(WASHINGTON) — First lady Jill Biden kicked off the holiday season in the nation’s capital on Monday by accepting delivery of the official White House Christmas tree — with all the sleigh bells and whistles one might expect.
This year’s tree — an 18.5-foot Fraser fir — hails from Jefferson, North Carolina. The White House welcome event on Monday afternoon marked 56 years of the tradition.
The tree arrived at the White House Portico on an evergreen-colored carriage decked out in holiday greenery and pulled down the driveway by two Clydesdale horses — Ben and Winston — who were adorned with silver sleigh bells and with paper Christmas trees in their braids. A four-piece band played Christmas classics, including “O, Christmas Tree” and “O, Come All Ye Faithful,” as the tree was delivered.
Wearing a red coat and a white dress, the first lady accepted the Christmas tree in apparent delight following a quick quality inspection.
“It’s beautiful — it’s magnificent, actually,” she told reporters when asked what she thought of the tree.
This tree will be on display in the Blue Room, where the chandelier will be temporarily removed to accommodate the full height of the tree, according to the White House.
Following the first lady’s acceptance, the Christmas tree will be decorated for the holiday season.
In addition to the Estes family, which provided the tree after winning the National Christmas Tree Contest for their third year, the first lady also invited the Harrell Family to mark the occasion, to represent and honor the families of active National Guard members who are spending the holidays apart this year.
A National Guard mom herself, Biden intended to honor the role of the National Guard this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House said.
Biden’s family was also on hand for the acceptance including son Hunter and his son, Beau Jr., whom the first lady handed a branch that she plucked from the tree.
The first lady has not yet announced the theme of this year’s decorations at the White House, expected to be unveiled in the coming days.
She told reporters her message for service members this holiday season is to “be safe and have a happy, healthy holiday.”
ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Millions of American workers have returned to the office, and most children are back to in-person learning at schools, but dozens of members of the U.S. House of Representatives are still literally phoning in their votes to Washington, citing an “ongoing public health emergency.”
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, House Democrats took the unprecedented step to establish rules allowing any lawmaker to vote by proxy if he or she could not attend proceedings in-person because of the pandemic.
As the virus recedes and most members of Congress are vaccinated, critics say some members of Congress are abusing a public health policy for personal convenience, politics or other family matters.
A total of 103 U.S. Representatives had active proxy letters filed with the House Clerk as of publication.
“We do want members to take seriously their responsibilities to participate in a legislative process, to cast votes on the floor of the House,” said Molly E. Reynolds, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and expert on how Congress functions. “Figuring out how to prevent abuse of the practice while also making it available for people who need it is a real challenge.”
Each time a proxy is used, a member of Congress must attest in writing to the House Clerk that they are “unable to physically attend proceedings” for health or safety reasons related to COVID-19. Enforcement is by the honor system.
“They don’t want to come in unless they are vaccinated and unless others are vaccinated,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained in March.
At least 343 representatives — Democrats and Republicans — have filed a notice to vote remotely at least once this year, according to data compiled by Reynolds. The U.S. Senate did not enact a proxy system during the pandemic.
During Friday’s major vote on Democrats’ sweeping $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan, 98 lawmakers who voted didn’t show up in person, a review of voting records found.
“Graph the number of proxies, and look at how they increase exponentially on Fridays,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., one of the most outspoken critics of proxy voting. “It’s incentivizing the worst behavior among members, which is to say prioritizing fundraising and deprioritizing legislating.”
Nearly all House Republicans opposed proxy voting when it began last year, but some have since taken advantage of the flexibility. In one of the most prominent examples, 13 Republicans voted remotely in February while attending the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Orlando.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., who was among the CPAC attendees, voted by proxy more than a dozen times this year, despite strong public opposition to the policy and criticizing Democrats who used it as “cowards” for not showing up.
Cawthorn declined comment to ABC News when approached on Capitol Hill. His office also did not respond to an email from ABC.
“I think it’s a bad thing; personally, I don’t think we need to be doing it at this point,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who has criticized proxy voting but also used it. “It’s in the rules. You can use it.”
Rule or not, Republican Party leaders have argued in court that proxy voting is outright unconstitutional. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has even appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to strike it down.
“I think people should be here to work to have to be paid when you don’t. When you proxy vote, you’re not here to debate the bill. You’re not in committee [hearings]. It’s wrong,” McCarthy told ABC News in an interview.
