(MUNICH) — Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday the U.S. has determined Russia committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine during a speech in Munich in which she spoke of the need to stand up to authoritarian nations using “brute force.”
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt, these are crimes against humanity. The United States has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity,” Harris said in her remarks at the Munich Security Conference.
Harris also made clear in her remarks that the world must set the example with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discourage any other autocracies from trying to go down a similar path.
“No nation is safe in a world where one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another where crimes against humanity are committed with impunity, where a country with imperialist ambitions can go unchecked,” Harris said.
Harris also appeared to make a veiled reference to China and the threat of it retaking Taiwan by force.
“We have remained strong and we must stay strong. Because if Putin were to succeed, with his attack on these fundamental principles other nations could feel emboldened to follow his violent example. Other authoritarian powers could seek to bend the world to their will through coercion, disinformation, and even brute force. The international order upon which we all rely could be at risk,” she later added.
Harris directly called out China in her remarks as well, criticizing them for “deepening their relationship with Moscow” since the start of the war.
“Looking ahead, any steps by China to provide lethal support to Russia would only reward aggression, continue the killing and further undermine a rules-based order,” Harris warned.
Harris praised the bipartisan members of Congress present at the conference, noting her confidence that “their support for Ukraine would continue.”
She also underscored the strong global commitment to the fight in Ukraine, noting that while there would be “dark days” ahead for the country, they would ultimately be victorious.
“[I]f Putin thinks he can wait us out, he is badly mistaken. Time is not on his side. To be sure, Ukrainians will continue to be tried and tested just as they have been over this past year. Transatlantic Unity will continue to be tried and tested. And I am certain that Ukraine will rise to the task that the United States and Europe will rise to the task,” Harris said.
(New York) — The Labor Department has detailed an investigation that found one of the nation’s largest food safety sanitation services providers illegally employed more than 100 children in hazardous work conditions across 13 facilities in eight states.
DOL said its investigation into Packers Sanitation Services Inc., based in Wisconsin, found that at least 102 children ages 13-17 were illegally employed using hazardous chemicals and equipment such back saws, brisket saws, and head splitters — often on overnight shifts.
The department said investigators learned that three minors suffered injuries while working for PSSI, including one 13-year-old who suffered chemical burns.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department fined the company $15,138 for each minor illegally employed.
The total penalty paid by the company totaled $1,544,076 and is the maximum civil penalty allowed by federal law, DOL said.
Overall, the company paid $1.5 million in civil penalties for the employment of 102 children in 13 facilities across Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Texas.
“Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags,” said Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri in Chicago. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults — who had recruited, hired, and supervised these children — tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices,” Lazzeri said.
DOL spokesperson Rhonda Burke told ABC News that company managers directed department investigators to not take pictures or video, sat across from employees while they were being interviewed, remained in the area of interviews even after being asked to leave, instructed one minor to only stay for five minutes, and moved an item into the recycle bin of their computer after being asked for access to it.
“The child labor violations in this case were systemic and reached across eight states, and clearly indicate a corporate-wide failure by Packers Sanitation Services at all levels,” Principal Deputy Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division Jessica Looman said in a statement. “These children should never have been employed in meat packing plants and this can only happen when employers do not take responsibility to prevent child labor violations from occurring in the first place.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Tuesday confirmed the 100th judicial appointment by President Joe Biden and as of Thursday the chamber had confirmed 105 of his nominees, exceeding the pace set by predecessors George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Since the Trump administration, confirming judges has been a major focus of the Senate’s Democratic majority — who can now move even more quickly with an outright majority on the Judiciary Committee — and Biden’s choices will alter the demographic and professional makeup of the judiciary branch.
He and Democrats have celebrated this, saying it increases representation. Conservatives take a different view, arguing personal backgrounds shouldn’t be emphasized in judges because it risks tainting how their decisions are viewed.
Biden’s appointees include the Supreme Court’s first Black justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as 23 people of color to U.S. circuit — or appellate — courts, including 17 women of color, Democrats said earlier this week.
More than three-quarters of Biden’s confirmed nominees are women and more than two-thirds of them are non-white, according to Senate Democrats, who also tout how Biden’s choices for the judiciary stretch beyond prosecutors to include public defenders, civil rights attorneys and more.
