Politics

(WASHINGTON) — As mass shootings continue to rock the nation, President Joe Biden delivered prime-time remarks on guns Thursday evening from the White House, imploring the nation to “For God’s sake, do something.”

“This time we must actually do something,” he said, calling for a ban on assault weapons.

“We need to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen background checks, enact safe storage law, and red flag laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, address the mental health crisis,” he said in an impassioned address.

The latest mass shooting on Wednesday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, leaving four dead, follows a massacre of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, as well as an apparently racially-motivated attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, leaving 10 Black people dead.

“We spent hours with hundreds of family members who were broken, whose lives will never be the same,” Biden said. “They had one message for all of us. Do something. Just do something … After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland, nothing has been done. This time that can’t be true.”

Biden taking the national spotlight on Thursday evening comes amid questions over why he has not yet lobbied lawmakers personally and more forcefully as they aim to find a compromise on gun control legislation.

Biden told reporters earlier this week he “will meet with the Congress on guns — I promise you,” but did not provide details on when such a meeting might take place. On Thursday, he once again made the case for legislative action.

“This isn’t about taking anyone’s rights. It’s about protecting children, ” he said. “It’s about protecting families, it’s about protecting whole communities, it’s about protecting our freedoms to go to school, to a grocery store to a church without being shot and killed. According to new data just released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America. The number one killer. More than car accidents, more than cancer. Over the last two decades, more school-aged children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active-duty military combined.”

“Think about that,” he said, adding, “How much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say enough, enough?”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back Thursday against the notion that Biden hasn’t been involved in negotiations, arguing he’s been involved since taking office and repeating a sentiment from earlier this week that he “wants to give it some space” as the talks continue.

Biden’s making the speech Thursday, Jean-Pierre said, because he wants to make sure “that his voice is still out there and that the American people know that he’s fighting for them.”

Jean-Pierre also said the president is “encouraged” by what he’s seeing on Capitol Hill, even though Biden himself cast doubt that legislation will be passed, telling reporters he’s “not confident” as he recounted his first-hand experience in the Senate.

While serving as then-President Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden was tasked in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to lead the administration’s effort to enact tougher gun control laws — but in the nearly decade since the nation mourned for Newtown, no action on gun control has passed at a federal level.

The last meaningful gun reform legislation passed on Capitol Hill was the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004 due to a “sunset” clause in the legislation. Similar legislation has failed for decades in the Senate due in large part to the filibuster rule, which requires 60 senators for a measure to advance toward a final vote. Though Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in Congress, they cannot push legislation through the Senate without the support of at least 10 Republicans.

The American public is widely supportive of universal background checks, which have already passed through the House’s Democratic majority. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in September 2019 found 89% support for universal background checks, including at least eight in 10 Republicans and conservatives.

Ahead of Biden’s speech, Vice President Kamala Harris offered brief remarks Thursday afternoon on the mass shooting in Tulsa and urged Congress to pass gun safety laws.

“No more excuses,” Harris said. “Thoughts and prayers are important, but not enough. We need Congress to act.”

As Biden prepared for his speech on Thursday, funerals were underway in Uvalde, where he visited families of victims.

He claimed earlier this week to have visited more aftermaths of mass shootings than any other American president.

In impassioned remarks from the White House last week after the Uvalde shooting, Biden expressed outrage at lawmakers who are blocking “common-sense” gun laws and rejected the argument often heard from Republicans that gun violence is a mental health issue.

“These kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America. Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” Biden said with outrage. “Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbies?”

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(NEW YORK) — A spate of deadly gun attacks across the country has reignited the national debate on gun reform in the United States. Lawmakers are arguing over what to do, if anything, to regulate guns.

Many are pointing specifically to a 2008 Supreme Court decision that was the first time the Supreme Court ever held that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to gun ownership. The case, District of Columbia v. Heller, has been cited as one of the reasons why big gun reform may not be possible.

