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Biden's trademark political traits tested by war in Ukraine – CNN

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Washington (CNN)When President Joe Biden labeled Russia’s actions in Ukraine “genocide” this week, the response by his team looked much different than when he declared, also unplanned, that Vladimir Putin shouldn’t be in power.

Both comments caught advisers off guard, appearing nowhere in his scripted remarks and going well beyond the official government position. His remark about genocide happened inside an ethanol processing plant in Iowa, standing atop a stage covered in straw.
Like his declaration at Warsaw’s royal castle that Putin “cannot remain in power,” Biden identifying genocide in Ukraine prompted questions about what, if anything, the new rhetoric meant for the grinding conflict.
But unlike with the earlier remark, Biden had been discussing the prospect of genocide in Ukraine for the past week, according to a person familiar with the matter, making his comment less of a shock. And instead of a carefully written statement attributed to an unnamed official, which in Warsaw only led to more questions, Biden made a decision to do the explaining himself.
“We’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies,” he said on the tarmac of Des Moines International Airport as he got ready to board Air Force One, “but it sure seems that way to me.”
As Biden confronts a war officials believe could go on for months, he is navigating both the weight of the presidency and its confines. His words are closely parsed for official meaning, even when they are ad-libbed, leading to worries about escalating the crisis.
At the same time, his impulse to visit Ukraine and witness the situation firsthand has been hampered by the bubble that accompanies him everywhere. And domestic concerns are pulling him in other directions, his remit extending well beyond a foreign war — leading to sometimes-discordant scenarios like declaring genocide inside a biofuel plant, bits of corn dust floating from above.
The dynamic has sometimes created tensions for a President whose response to the conflict has been at times deeply emotional and whose decades of experience in international relations — at the lower levels of senator and vice president — are informing his thinking.
His comment about genocide raised concerns among certain officials that he was getting ahead of the administration’s legal process, and it could be viewed as applying pressure on the officials currently working to make an official determination, according to people familiar with the response. Only a week before he spoke, Biden’s top national security official said the conditions hadn’t been met to call it a genocide, and the State Department has not said yet whether it has found evidence to change that position.
While viewing scenes of atrocities that emerged over the past week, Biden had privately suggested they could be evidence of genocide, according to the person familiar with the matter. Yet that hadn’t been made official by his administration when he labeled it a genocide in public.
It was the latest example of Biden’s long-held political traits of straight talk and empathy being tested in his new, elevated role. His allies and advisers say those characteristics act as a clarifying force for a mostly united Western alliance. And Biden has said privately there is little time to waste in calling out Putin’s actions for what they clearly are.
But some have questioned his impulses and wonder whether a more disciplined approach might work better.
After he said in Iowa it was becoming “clearer and clearer” that genocide was underway in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron raised concerns the escalatory language could hamper attempts at negotiating a settlement to the violence.
“I want to continue to try, as much as I can, to stop this war and rebuild peace. I am not sure that an escalation of rhetoric serves that cause,” Macron said. He had similarly warned against escalation after Biden’s comment in Warsaw that Putin should no longer be in power.
Other world leaders welcomed Biden’s candor. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he thought it was “absolutely right that more and more people” are using the word “genocide” to describe Russia’s attacks in Ukraine. Still, the Canadian leader stopped short of accusing the Kremlin of committing a genocide.

Biden gets out in front of the rest of his administration

Usually, US presidents are wary of applying the “genocide” label before a lengthy process concludes at the State Department. The designation has only been applied formally eight times. And after Biden’s remark, officials said they were not yet making an official designation based on what he said.
“There’s certain legal obligations that come with a formal determination of genocide,” Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said on CNN the day after Biden’s remarks.
Still, the White House was careful not to downplay the words as just the musings of a private citizen.
“He’s the President and we are here to implement his views,” press secretary Jen Psaki said. “I think we shouldn’t misunderstand who he is and where he stands on the totem pole, which is at the top.”
Ultimately, Biden’s comment about genocide isn’t expected to prompt any immediate changes to US policy toward Ukraine, leading some to wonder what the benefit of saying it was.
“To me, the biggest question is what purpose does it serve? We can have a philosophical, legal debate about whether what the Russians have done to date is technically genocide. They’ve clearly committed any number of acts that fall under the category of war criminality. But then the question is why talk about this in that way? Does this make it easier to bring the war to an end?” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see the utility of doing this, and don’t get me wrong, it’s not what the Russians are doing,” Haass went on. “It’s not that these are not horrific things. My question now is, how does it serve US strategic and policy purposes? And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see how it does.”
In the end, Biden’s remark was rooted in the same place as his determination Putin can’t remain in power: The devastating emotion of the conflict, which has played out in hard-to-watch images of atrocities and suffering. Biden himself has lamented that as president, his ability to bear witness to the suffering in Ukraine is limited by the burdensome but necessary trappings of the job.

