jill Biden’s cat, are frequently featured at events at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Last year, the Bidens’ holiday decor at the White House included miniature smiling statues of Commander and Willow to greet visitors entering the East Wing.
Biden furry family members Commander and Willow getting a lot of love in the holiday decor. They make three surprise cameos throughout the White House. pic.twitter.com/z9iOrnBlBK
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign and former President Trump this week rolled out dueling plans for the U.S. military, with both GOP candidates' proposals light on details and heavy on gripes over Biden administration efforts.
While DeSantis’s proposition took aim at Pentagon diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, recruiting woes and policies impacting transgender service members, Trump’s plan focused largely on seeking reimbursements for U.S. aid to Ukraine, lambasting Europe for what he decried as only a “tiny fraction” of what Washington had contributed.
But as both candidates strive to stand apart from each other’s messaging, choosing to focus on different aspects of national security, experts say there appears to be little difference between the two proposals.
“There doesn't seem to be very much daylight between the two of them on a couple of different fronts,” said Katherine Kuzminski, an armed forces expert and society at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
Former President Trump pumps his fist as he departs after speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2023, on Saturday, March 4, 2023, at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“I think there's a real focus on bringing resources back to the U.S. and not extending American leadership abroad. And then, certainly, when it comes to the domestic politics, the pushes for reform within the Department of Defense when it comes to DEI policies and transgender policy,” she said.
“There isn't really a debate between the two of them on these specific issues ... When you look at their policies, they're not actually all that different,” Kuzminski said.
Here are both candidate’s messages on the U.S. military and national security:
DeSantis’s culture war complaints
DeSantis’s plan, unveiled at a brief news conference last Tuesday in South Carolina, doubled down on past campaign promises to “rip the woke” out of the U.S. military and overhaul the institution.
The “Mission First” proposal includes potential six-month performance reviews for all four-star generals and admirals, and possible dismissals should anyone be found to have “promoted policies to the detriment of readiness and warfighting.”
He also pledged to rescind Biden’s executive order that allows transgender individuals to serve under their preferred sex, rip out DEI initiatives in the services or military academies, end Pentagon efforts to combat extremism in the ranks and reinstate personnel who were dismissed for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine as well as give them backpay.
In addition, he promised to end programs meant to prepare military installations and troops for future climate change, bashing the Pentagon for shifting, in part, to electric vehicles.
In an interview with CNN the evening after the press conference, DeSantis claimed his policy targets Pentagon efforts that hinder recruitment and said the military is currently suffering from America’s loss in confidence in the institution.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rolls out his military policy proposal during an event for his 2024 presidential campaign on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, in West Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)
“At this level, everybody has acknowledged these recruiting levels are at a crisis. ... I think it’s because people see the military losing its way, not focusing on the mission and focusing on a lot of these other things,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis isn’t straying far from his policy proposals already enacted as Florida governor.
While head of the state, he has banned higher education institutions from putting dollars toward diversity and inclusion programs, forbade the use of federal resources to teach students about sexual activity, sexual orientation or gender identity, and prohibited some teachings about race and U.S. history.
But Michael O'Hanlon, a security fellow at the Brookings Institution, called DeSantis’s stance a “missed opportunity” for the former Navy officer, who served in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps in Iraq.
“Cleary DeSantis is fighting the culture wars and he’s sort of staying true to his M.O.,” O'Hanlon told The Hill.
“I think it’s probably a missed opportunity for him. … He should be trying to show he is actually capable of developing serious views on the big strategic issues of the day, which are fundamentally not about diversity, equity and inclusion within the armed forces,” he said. “I think he ought to be engaging on China and Russia, how to solve the Ukraine, how to prevent war over Taiwan.”
And Kuzminski said there’s a misperception that the Florida governor is capitalizing on “wokeness” as a recruiting challenge in the U.S. military,
“That is the perception of some who may have served a long time ago, but the reality of military service is that it needs to reflect the population from which it's drawn,” she said. “That's a challenge that I think a President Trump 2.0 or President DeSantis is going to run ... into if they were to win the election.”
On Ukraine, Desantis has offered tentative comments on the conflict, insisting it wasn't a U.S. national security priority and downplaying the Russian invasion.
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests [such as] securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said in March.