Before the Biden administration, nine Black female judges total had been confirmed to a U.S. circuit court and no president had ever successfully appointed more than three, Senate Democrats said. As of February 2022, 70 of the 3,843 federal judges in U.S. history had ever been Black women, according to data cited by the Pew Research Center.
DeAndrea Benjamin, confirmed on Tuesday to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, is the 12th Black woman to be confirmed to a federal appellate court under Biden.
Judge Gina Méndez-Miró became the 100th confirmation, on Tuesday, and joined the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Democrats said Méndez-Miró is the first openly LGBTQ judge on the court, and her confirmation flips the makeup of active judges on the court to a majority of Democratic appointees.
In U.S. district courts, analogous to federal trial courts, the Senate has confirmed more than 60 judges under Biden, more than 50 of whom have been women and more than 10 of whom have been men of color, Democrats said.
How Biden’s pace of judges compares
While Biden is currently pacing ahead of his three immediate predecessors — and tied with Reagan for the fastest first-year confirmations in four decades — he is not on track to outpace President Trump’s overall rate.
Trump confirmed 234 federal judges by the end of his term. And both he and former President Obama appointed multiple Supreme Court justices — Trump, three; Obama, two — though Obama also sought to appoint a third justice but was blocked by Senate Republicans in the final year of his term, drawing outcry from Democrats.
According to the Heritage Foundation, which tracks presidential judiciary appointments, Bush had 103 judges confirmed at this point in his administration, Obama had 67 and Trump had 88. Before them, President Bill Clinton had 128 by this point.
“Comparisons can be tricky since the factors that affect the confirmation pace can vary greatly from period to period,” said Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Jipping pointed to the “number and location of current vacancies, competing legislative priorities, the pace of nominations being sent to the Senate, etc.”
“Since vacancies have been much lower under Biden than under Trump, the fact that Biden’s appointment pace is faster means that his nominations team, and Senate Democrats on and off the Judiciary Committee, have been prioritizing judicial appointments,” Jipping told ABC News.
He said that, so far and “since 1981, presidents appoint an average of just under four judges per month and Biden is just over that average.”
Because Democrats expanded their Senate majority to 51 seats in the 2022 midterms, they also now hold an outright majority on the Judiciary Committee rather than an even split with Republicans, which will make it easier for them to vote on and approve nominees.
Changing the makeup of the courts
Biden and leading Democratic lawmakers have described their goal for judicial appointments in terms of representation as well as qualifications.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that “our effort to bring balance to the courts has been one of this Senate’s truly great successes. … We will continue to build on our success and help ensure the confirmation of highly qualified, demographically and professionally diverse judges.”
Biden echoed that when announcing he was nominating Jackson as a justice: “For too long, our government, our courts haven’t looked like America.”
Schumer told ABC News in a statement after the 100th confirmation that “when Americans can look at our courts and see people who look like them and come from their backgrounds and share similar experiences, the better off our judicial system is.”
Jipping, with the Heritage Foundation, disagreed with this argument, contending that it distorts the goal of good jurists.
“The Biden administration is pushing people to think of the judiciary as a ‘representative’ branch of government, which is the opposite of the impartial, independent judiciary that has been so important and distinctive in America,” he said. “It encourages people to believe that cases are decided by judges and their personal views rather than the law. It politicizes people’s expectations.”
“The most important factor in appointing judges should be the kind of judge a nominee will be, how he or she understands the power and proper role of the judiciary, not the race or sexual orientation,” he said.
(EAST PALESTINE, Ohio) — When Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan came to East Palestine, Ohio, on Thursday, he was the first top Biden administration official on the scene since Norfolk Southern rail cars filled with toxic chemicals derailed near the town two weeks ago.
The incident has since sparked intense health and environmental concerns that forced hundreds to flee their homes.
His visit came amid daily headline news coverage depicting angry residents and Republican and Democratic criticism of the federal government’s response that had the White House on the defensive.
The day before Regan arrived, the town’s mayor told ABC News he was ill-equipped to handle such a large-scale catastrophe.