“The Supreme Court had not decided before Heller whether the Second Amendment created an individual right,” said attorney John Bash, who was a clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia on the landmark case.

Bash pointed to the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment as examples of other protected individual rights.

“They had never decided whether it was just the right to serve in a militia or a right to have a gun for self-defense. And what the majority decided was that it is an individual right, and it includes a self-defense component,” he added.

Kate Shaw, a professor of law at Cardozo Law School in New York and ABC News legal analyst, and Bash, an attorney in private practice in Austin, Texas, were clerks on opposing sides of the decision. On Tuesday, Shaw and Bash penned an op-ed in the New York Times titled, “We Clerked for Justices Scalia and Stevens. America is Getting Heller Wrong.”

“Kate believes in a robust set of gun safety measures to reduce the unconscionable number of shootings in this country. John is skeptical of laws that would make criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens who believe that firearm ownership is essential to protecting their families,” read the New York Times article.

Bash assisted Justice Scalia on the majority opinion and Shaw helped Justice Stevens argue the dissenting opinion. Bash and Shaw spoke to ABC News’ podcast, “Start Here” on Thursday morning.

“We’re required to say, and it’s actually true in this case, that the justices themselves did the most important work, but we did assist them in preparing their opinions,” said Shaw.

Due to the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, provisions of the District of Columbia Code made it illegal to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibited the registrations of handguns. The chief of police could issue one-year licenses for handguns. The code also contained provisions, including requiring owners of lawfully registered firearms to keep them unloaded and disassembled, unless the firearm was located in a place of business or for legal recreational activities.

Dick Anthony Heller, a D.C. special police officer, was authorized to carry a handgun while on duty. He applied for a one-year license for the handgun he wished to keep at home, but his application was denied. In 2007, Heller sued the District of Columbia, arguing that parts of the code violated his Second Amendment right to keep a firearm in his home without a license.

The Supreme Court held that the ban on registering handguns and the requirement to keep guns in the home disassembled or nonfunctional with a trigger lock mechanism violates the Second Amendment. Justice Scalia delivered the opinion for the 5-to-4 majority.

Shaw said the Heller decision is used to argue that gun regulations impede on an individual’s right to self defense, often incorrectly. She said the decision was to protect the Second Amendment as an individual right, but the actual specific holding of the case was quite narrow.

“[The] total prohibition just wasn’t consistent with the individual right that the court announced in Heller and, as John said, had actually never been identified or identified previously,” said Shaw.

Bash agreed with Shaw that the court had explicitly left room for reasonable regulations.

“[The court] gave a lot of historical examples of what it called ‘presumptively lawful regulations.’ [What is] really relevant nowadays is prohibitions on felons and the mentally ill getting their hands on guns and they didn’t disturb those at all and essentially signaled that they were probably OK,” said Bash. “Although there may be some wiggle room or debate there, they pretty much signaled that.”

Shaw also pointed out that the Heller opinion doesn’t call into question the ban on guns in sensitive places like schools or bans on carrying other “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

“There’s been a lot of attention paid to Heller’s announcement of an individual right to own a gun, but much less attention paid to the language in Heller. Making clear the government can absolutely regulate that,” she said.

As lawmakers look to what can be done, Bash said they still have the power to create new laws about gun reform, “if crafted correctly.”

“Background check laws and what’s called ‘Red Flag laws,’ meaning you have some indication that someone’s a threat, you afford them due process and temporarily take their firearm until a fuller hearing can be had. And there are variations on that,” he said. “Some of them may be OK. Some of them may not be OK.”

For now, the country stands in the wake of tragedy. Last month, 10 people died in a shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in what law enforcement authorities described as a racially motivated attack. Last week, 19 students and two teachers were killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. On Wednesday night, four people died in a Tulsa, Oklahoma, hospital shooting. Shaw said that the real question she and Bash ask in the op-ed is if legislators can pass gun legislation before the next tragedy.