He has since walked back his comments on the war being a “territorial dispute.”
A firefighter walks with of a resident through smoke coming from a house on fire, after cluster rockets hit a residential area, in Konstantinovka, eastern Ukraine, on Saturday, July 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Trump’s Ukraine-Russia War focus
Trump, meanwhile, has long made pledges to cut back U.S. involvement in foreign wars, starting with campaign promises ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump coasted through the 2016 GOP primaries under his so-called “America First” foreign policy, intended to diminish Washington’s role on the world stage and focus more dollars at home than overseas.
During his presidency, he continued that line of thinking, calling for a reduction in service members serving abroad and criticizing the U.S. foreign intervention as being too expensive and ineffective.
Trump seems to be doubling down on that track with his plan for “Rebuilding America’s Depleted Military,” also released last week.
In a prerecorded video put out by his campaign, the former president focuses largely on foreign policy, repeating criticisms over Biden’s handling Russia’s war on Ukraine.
If reelected, he claimed, he would demand Europe pay the U.S. to rebuild its weapons stockpiles — which have pulled from heavily since February 2022 to help bolster Kyiv in its fight.
“Less than three years ago, I’d fully rebuilt the United States military and steered America into such a strong global position,” Trump boasted.
“Twenty-nine months later, the arsenals are empty, the stockpiles are bare, the Treasury is drained, the ranks are being hollowed out, our country has been totally humiliated, and we have a corrupt, compromised president, crooked Joe Biden, who is dragging us into World War III,” he said.
Trump also claimed Washington’s European allies were only giving a “tiny fraction” of the assistance to Ukraine compared to the United States, and suggested Biden was “too weak and too disrespected to even ask” for reimbursement.
Trump also said in a recent interview that he could end the war in 24 hours, a claim many found dubious.
O’Hanlon, who called Trump’s assertions on lagging European assistance to Ukraine “incorrect,” said he appears to be banking on his past arguments on making America first.
Kuzminski agreed that Trump’s campaign looks to be “hitting harder on making Ukraine repay us,” and “doubling down" on those statements.
While Trump hasn’t been as vocal on culture war issues in the military this time around, he has a well-documented history when it comes to his stance on transgender service members in the military.
In July 2017, he announced on Twitter, apparently out of the blue, that transgender individuals would no longer be allowed “to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”
That ban was eventually rescinded by Biden via executive order shortly after he entered the White House in January 2021.
Former President Trump on Monday criticized Senate Republican leaders for not being as critical of President Biden as House Republicans have been.
GOP House members have made a concerted effort to paint Biden and the Department of Justice as corrupt, using the DOJ prosecution of Hunter Biden for ammunition. They argue Hunter Biden received too lenient a sentence, among other things.
There have been staunch critics of both Bidens in the Senate GOP, as well, but the Senate GOP's leadership tends to be much more muted than the House on the issue.
“Joe Biden is the most corrupt President in the history of the United States, which is being undeniably proven in the House of Representatives every single day,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday.
“But with all of these horrible revelations and facts, why hasn’t Republican ‘leadership’ in the Senate spoken up and rebuked Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats, Fascists, and Marxists for their criminal acts against our Country, some of them against me. How long does America have to wait for the Senate to ACT?” Trump added.
The House GOP tends to be more pro-Trump than the Senate GOP.
While the House is led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is considering an effort to expunge Trump's impeachments, the Senate is led by a Trump critic — Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Kentucky Republican has been staunchly critical of Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and he has become a frequent target of the former president.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who is a member of McConnell's leadership team, has endorsed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for president.
Despite the relatively muted response, Trump has some strong allies in the Senate GOP.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last week joined House Oversight Committee Republicans in releasing a copy of an unverified tip to the FBI alleging a scheme to bribe President Biden.
The release brought stern criticism from the FBI, which admonished Grassley and the other lawmakers over the release.
“We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,” the FBI said in a statement.
The Biden administration has adamantly denied allegations of wrongdoing.
“It is remarkable that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years and that they themselves have cautioned to take ‘with a grain of salt’ because they could be ‘made up,’” said Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, in a statement after the release of the document.
“These claims have reportedly been scrutinized by the Trump Justice Department, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, and a full impeachment trial of the former President that centered on these very issues, and over and over again, they have been found to lack credibility,” Sams added.