“I need help,” East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway said at a town hall on Wednesday night. “I’m not ready for this. I wasn’t built for this.”
And Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — a favorite GOP target, who heads the agency that regulates railways, has been singled out by not only East Palestine residents, but also by conservative news outlets and on social media.
“What happened in East Palestine is unacceptable,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on Fox News this week before blasting Buttigieg — just one of many critics saying he waited 10 days before addressing the disaster on Twitter.
“And I gotta say, Secretary Buttigieg has been nowhere to be found on this issue,” Cruz continued. “You know, it really is a remarkable thing that he hasn’t gone to East Palestine to see what happened there. He hasn’t come to Congress to explain what happened … I know he’s got aspirations, but he actually has a day job — he has a job he’s been appointed to do that is incredibly important. And we need serious leadership.”
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has written to President Joe Biden, calling on Buttigieg to resign.
The criticism has also come from the political left.
Democratic Reps. Rashida Talib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota called directly on Buttigieg to “address the tragedy” and ensure it “never happens again.”
And West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, whose state borders Ohio, on Thursday called the delay in a top-level administration response “unacceptable.”
“While I am glad EPA Administrator Regan will visit the site today, it is unacceptable that it took nearly two weeks for a senior Administration official to show up. I urge President Biden, Administrator Regan, and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg to provide a complete picture of the damage and a comprehensive plan to ensure the community is supported in the weeks, months and years to come, and this sort of accident never happens again,” he said in a statement.
During a town hall Wednesday night, when a local resident asked Conaway, “Where’s Pete Buttigieg? Where’s he at?” the mayor answered, “I don’t know — your guess is as good as [mine]. Yesterday was the first day I heard anything from the White House.”
At his East Palestine news conference on Thursday, Regan defended the federal response, saying the Biden administration had put boots on the ground since “day one” to do testing and promising that Norfolk Southern would be held accountable.
“Let me be clear,” Regan said, “EPA will exercise our oversight and our enforcement authority under the law to be sure we are getting the results that the community deserves.” He asked for the community’s trust and said federal help would be available as long as it takes.
A Transportation Department spokesperson told ABC News that “within hours of the derailment,” DOT staff were on the scene to support the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the cause.
The department’s role is to support the NTSB — the independent agency that will issue preliminary findings and eventually, a final report — Buttigieg has said, calling also for a reduction of “constraints on the USDOT in this area,” while asking Congress to work with him on safety improvements.
“The residents of East Palestine deserve accurate information and it’s unfortunate to see certain media outlets trying to cause misplaced outrage in an ongoing and serious investigation,” a DOT spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News, noting that Buttigieg has spoken with both Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine and Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro about the agency’s support.
“When the investigation is finished, Secretary Buttigieg asked about joining the governors in East Palestine to collaborate on steps to improve rail safety and hold Norfolk Southern accountable,” the spokesperson said, noting that the Transportation Department will likely become more involved in the process when discussions of future regulatory improvements begin.
The White House on Thursday expressed “absolute confidence” in Buttigieg.
“I can answer that very quickly and very, with confidence from here that we do have absolute confidence in Mayor Pete — in secretary — I always say that — Secretary Buttigieg,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Regan, the DOT spokesperson said, is the correct administration representative in the situation. While no injuries were reported from the crash, chemicals in the rail cars — including hazardous materials and vinyl chloride which was burned off in the area last week prompting a temporary evacuation — created outsize environmental and health-related concerns.
On Thursday, DeWine, for the first time, requested federal assistance during a conversation with White House officials, according to his office. Just two days ago, the second-term Republican told reporters that he had earlier been contacted by President Joe Biden with offers of assistance, but he declined.
Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, appearing with Regan Thursday, said, “Tell me what they need from the Senate and from the House. And from the federal government. I’ve been working with the White House — I spoke to the new chief of staff to President Biden just yesterday about his policy and it was literally the top of his agenda and my agenda when we spoke on five, six different things.”
On Friday, in response to DeWine’s request, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were deploying a team of medical personnel and toxicologists to conduct public health testing and assessments in East Palestine.
Officials said the administration had secured Norfolk Southern’s commitment to cover clean-up costs.