“I think it’s right that reasonable minds can disagree about limitations on particular types of weapons and how those would fare under Heller… I think that our point is Congress has done nothing on guns since Heller was decided in 2008,” said Shaw. “If they want to decide to do nothing, I think they just need to take ownership of that decision as opposed to pointing to something external to themselves.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will deliver prime-time remarks on Thursday evening “on the recent tragic mass shootings, and the need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day,” according to the White House.

Biden taking the national spotlight comes amid some criticism over his apparent lack of involvement with congressional lawmakers negotiating a package amid a national reckoning over gun violence.

The latest mass shooting on Wednesday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, leaving four dead, follows a massacre of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, as well as an apparently racially-motivated attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, leaving 10 Black people dead.

Biden told reporters earlier this week he “will meet with the Congress on guns — I promise you,” but the White House has not provided details on when a meeting might take place.

After Biden said on Thursday he’s “not confident” Congress will be able to pass gun reform legislation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, under questioning about the president’s involvement in the Hill negotiations, said that Biden understands that some negotiations require giving Congress “a little space.”

Biden claimed earlier this week to have visited more aftermaths of mass shooting than any other American president.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — With another mass shooting at a hospital complex in Tulsa on Wednesday, and as families in Uvalde are still holding funerals for loved ones massacred last week, lawmakers are under pressure to find solutions to gun violence, but it’s unclear if even the massacre of schoolchildren will yield any new results.

A House committee was called back from recess to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to consider Democratic proposals while a bipartisan group of senators was continuing talks, with that chamber also on recess, in hopes of agreeing on a basic framework for new gun control measures when the full Senate returns next week.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, part of the group working to find a bipartisan deal, said in a statement Wednesday the group was making “rapid progress” on proposals “that could garner support from both Republicans and Democrats,” but even so, President Joe Biden told reporters he’s “not confident” lawmakers will be able to pass gun legislation, noting how he served in Congress for 36 years.

Major gun control legislation has failed for decades in the Senate due in large part to the filibuster rule, which requires 60 senators for a measure to advance toward a final vote. Though Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in Congress, they cannot push legislation through the Senate without the support of at least 10 Republicans.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., also part of the bipartisan talks, tweeted Wednesday there is “growing momentum” on a bill that can get “broad bipartisan support in the Senate” and that the group will keep working, but the group has remained tight-lipped on what the final proposal will include. Murphy has acknowledged it wouldn’t include an assault weapons ban, as it wouldn’t garner enough Republican support, despite similar legislation passing in 1994.

The House Judiciary Committee convened Thursday morning for a markup on a package of gun control measures, called “Protecting Our Kids Act,” paving the way for the full House to approve the proposals as early as next week — and then to send them to the Senate. The measures include raising the age to buy a semiautomatic centerfire rifle from 18 to 21 years old and establishing a tax credit for the safe storage of firearms.

Notably, the House has already passed gun control measures in this session of Congress, but that legislation has stalled in the Senate given GOP opposition and the 60-vote threshold — so the real fate of gun control reform in the U.S. now mostly lies with the Senate group talks.

Still, amping up the pressure, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at an event in California on Wednesday suggested Democrats would also consider holding a full House vote on an assault weapons ban following the recent mass shootings — a non-starter for Senate Republicans.

“As we get through those we will have hearings and marking up the assault weapons ban,” Pelosi said. “We are just trying to hit it in every possible way.”

While the House measures wouldn’t overcome a GOP filibuster in the Senate, the action is meant as so-called “political messaging” to pressure Senate Republicans and may put further pressure on negotiators to reach an agreement on areas of potential compromise.

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell tasked John Cornyn, R-Texas, to negotiate with the group of senators, but said at a press event in Kentucky Wednesday that “hopefully” senators will “find a way to come together” to make progress on gun violence.

“It seems to me there are two broad categories that underscore the problem: mental illness and school safety,” McConnell said. “So hopefully we can find a way to come together and make some progress on this horrendous problem consistent with our Constitution and our values.”