McCarthy would not comment on why so many fellow Republicans have disregarded his admonishment and voted by proxy.
Democrats have voted by proxy more often than Republicans, according to data tabulated by Reynolds at the Brookings Institution. Sometimes for reasons clearly related to COVID-19, but sometimes for reasons that are less clear, she told ABC News.
Democratic Congressman Ron Kind, of Wisconsin, for example, voted remotely on seven bills in June while President Joe Biden was visiting his state. When approached by ABC News, he said that some of his recent proxy votes came after a positive COVID diagnosis for a member of his staff.
“It’s a good thing when you have legitimate reasons to be away,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. “I have two young girls… I used [proxy voting] when my daughter was born, for example, and I’ve used it when my daughter was sick just the week before last.”
Members of both parties have used remote voting while caring for a sick or dying parent, or when flight delays have kept them stranded far from Washington. Each time, however, they officially attested to the Clerk that the “ongoing public health emergency” kept them from being unable to attend.
“My wife had our first child 16 months ago, I missed votes. But that’s how it was,” Gallagher said. “You missed votes for legitimate reasons, but proxy voting gets us closer to a nonessential Congress, or a Congress that’s just, you know, zooming in to work every day.”
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., who regularly casts votes for absent Democratic colleagues, told ABC News it’s about time everyone gets back to debating and voting in person in Congress.
“The original purpose was just for people who either, where it just wasn’t safe to fly or they had some preexisting condition, including being too old,” Beyer said. “Now, when people start going to conferences or something, that’s a little different.”
Florida Democrats Charlie Crist and Darren Soto voted by proxy last year the same day as attending a planned SpaceX rocket launch in their home state, but told the House Clerk they couldn’t vote in person because of the pandemic.
Several Republicans and Democrats have used the proxy system while attending political events outside Washington.
“That’s something voters should be worried about,” Reynolds said, “but I don’t think they should automatically assume that just because their member has been voting by proxy, their member hasn’t been working.”
On Nov. 12, Pelosi announced an extension of proxy voting through the end of the year.
“While some have misused proxy-voting for non-pandemic reasons, it remains a vital protection for the health of Members who may be immunocompromised or be particularly at risk for life threatening complications from COVID,” a House leadership aide told ABC News in a statement.
“All across the country, people are getting back to work or schools are opening up again. Congress ought to be working again,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. Asked why so many of his GOP peers are still voting remotely, he replied: “Obviously every member has got to make their own choices while it’s there as an option.”
The option to participate in Congress remotely remains controversial and unprecedented. And as growing numbers of Americans return to in-person work, many may expect their elected representatives to do the same.
“Figuring out how to protect the process for people who genuinely need it, and while also preventing abuse is going to be a real challenge for an extremely polarized and partisan House of Representatives going forward,” Reynolds said.
(WASHINGTON) — Al Schmidt had a front-row seat to history when a batch of votes in Philadelphia tipped the state of Pennsylvania, and the 2020 presidential election, toward Joe Biden.
As Philadelphia’s Republican city commissioner, Schmidt had been holed up for days in the convention center, making sure every vote, mail-in or in-person, was counted.
“For us, it’s really never about who wins and who loses,” Schmidt told ABC News. “It’s really about counting, counting the votes.”
He defended the vote count and integrity of the election — only to find himself a target of former President Donald Trump. Four days after the race was called, Trump tweeted at Schmidt saying, without evidence, that he had refused to look at “a mountain of corruption and dishonesty.”
Schmidt said that’s when the threats against his life and his family started to ramp up.
“They became a lot more specific, a lot more graphic, largely targeted at my family, my kids,” he said. “Mentioning my children by name, my address, pictures of my house. Like the people who sent them had clearly done their homework.”
Schmidt is among a long list of state and local election officials facing increasing threats, fueling what some say is an unprecedented exodus.
A recent survey by the Brennan Center for Justice found 1 in 3 election officials nationwide feels unsafe at work. Nearly 1 in 5 called threats to their lives a job-related concern.
“There is, I’m sure, no election official in the country that when they ran for the job … ever contemplated death threats, let alone death threats to their children as being part of that job description,” Schmidt said.
In Pennsylvania, nearly half of county election directors have resigned since 2019, according to Lisa Schaefer of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. She said many others cite personal and violent threats.
“These are people who are getting called and yelled at constantly by their friends and their neighbors for things that are often out of their control,” Schaefer said.