“We are committed to supporting the people of Palestine every step of the way and we are going to be on the ground helping them as long as it’s needed,” Jean-Pierre said at Friday’s White House briefing.
ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Noah Minnie contributed to this report.
Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ryan Seelbach/U.S. Navy
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Navy has ended operations to recover part of the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down earlier this month over the ocean off the South Carolina coast, the U.S. Northern Command said Friday.
“Recovery operations concluded Feb. 16 off the coast of South Carolina, after U.S. Navy assets assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully located and retrieved debris from the high-altitude PRC surveillance balloon shot down Feb. 4, 2023,” it said in a statement.
“Final pieces of debris are being transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in Virginia for counterintelligence exploitation, as has occurred with the previous surface and subsurface debris recovered,” the statement said. “U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard vessels have departed the area. Air and maritime safety perimeters have been lifted.”
(WASHINGTON) — The battle between Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott continued Friday as Scott updated his much-criticized plan — calling for all federal programs to “sunset in five years” unless there’s a vote to renew them — to pointedly exempt Social Security and Medicare.
As he did so, Scott, the former chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, name-checked McConnell as well as President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer who have used it to attack Republicans.
“All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years, with specific exceptions of Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans benefits, and other essential services. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. Note to President Biden, Sen. Schumer, and Sen. McConnell — As you know, this was never intended to apply to Social Security, Medicare, or the US Navy,” Scott’s website was updated to say.
The change in language comes as Scott and McConnell have become increasingly at odds after Scott challenged McConnell for party leadership late last year. His bid to unseat McConnell failed during a closed-door vote of Senate Republicans.
Scott first introduced his plan in February 2022 without the approval of party leadership. At the time, McConnell distanced himself from it, and he’s continued to scorch Scott’s proposal ever since, especially as Democrats — including most recently Biden — have used it to score political points.
McConnell recently came out even more forcefully against Scott’s plan following repeated efforts by the Biden White House to highlight it. McConnell told a Kentucky radio host last week that a proposal to sunset federal legislation after five years — including Social Security – would be “just a bad idea.”
“I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own reelection in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any state in America,” McConnell said. “It is clearly the Rick Scott plan. It is not the Republican plan. And that’s the view of the speaker of the House as well.”
While House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said cuts to Social Security are “off the table,” in the debt limit standoff, it hasn’t stopped Democrats from using Scott’s plan to contrast themselves from Republicans as the debate over raising the debt limit and spending cuts heats up.
Biden highlighted Scott’s plan during his State of the Union Address earlier this month.
“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years,” Biden said during the speech. “That means if Congress doesn’t vote to keep them, those programs will go away.”
The comments effectively baited Republicans, who shouted across the chamber that Biden was lying about their intentions, leading Biden to take advantage by concluding, “So, folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?”
Biden also referenced Scott’s plan in subsequent appearances following the address, holding up brochures and print outs of Scott’s plan at appearances in Wisconsin and Scott’s home state of Florida.
“Look, a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare. Well, let me just say this …. My veto pen [will] make it a nightmare,” he told the union crowd in DeForest, Wisconsin.
(WASHINGTON) — Joe Biden on Thursday had his second physical as president, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, more than a year after his first physical since taking the White House.
According to a memo released from the president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden “remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”
“President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” O’Connor wrote.
Biden, who is the oldest sitting president, has said he is leaning toward seeking a second term, and his physical fitness and mental acuity will likely be top of mind for voters if he does run again.
He has largely brushed off those age questions amid speculation about his 2024 plans.
“Look, I’m a great respecter of fate. I would be completely, thoroughly honest with the American people if I thought there was any health problem, anything that would keep me from being able to do the job. And and, so we’ll see. But, you know, I just — I think people have to just watch me,” Biden said in an interview with “PBS NewsHour” earlier this month.
Biden didn’t comment on his physical as left the White House on Thursday morning or upon arriving at the hospital, where he greeted members of the military.
He previously indicated some portions of the physical had already been completed back in November.
“I’ve gotten my — I will get — part of my physical is already done, and I’ll be getting it before the end of the year,” Biden told reporters on Thanksgiving.