As lawmakers seek compromise, it appears the American public is widely supportive of universal background checks and red flag laws. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in September 2019 found 89% support for universal background checks and 86% support for red flag laws. Mandatory background checks and red flag laws also won support from at least eight in 10 Republicans and conservatives, the poll found.

The full Senate and House are scheduled to return to Washington next week.

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(WASHINGTON) — A White House event on Wednesday meant to highlight the action President Joe Biden is taking to deal with the nation’s baby formula shortage turned into a political problem when he raised new questions about when he realized just how urgent the situation was — and why he and the administration didn’t take stronger action sooner.

Biden asked formula company executives at a virtual roundtable whether they had anticipated just how profound an effect Abbott’s closure would have on America’s formula supply — and if they realized how bad it would get and how quickly.

Spokespeople for two of the five infant formula manufacturers explicitly said they had recognized from the start how huge a problem the formula shortage would eventually become.

“We knew from the very beginning this would be a very serious event,” Reckitt’s executive, Robert Cleveland, said.

He said his company had reached out to retail partners like Target and Walmart “immediately” to warn them and to start troubleshooting available inventory to ensure they could get what they had onto shelves.

“The very first thing we did when we heard about the Abbott recall was, we could foresee that this was going to create a tremendous shortage,” Perrigo CEO Murray Kessler said.

Their words prompted reporters to ask, as they have for weeks, whether the administration should have acted faster — something Biden has repeatedly dismissed.

“I don’t think anyone anticipated the impact of the shutdown of one facility, the Abbott facility,” he said, responding to their shouted questions. “Once we learned the extent of it … we kicked everything into gear.”

He said he became aware of the issue in April — though in mid-February, Abbott had issued a voluntary recall and shuttered its Sturgis, Michigan, plant, citing contamination concerns and ordering a recall.

Since U.S. manufacturers had just told him they had anticipated the impact, reporters asked Biden why he, too, didn’t see this coming.

“They did, but I didn’t,” Biden answered.

Later, at the White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was pummeled with more questions.

Asked repeatedly when the White House was informed and when it was decided Biden himself should get involved, Jean-Pierre said, “I don’t have the timeline on that.”

“All I can tell you, as a whole of government approach, we have been working on this since the recall in February,” she said.

ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked if Jean-Pierre was saying the administration’s response would have been exactly the same if the president had known sooner.

“I am saying that we have been working on this. We, as a whole of government approach, have been working on this since the recall, which was in February,” Jean-Pierre repeated. “That is what I’m saying. I’m talking about internally, not just the agencies, not just FDA, USDA, but also we have been working on this for months, for months. And we’ve taken this incredibly seriously.”

The Abbott Nutrition plant in Michigan is set to resume operations on Saturday, the Food and Drug Administration and the company have said, though it will take another six to eight weeks for its plant to ramp back up to full capacity and get its product out to the barren store shelves and families in need.

In the meantime, the administration says it has been working feverishly to bring formula in from abroad amid vociferous complaints from desperate parents — as well as political heat from both Democrats and Republicans.

“We’re going to continue to pull every lever that we have,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, in what was intended to highlight a positive development ahead of Biden’s event, the administration announced several additional planeloads of formula are set to get airfreighted in from overseas as part of the president’s “Operation Fly Formula.”

A third round of baby formula shipments is set to make its way to U.S. shores by way of United Airlines beginning next Thursday, administration officials announced.

It will come from U.K. formula manufacturer Kendal Nutricare and contain more than 300,000 pounds of its Kendamil infant formula — the equivalent of roughly 3.7 million 8-ounce bottles of formula.

The shipments are expected to be flown from Heathrow Airport to “multiple airports” across the U.S. over the course of “a three-week period,” beginning June 9.

They will include the equivalent of approx. 3.2 million 8-ounce bottles of Kendamil Classic Stage 1, made with full cream whole British cow’s milk for babies beginning at birth, and the equivalent of 540,000 8-ounce bottles of Kendamil Organic, made with organic whole milk.