‘We are not sending the President to Ukraine’

When planning his visit to Poland last month, Biden’s team explored the possibility of crossing over the border to visit Ukraine, which would send an important signal of support. President Volodymyr Zelensky had encouraged Biden to visit Kyiv over and over in a telephone call before Russia’s invasion and had continued to publicly encourage Western leaders to make the trip.
White House officials, discussing the prospect of Biden slipping into Ukraine, weighed both the US footprint such a visit would require — including military and Secret Service assets, along with a retinue of aides and press — as well as what Ukrainian resources would be required.
Ultimately, however, the scale of an American presidential visit was too great, and aides did not give it any serious consideration. Instead, Biden went to a town in southeastern Poland near the border. When he was there, he lamented his inability to go the extra 50 miles into Ukraine.
“They will not let me, understandably, I guess, cross the border and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine,” he said.
As a senator and vice president, Biden was a regular visitor to American war zones, including on secret, dark-of-night trips — a fact he mentioned when he was meeting troops inside a stadium in Poland.
“I’ve been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan about 40 times,” he recalled.
Yet unlike a stop in Iraq or Afghanistan, where US bases and personnel could help secure the airspace, Ukraine is not an American war zone and Biden has steadfastly refused to dispatch US troops inside the country itself.
As Russian troops withdrew from the area around Ukraine, a stream of Western leaders did make it into the country. First was European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who stopped to view scenes of atrocities in the town of Bucha before journeying onward to Kyiv.
She was followed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who walked the streets of the capital with Zelensky, shaking hands and meeting residents emerging from weeks of bombardment. One woman gave him a ceramic chicken figurine in gratitude. He ate a bowl of soup with Zelensky.
Watching from Washington, Biden couldn’t help but yearn to go himself. Since taking office, he has long maintained that meeting leaders face-to-face is far preferable to talking on the phone, and last month’s last-minute NATO summit in Brussels was his idea. As a politician, his strength has always been in human interactions with ordinary people.
Yet even the logistics of the British leader’s visit — which included planes, trains and helicopters — would prove impossible for an American leader.
Since returning from Europe, Biden has used his public appearances to focus exclusively on domestic issues, scaling up his travel around the country to tout economic progress as his approval ratings continue to sag. Aides say the kitchen-table issues are a priority and his schedule reflects that.
Biden said this week he was still deciding whether to dispatch a senior-level US official to Ukraine. When he jokingly asked a reporter whether they were ready to go, they shot back: “Are you?”
“Yeah,” Biden said.
“He is ready, he’s ready for anything. The man likes fast cars, some aviators, he’s ready to go to Ukraine,” press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday in an interview with “Pod Save America.”
Still, she was clear there was no prospect of such a trip materializing: “We are not sending the President to Ukraine,” she said.

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Harris, Beyoncé team up for a Texas rally on abortion rights and hope battleground states hear them

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HOUSTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will team up with Beyoncé on Friday for a rally in solidly Republican Texas aimed at highlighting the medical fallout from the state’s strict abortion ban and putting the blame squarely on Donald Trump.

It’s a message intended to register far beyond Texas in the political battleground states, where Harris is hoping that the aftereffects from the fall of Roe v. Wade will spur voters to turn out to support her quest for the presidency.

Harris will also be joined at the rally by women who have nearly died from sepsis and other pregnancy complications because they were unable to get proper medical care, including women who never intended to end their pregnancies.

Some of them have already been out campaigning for Harris and others have told their harrowing tales in campaign ads that seek to show how the issue has ballooned into something far bigger than the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Since abortion was restricted in Texas, the state’s infant death rate has increased, more babies have died of birth defects and maternal mortality has risen.

With the presidential election in a dead heat, the Democratic nominee is banking on abortion rights as a major driver for voters — including for Republican women, particularly since Trump appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the constitutional right. He has been inconsistent about how he would approach the issue if voters return him to the White House.

Harris’ campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the message dovetails with the vice president’s emphasis on reproductive freedom. The singer’s planned appearance Friday adds a high level of star power to Harris’ visit to the state. She will be the latest celebrity to appear with or on behalf of Harris, including Lizzo, James Taylor, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Eminem. While in Texas, Harris also will tape a podcast with host Brené Brown.

Trump is also headed to Texas Friday where he’ll talk immigration, and tape a podcast with host Joe Rogan.

There is some evidence to suggest that abortion rights may drive women to the polls as it did during the 2022 midterm elections. Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.

“Living in Texas, it feels incredibly important to protect women’s health and safety,” said Colette Clark, an Austin voter. She said voting for Harris is the best way to prevent further abortion restrictions from happening across the country.

Another Austin resident, Daniel Kardish, didn’t know anyone who has been personally affected by the restrictions, but nonetheless views it as a key issue this election.

“I feel strongly about women having bodily autonomy,” he said.

Harris said this week she thought the issue was compelling enough to motivate even Republican women, adding, “for so many of us, our daughter is going to have fewer rights than their grandmother.”

“When the issue of the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body is on the ballot, the American people vote for freedom regardless of the party with which they’re registered to vote,” Harris said.

Harris isn’t likely to win Texas, but that isn’t the point of her presence Friday.

“Of all the states in the nation, Texas has been ground zero for harrowing stories of women, including women who have been denied care, who had to leave the state, mothers who have had to leave the state,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, a legal group behind many lawsuits challenging abortion restrictions. “It’s one of the major places where this reality has been so, so devastatingly felt.”