Biden’s first physical as president took place Nov. 19, 2021 — one day before his 79th birthday.
The president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, wrote following the exam that Biden was a ‘healthy, vigorous 78-year-old man,” who is “fit for duty” and “fully executes all of his responsibilities without exemptions or accommodations.”
O’Connor said Biden has been under treatment for four different conditions: non-valvular atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heart rhythm; hyperlipidemia, involving higher concentrations of fats or lipids in the blood; gastroesophageal reflux and seasonal allergies.
While Biden got a mostly clean bill of health, O’Connor — who has been Biden’s doctor since 2009 — noted two specific observations: his frequent throat clearing, and a stiffened gate, compared to previous exams.
“The president has exhibited increasing frequency and severity of “throat clearing” and coughing during speaking engagements,” O’Connor wrote.
“He has exhibited such symptoms for as long as I have known him, but they certainly seem more frequent and more pronounced over the last few months,” he added, noting he ascribed this to his gastroesophageal reflux.
Biden also underwent a routine colonoscopy as part of his first physical, requiring him to undergo anesthesia, and briefly transfer power to his Vice President Kamala Harris.
Notably since his first physical, the president had COVID-19, and a rebound case of COVID following his Paxlovid treatment in July 2022.
Biden also took a spill while riding his bike in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in June 2022, though he required no medical attention for the fall.
Before he came to the White House, his most recent physical and medical report was one his campaign released in December 2019. That was a three-page summary that declared Biden “a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
Biden also suffered a fractured foot just before taking office in November 2020, after he fell while chasing his dog Major at his Wilmington, Delaware, home.
The most notable health incidents in Biden’s past were the two cranial aneurysms he suffered in 1988.
Physicals typically include measures of height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol, although Biden’s 2021 exam also included an exam of his eyes, skin, ears, nose and throat, neurological and pulmonary system, thyroid and even his teeth.
Biden was initially slated to complete his physical by the end of January, though it was delayed due to a busy period of presidential travel, per a White House official.
ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and new GOP presidential candidate, this week accused President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of thinking America is racist, echoing past attack lines that Biden and Harris have dismissed.
“Every day we’re told America is flawed, rotten and full of hate. Joe and Kamala even say America is racist. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Haley, whose parents emigrated from India, said during her campaign launch speech on Wednesday. “The American people know better. My immigrant parents know better. And take it from me, the first minority female governor in history, America is not a racist country.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday declined to discuss Haley’s campaign launch when asked about her proposal for all politicians over 75 years old to take a mental acuity test, citing a law barring government employees from commenting on campaigns in their official capacities.
Citing a law barring government employees from commenting on campaigns while in their official capacities, Jean-Pierre said she couldn’t respond to anything Haley said.
“I’m going to be very careful as I am speaking about a candidate — she’s currently, as you well know, a candidate for 2024. So, I am covered by the Hatch Act. So, I am not going to speak to her directly and her comments specifically,” Jean-Pierre said.
Lines like Haley’s have been used to put Democrats on defense and to criticize what Republicans call a culture of needless racial division.
Haley has long pushed back on what she said in 2020 was the “lie” from Democrats that the U.S. is racist.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the only Black Republican in the Senate who is also thought to be mulling a presidential campaign, said in his 2021 speech in response to Biden’s State of the Union address that year that “America is not a racist country.”
“Today, kids are being taught that the color of their skin defines them again. … It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination,” Scott said then, “and it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”
However, Biden and Harris have both said they don’t believe America is racist while noting the country’s history, which encompasses centuries of slavery and legalized racial discrimination.
“No, I don’t think the American people are racist,” Biden told NBC News in 2021 after Scott’s response to his State of the Union. “But I think after 400 years, African Americans have been left in the position where they are so far behind the eight ball in terms of education, health, in terms of opportunity. I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow and, before that, slavery have had a cost and we have to deal with it.”
Harris, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in 2021, also said that she agreed with Scott’s view — to a point.
“First of all, no, I don’t think America is a racist country,” she said. “But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”
ABC News’ Chris Donovan contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse on Thursday called for Congress to have the Russian-backed paramilitary Wagner group formally labeled as terrorists.