The formula will be distributed and become available for purchase “at selected U.S. retailers nationwide, as well as online,” the administration said.

This first shipment will be available at Target stores across the country “in the coming weeks,” the administration said, a key detail for parents who have been combing grocery shelves and news bulletins for specifics on where and when they might find what they need during the ongoing shortage.

Besides being the largest shipments to date, the formula will get put on store shelves and will be available online — not just at hospitals or from doctors’ offices as with shipments from earlier flights.

A fourth round will bring in 380,000 pounds of Bubs Australia formula, the equivalent of 4.6 million 8-ounce bottles, and will arrive on two flights next week, facilitated by the Department of Health and Human Services, officials said.

The shipments on the two flights from Melbourne to Pennsylvania and California will be on June 9 and June 11, respectively.

Additional deliveries from Bubs will be announced “in the coming days,” the White House said.

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Kiara Alfonseca, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) — The White House says it will celebrate Pride Month this June by signaling support for the LGBTQ community and their families amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation.

There have been more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills proposed in at least 28 states this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Eight states have signed such bills into law this year.

President Joe Biden has condemned the rapid spread of these bills.

“These bills are targeting kids in classrooms and families in their homes, which is why this Pride Month we will be focused on protecting, uplifting, and supporting LGBTQI+ children and families,” a White House spokesperson said about Biden’s Pride plans.

The White House says it is “laser-focused” on fighting back against the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation and supporting LGBTQ community members and their families.

Many of the bills or policies target LGBTQ youth. In some cases, like in Alabama, families and healthcare providers of transgender youth can be criminalized for providing gender-affirming care.

The Alabama bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Shay Shelnutt, has called gender-affirming health care, “child abuse.”

A growing number of states have introduced legislation that LGBTQ advocates say targets transgender youth and their access to school sports and gender-affirming health care.

To combat such legislation, the Biden administration is calling on Congress to pass the Equality Act. The legislation would expand federal civil rights law to prohibit LGBTQ and gender identity discrimination in public accommodations.

The Biden administration has been behind several progressive steps for the LGBTQ community, including the first use of the gender-neutral gender marker on passports by the State Department and the reversal of the Trump era rule that Title IX does not protect LGBTQ students.

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(NEW YORK) — When an 18-year-old shooter arrived last week at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas — where he ultimately killed 21 people, including 19 children and two teachers — he carried 1,657 rounds of ammunition, authorities said.

The large number of rounds should not come as a surprise, experts told ABC News. The tragedy drew renewed scrutiny to a collection of state and national laws that regulate ammunition less tightly than firearms, despite the vital role played by ammunition in mass shootings, experts said.

A shooter at a Las Vegas music festival, in 2017, who killed 59, had at least 1,600 rounds. A shooter at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in 2012, who killed 27, had more than 1,700 rounds of ammunition at his home. And a shooter at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, also in 2012, who killed 12, had bought more than 6,000 rounds, officials said.

Current regulations often allow for the purchase of massive amounts of ammunition and high-capacity magazines without a background check or even a face-to-face interaction, experts added.

While gun control proponents say ammunition deserves stronger restrictions that would limit the frequency and severity of mass shootings, gun rights advocates argue that ammunition restrictions violate Second Amendment protections and unnecessarily duplicate the regulations in place for guns, experts said.

“There are fewer restrictions on ammunition sales than there are on firearm sales both at the federal level and in the vast majority of states,” Jacob Charles, executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law, told ABC News.

“Someone intent on a mass casualty event is going to have enough ammunition to be able to keep shooting until they’re stopped,” he said.

Federal law prohibits the sale of ammunition in a narrow set of circumstances, experts said.

People cannot purchase or possess ammunition if they’ve been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor domestic violence, committed to a mental institution, or if they belong to a handful of other categories deemed at-risk, experts said.