Democrats warn that a winnowing of rights and freedoms will only continue if Trump is elected. Republican lawmakers in states across the U.S. have been rejecting Democrats’ efforts to protect or expand access to birth control, for example.

Democrats also hope Harris’ visit will give a boost to Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a longshot bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred will appear at the rally with Harris.

When Roe was first overturned, Democrats initially focused on the new limitations on access to abortion to end unwanted pregnancies. But the same medical procedures used for abortions are used to treat miscarriages.

And increasingly, in 14 states with strict abortion bans, women cannot get medical care until their condition has become life-threatening. In some states, doctors can face criminal charges if they provide medical care.

About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump has been inconsistent in his message to voters on abortion and reproductive rights. He has repeatedly shifted his stance and offered vague, contradictory and at times nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election.

Texas encapsulates the post-Roe landscape. Its strict abortion ban prohibits physicians from performing abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks or before.

As a result, women, including those who didn’t intend to end a pregnancy, are increasingly suffering worse medical care. That’s in part because doctors cannot intervene unless a woman is facing a life-threatening condition, or to prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”

The state also has become a battleground for litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the side of the state’s ban just two weeks ago.

Complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion.

Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.

Of late, Republicans have increasingly tried to place the blame on doctors, alleging that physicians are intentionally denying services in an effort to undercut the bans and make a political point.

Perryman said that was gaslighting.

“Doctors are being placed in a position where they are having to face the prospect of criminal liability, of personal liability, threat to their medical license and their ability to care for people — they’re faced with an untenable position,” she said.

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Long reported from Washington and Lathan from Austin, Texas.

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Nova Scotia premier appoints new finance minister after cabinet resignation

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has announced a cabinet shuffle today, appointing Tim Halman as finance minister and deputy premier.

Halman will retain his portfolio as environment minister as he replaces Allan MacMaster who resigned as finance minister and deputy premier on Thursday.

In a statement on Facebook, MacMaster says he wants to seek the federal Conservative nomination in the riding of Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish.

MacMaster says he will stay on as the member of the provincial legislature for Inverness, but will resign his seat if he wins the federal nomination.

In a short statement, the premier’s office says Halman’s swearing-in ceremony took place on Thursday.

The cabinet change comes as speculation mounts about a snap provincial election call as early as this weekend.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Beyoncé, whose ‘Freedom’ is Harris’ campaign anthem, is expected at Democrat’s Texas rally on Friday

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Beyoncé is expected to appear Friday in her hometown of Houston at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Harris’ presidential campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the singer’s planned appearance brings a high-level of star power to what has become a key theme of the Democratic nominee’s bid: freedom.

Harris will head to the reliably Republican state just 10 days before Election Day in an effort to refocus her campaign against former President Donald Trump on reproductive care, which Democrats see as a make-or-break issue this year.

The three people were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Harris campaign did not immediately comment.

Beyoncé‘s appearance was expected to draw even more attention to the event — and to Harris’ closing message.

Harris’ Houston trip is set to feature women who have been affected by Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She has campaigned in other states with restrictive abortion laws, including Georgia, among the seven most closely contested states.

Harris has centered her campaign around the idea that Trump is a threat to American freedoms, from reproductive and LGBTQ rights to the freedom to be safe from gun violence.

Beyonce gave Harris permission early in her campaign to use “Freedom,” a soulful track from her 2016 landmark album “Lemonade,” in her debut ad. Harris has used its thumping chorus as a walk-out song at rallies ever since.

Beyoncé’s alignment with Harris isn’t the first time that the Grammy winner has aligned with a Democratic politician. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, danced as Beyoncé performed at a presidential inaugural ball in 2009.

In 2013, she sang the national anthem at Obama’s second inauguration. Three years later, she and her husband Jay-Z performed at a pre-election concert for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Cleveland.

“Look how far we’ve come from having no voice to being on the brink of history — again,” Beyoncé said at the time. “But we have to vote.”

A January poll by Ipsos for the anti-polarization nonprofit With Honor found that 64% of Democrats had a favorable view of Beyonce compared with just 32% of Republicans. Overall, Americans were more likely to have a favorable opinion than an unfavorable one, 48% to 33%.

Speculation over whether the superstar would appear at this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago reached a fever pitch on the gathering’s final night, with online rumors swirling after celebrity news site TMZ posted a story that said: “Beyoncé is in Chicago, and getting ready to pop out for Kamala Harris on the final night of the Democratic convention.” The site attributed it to “multiple sources in the know,” none of them named.

About an hour after Harris ended her speech, TMZ updated its story to say, “To quote the great Beyoncé: We gotta lay our cards down, down, down … we got this one wrong.” In the end, Harris took the stage to star’s song, but that was its only appearance.

Last year, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, attended Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in Maryland after getting tickets from Beyonce herself. “Thanks for a fun date night, @Beyonce,” Harris wrote on Instagram.

___

Long and Kinnard reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report. Kinnard can be reached at

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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