The bipartisan trio want to pass the HARM Act ahead of next week’s one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they said during a joint press conference.
The bill, if passed, would direct Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate Wagner as a “foreign terrorist organization” under U.S. law — which would enable a number of punishments.
“This means people associated with the group can be expelled from the United States, denied admission, people assisting with the Wagner group in any fashion subject to sanctions,” Graham, R-S.C., said. “And we’re putting you on the baddest list we know how to put any organization.”
Under the HARM Act, Blinken would also be instructed to send reports to Congress each year on Wagner’s activities.
“Talk is cheap,” said Blumenthal, D-Conn. “We need to put our money where our mouth is, our military where our mouth is.”
The Wagner group reportedly first emerged around 2014, toward the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine.
The private military organization is run by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin with tens of thousands of fighters, U.S. officials have said, and it has also operated in Syria and in various African countries.
The HARM Act notes that Wagner fighters have been “have committed, or are credibly accused of committing, terrorist activity” including “massacres, rape, and torture of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine” as well as “massacres in Moura, Mali” and the “kidnapping of children in the Central African Republic,” among other incidents.
Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Thursday that he wants to pass the HARM Act “to mark the anniversary of Russia’s treachery and brutality with a response to the Wagner group that is their mercenary co-conspirator.”
The senators also highlighted the bipartisan support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Whitehouse said Congress has good communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing how at one point Zelenskyy called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to urge him to get an amendment through an omnibus funding bill regarding seized Russian assets.
The group of senators who spoke Thursday — whom Graham referred to as the “Three Amigos” — will next travel to the annual Munich Security Conference for several days. They’ll meet with European allies and discuss the war in Ukraine.
Graham said the conference is an important way to keep European allies close.
“I find it very ironic that as we go into this Munich Security Conference, the map of Europe is put in doubt by force of arms,” he said. “Everything we’ve said since World War II about the world as it should be will ring hollow — and just talk — If Putin gets away with this.”
The U.S. delegation to the conference also includes Vice President Kamala Harris and Blinken.
(WASHINGTON) — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman on Wednesday checked himself into a Washington hospital “to receive treatment for clinical depression,” his chief of staff said on Thursday.
“While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” Adam Jentleson said in a statement.
Jentleson said that Fetterman was evaluated on Monday by Congress’ attending physician, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, who “recommended inpatient care” at Walter Reed hospital. “John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis.”
“After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs, and will soon be back to himself,” Jentleson said.
Fetterman, a Democrat, won his seat in the November midterms. He suffered a stroke during the campaign, which his doctors said was the result of irregular heart rhythm that led to a clot.
He recovered before the election and returned to the trail, albeit with limited appearances. After the stroke, he worked with a speech therapist and also has had auditory processing issues that required the use of closed-captioning devices.
“He has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office,” his doctor said, via his campaign, in October.
Last week, Fetterman was hospitalized for several days of observation after feeling lightheaded, though his aides said testing had ruled out seizures or another stroke.
A source close to Fetterman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told ABC News that his current hospitalization has no direct connection to the stroke he survived. However, this source said, it could be related to the separate incident last week.
He hasn’t been eating regularly and “he’s been doing his job, but he just seems off,” the source said.
“This is an ailment — it’s a different ailment,” the source said. After the stroke, Fetterman “was still himself. The last couple of weeks, he hasn’t been himself.”
Fetterman’s family has no timeline for inpatient or outpatient care but believe it’s “weeks, not months — and not days” that he will likely be away from the Senate.
“Depression is very treatable. A lot of people don’t seek treatment because of the stigma. … What John Fetterman is doing right now is exactly what people should do when experiencing mental health challenges,” the source said.
Fetterman’s wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, wrote on Twitter that “this is a difficult time for our family, so please respect our privacy. For us, the kids come first.” She and the senator share three children.
“Take care of yourselves. Hold your loved ones close, you are not alone,” she wrote, while praising her husband for “asking for help and getting the care he needs.”
“After what he’s been through in the past year, there’s probably no one who wanted to talk about his own health less than John,” she wrote. “I’m so proud of him.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Allison Pecorin, Trish Turner and Alisa Wiersema contributed to this report.