Also, under federal law individuals must be at least 18 to buy rifle or shotgun ammunition, and at least 21 to buy ammunition for any other guns. On top of that, in 1986, the U.S. enacted a law that bans armor-piercing bullets, which became notorious for the threat they posed to police officers.

Absent from national regulations are measures that require background checks for the buyers of ammunition or licenses for the sellers, which undermines enforcement of the few federal laws that are on the books, Tom Donohue, a law professor at Stanford University who specializes in gun legislation, told ABC News.

“Any restrictions on ammunition at the federal level are virtually feckless because you don’t have to go through a background check to purchase ammunition,” he said.

Federal law also lacks a measure that addresses high-capacity magazines, which enable shooters to fire a large number of bullets without stopping to reload. Such a law did exist once at the national level: The assault rifle ban enacted by Congress in 1994, which lapsed 10 years later, included a ban on high-capacity magazines.

A study published in 2019 by three researchers, including David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, examined mass shootings over a nearly three-decade period and found that attacks involving high-capacity magazines had a 62% higher average death rate than those without them. The study also showed that high-fatality mass shootings occurred more than twice as often in states without bans on high-capacity magazines than in states with them.

In all, nine states have enacted bans on high-capacity magazines, including predominantly Democrat-controlled states like New York and Connecticut, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The landscape of high-capacity magazine bans reflects a general trend of state-level measures that strengthen ammunition laws in a small group of mostly blue states, while the remainder of states go no further than federal law, Charles said.

For instance, New York and California have instituted mandatory background checks for ammunition purchases at the time a sale takes place, Charles added.

Gun rights advocates staunchly oppose ammunition regulation, experts said. Gun proponents argue that there’s no need for additional regulation of ammunition once an individual has been deemed fit to own a gun.

“In theory, if I have given you a license and found you to be a law-abiding citizen, there’s no reason for me to care what kind of gun you buy or how much ammunition you buy or what else you do, as long as it’s legal,” Alexandra Filindra, a political science professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago who studies gun laws, told ABC News.

Similarly, gun rights advocates have argued that regulation of ammunition infringes on their Second Amendment protections in the same manner that gun regulations do, since ammunition is a necessary part for operating a gun, Filindra said.

“The theory goes that essentially you are implicitly regulating gun ownership by taking away people’s ammo,” she said.

A network of gun rights groups, most notably the National Rifle Association, has fought ammunition regulation by framing it as an attack on gun ownership, the experts said.

“The same group standing in the way of gun safety reform is standing in the way of ammunition reform,” said Ari Freilich, the state policy director at Giffords Law Center.

Some ammunition-related bills have been introduced in Congress. The Age 21 Act, put forward by Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., would raise the minimum age for buying assault rifles and high-capacity magazines from 18 to 21. Meanwhile, a bill in the House would require a license for all ammunition sellers and mandate that all ammunition sales take place in person.

Experts said that meaningful reform of ammunition laws is unlikely in the short term, but some said that incidents like the mass shooting in Uvalde make action more likely in the long term.

“A lot of people have woken up to how senselessly, dangerously reckless our lack of protections currently are,” Freilich said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Adm. Linda Fagan became the first woman to lead a branch of the U.S. military when she was sworn in as commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard at a sunny ceremony in Washington on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden, who nominated Fagan to the post in April, spoke at the change of command event at U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, calling it “a new milestone in our history” and “a big deal.”

“There’s no one more qualified to lead the proud men and women of the Coast Guard, and she will also be the first woman to serve as Commandant of the Coast Guard, the first woman to lead any branch of the United States Armed Forces — and it’s about time,” Biden said at the ceremony, where Fagan relieved Adm. Karl Schultz, who is retiring.

Biden added, “Secretary of Defense, when he sent me the name, I said, ‘What in the hell took you so long?'”

Fagan is coming off serving as the Coast Guard’s vice commandant — the first female four-star admiral to serve as a branch’s second-in-command — and previously served as the commander of the Coast Guard Pacific Area from June 2018 to June 2021.

Now, Fagan will soon be the first woman to take a seat at the table of the U.S. Joint Chiefs — representing all branches of the military — and she comes equipped with nearly 40 years in the service, on par with the officers she will be joining.

“I’m immensely grateful to the many players that paved the way,” Fagan said following Biden. “Pioneers like Admiral Siler, Dorothy Stratten, Ida Lewis, Dorothy McShane, Elizabeth Friedman. I’m proud to be a part of this long history of service, dedication, and groundbreaking, and I’m committed to carrying these principles forward.”

Biden noted that Fagan had been a pioneer earlier in her career, too, serving as one of few women — or the only woman — in various stations throughout her time in the service, and calling Wednesday’s ceremony “a historic first, in that effort.”

“I want to thank you Admiral Fagan for taking the helm during this critical moment,” he added. “And for all that you’ve done throughout your career, it opened the doors of opportunities just a little bit wider to allowing those following behind you, a way through.”

Biden also emphasized that the U.S. needs to ensure that more women are in leadership positions at Fagan’s level.

“We need to ensure women have an opportunity to succeed and thrive throughout their professional careers and that means providing support and resources so women can compete fairly and fully for promotions and make sure women are not penalized in their career for having children,” Biden added. “It also means creating an environment where every member of the Armed Forces feels safe in the ranks, including from sexual assault and harassment, and where their contributions are respected.”

In 1985, Fagan was in just the sixth graduating class from the Coast Guard Academy that included women. She has since risen the ranks to serve on all seven continents — “from the snows of Ross Island, Antarctica to the heart of Africa, from Tokyo to Geneva,” according to the Coast Guard — and aboard the USCGC POLAR STAR, a 399ft heavy polar icebreaker. She is also the longest service in the marine safety field, which earned her the Coast Guard’s first-ever Gold Ancient Trident distinction.

During Fagan’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, which has oversight of the Coast Guard, lawmakers on the panel including Chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., praised her qualifications and place as a trailblazer.

“We’re sending a strong message to women cadets and to people training at Cape May. And we are sending a strong message to young girls who dream of someday serving in the Coast Guard,” she said. “We are saying now that the leader of this organization that your service matters, your contribution to the Coast Guard and to the country matters. And yes, you too can be commandant someday.”

Notably, Fagan’s daughter, Aileen, is also a Coast Guard lieutenant and was present at Wednesday’s ceremony.

“Thank you, Mr. President, for calling her out,” Fagan said in her remarks, after Biden had thanked her family for being there. “She’s my personal aide. I lean on her pretty heavily.”

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Fagan also earned degrees from the University of Washington and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Other prior assignments include Deputy Commandant for Operations, Policy, and Capability, Commander of the First Coast Guard District, and a joint assignment as Deputy Director of Operations for Headquarters and United States Northern Command.

The Senate approved Fagan’s nomination, along with five other senior Coast Guard officers, by unanimous consent last month.

ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Making the most of the attention-getting White House visit by BTS, the South Korean supergroup, President Joe Biden has tweeted out a video of their time together in the Oval Office.

The international K-pop sensation met with Biden Tuesday to address efforts to stop Anti-Asian hate crimes.

“We want to say thank you sincerely for your decision … such as signing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law,” said RM, the Grammy-nominated group’s leader, in the video posted late Tuesday.

“So we just want to be a little help, and we truly appreciate the White House and the government’s trying to find solutions,” he continued.

In the nearly minute-long White House video, the superstar group is seen walking through the Rose Garden to the Oval Office door, where Biden greets them.

It was great to meet with you, @bts_bighit. Thanks for all you’re doing to raise awareness around the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination.

I look forward to sharing more of our conversation soon. pic.twitter.com/LnczTpT2aL

— President Biden (@POTUS) June 1, 2022

“This is an important month here in America,” Biden told BTS, in recognition of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which ended Tuesday.

“A lot of our Asian-American friends have been subject to real discrimination,” he said. “Hate only hides. When good people talk about it and say how bad it is, it goes down. So, thank you.”

Before meeting with Biden, they spoke at the top of a jam-packed White House press briefing.

Each member took a turn coming to the podium to speak about what they hoped to accomplish. The members spoke in a mix of English and Korean, and were translated after the fact.

Speaking in Korean, BTS expressed their grief about the surge of hate crimes, including ones targeting Asian Americans, and said the group would like to use this opportunity to speak out again.

Last year, BTS tweeted a statement condemning Asian hate after attacks in Atlanta-area spas left eight women dead, six of whom were of Asian descent. In the statement, they also reflected on their own experiences facing discrimination.

“We have endured expletives without reason and were mocked for the way we look,” BTS said. “We were even asked why Asians spoke in English.”

The group added that “what is happening right now cannot be dissociated from our identity as Asians.”

In their press briefing remarks, BTS also recognized their fans, known as “ARMY,” crediting them for their White House visit.

They also highlighted the importance of embracing others’ differences and respecting each other.

Since BTS’ 2013 debut, they skyrocketed to international fame for their smash hit songs like “Fake Love,” “ON” and “Butter.”

“It was great to meet with you, @bts_bighit,” Biden tweeted when sharing the video. “Thanks for all you’re doing to raise awareness around the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination.”

“I look forward to sharing more of our conversation soon,” he added.

ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a Texas law that would ban social media companies from removing users and the content they post because of a particular viewpoint expressed.

The court did not elaborate on the decision, which is temporary while legal challenges proceed through lower courts.

“We are relieved that the First Amendment, open internet, and the users who rely on it remain protected from Texas’s unconstitutional overreach,” said Chris Marchese, an attorney for NetChoice, the industry trade group representing Meta, TikTok, YouTube and others, in a statement.

NetChoice says the law, which took effect earlier this month, would effectively force social media platforms to disseminate dangerous content, including propaganda, hate speech and threats of violence, in violation of their First Amendment rights.

Republican sponsors of the law — the first of its kind in the country — say the measure is meant to end alleged censorship of conservative users on the social networks, which they argue are modern-day “public squares.”

Four justices — Elena Kagan, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — indicated they would have let the Texas law remain in force while the legal battle plays out.

Justice Alito, in a dissent joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, explained that he would not have interfered with a lower court decision to let the law take effect, suggesting that the justices would likely hear the dispute on appeal in due time.

“The law before us is novel, as are applicants’ business models,” wrote Alito “It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies.”

At the heart of the dispute is the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech and thorny questions around private companies’ censorship across networks of more than 50 million users.

Texas Republicans enacted the law in response to longstanding frustration from conservatives who feel silenced or sidelined by the media companies’ moderation policies.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading defense of the law, has argued the companies’ size rivals public utilities in influence and importance to Americans’ daily lives and therefore should be regulated accordingly.

“The platforms are the 21st-century descendants of telegraph and telephone companies: that is, traditional common carriers,” he wrote. The government can require common carriers to generally accept all users.

The NAACP and Anti-Defamation League are siding with the companies, warning of enhanced risk to public safety if the law is allowed to stand and more like it take hold across the country. They say the private companies have a right and obligation to police content on their sites to ensure the welfare of members.

Florida’s GOP-controlled state legislature enacted a similar law this spring, but it was temporarily blocked by a federal appeals court last week.

“Social media platforms exercise editorial judgment that is inherently expressive,” wrote Judge Kevin Newsom in the panel’s decision. “When platforms choose to remove users or posts, deprioritize content in viewers’ feeds or search results, or sanction breaches of their community standards, they engage in First Amendment-protected activity.”

If and when the Supreme Court takes up the Florida or Texas law on the merits, the decision could have sweeping impact on the future of speech on the Internet and private companies’ ability to moderate content on their sites, online legal experts say.

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