It’s not just local election officials in swing states getting targeted.
Democrat Roxanna Moritz resigned in the wake of the 2020 election as the auditor and commissioner of elections in Scott County, Iowa, after more than a decade on the job. She cited a culture of bullying toward election officials, who often work long hours with little pay, because “we care about our democracy.”
“The personal attacks on each and every one of us has made of us aware this maybe isn’t where we want to be,” Moritz told ABC News.
Election experts warn about the loss of institutional knowledge in this wave of resignations from roles that are historically above the political fray.
Another concern, according to Elizabeth Howard of the Brennan Center for Justice, is who will replace the officials who resign.
“We’ve seen, for instance, some candidates for secretary of state, which is generally the chief election official in the state, who have come out and said that they basically believe in the ‘Big Lie,'” that Trump was cheated out of an election win, Howard said.
ABC News has previously reported on new state laws that shift election administration to highly partisan bodies, as part of a broader effort to shift power away from officials who refuted the “Big Lie.” Some of these changes to election laws appear to be in direct retaliation of officials who defended the integrity of the 2020 results.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, Bill Gates is a Republican on the board of supervisors overseeing elections. His county has become a hotbed of election misinformation despite several recounts and audits confirming President Joe Biden’s win.
“I have to plead with these folks to listen to me to the truth that I’m telling them, because they’ve been told lies for a year now, and they believe it,” he told ABC News.
More than a year after the election, Gates said he’s still targeted daily online, and called a traitor who should be jailed.
“There have been evenings where we have literally spent the night at an Airbnb because of threats,” he told ABC News. “There are nights where we have slept with sheriff’s deputies outside of the house because of these threats.”
Gates and Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt both said fighting election misinformation is proving to be a critical test of American democracy.
“I think there is an additional obligation on Republicans like myself to speak the truth about the 2020 election and to stand up in the face of all of these lies, regardless of what the consequences are for any of us,” Schmidt said. “With our democracy on the line, pretty much anything, it’s worth it.”
(NEW YORK) — Leticia works at a bakery helping to prepare the pastries that hungry New Yorkers order with their coffee in the morning. At first glance, she’s like any other person in the city. But in 2017, she fled Guatemala with her son Yovany and made her way toward the border in Texas.
“At the moment we crossed, we were happy. We thought our lives were saved, that all the danger was behind us,” she said in Spanish in an interview with ABC News’ Zachary Kiesch. “We couldn’t imagine that a greater pain, a stronger pain, was ahead of us.”
Once they crossed, she and her son were detained by Border Patrol agents and quickly separated as they tried to submit an asylum claim. Leticia, whose last name is being withheld for privacy, was deported and Yovany was placed in foster care. They did not see each other for over two years.
They were among the first migrant families subjected to a pilot program for what later became the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy.
Leticia and Yovany could be one of the families qualifying for compensation if the Biden administration decides to make settlement payments to migrants who were separated from their children by the Trump administration.
Now reunited in the United States, mother and son continue to live in fear of being separated again while their asylum case is pending.
“It was a pain that I still carry with me. It’s still hurting me,” Yovany said in Spanish. “I continue living with that fear that I will be separated from her again.”
The potential settlement payments, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are part of an ongoing federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking damages for separated families. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden dismissed reports that payments of up to $450,000 were being discussed, but expressed his support for some kind of compensation.
“If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legally or illegally, and you lost your child — you lost your child — it’s gone. You deserve compensation no matter what the circumstance,” Biden said. “What that will be, I have no idea. I have no idea.”
In 2019, a federal judge ruled that Leticia’s deportation had been unlawful because she did not voluntarily accept deportation and sign away her parental rights. Immigration officials did not provide her an interpreter or explain that they were separating her from Yovany.
“It was totally in English. I didn’t know what I was signing,” Leticia said. “Even today I still don’t know what it is I signed.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week, with support for the reported settlements appearing to fall along party lines.
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said the reports about settlements have been politicized and that there is no time frame on when a decision will be made in regards to the amount of money families would receive and who would be eligible.
“This is not about whether we all agree on macro-immigration policy. This is whether the United States is going to make little children pawns in this political fight,” Gelernt said. “These families, according to all of the medical experts, have suffered severe trauma — literally being pulled away.”
Leticia said she draws strength from her Indigenous roots, but her courage and faith were tested during those long months when she didn’t know where her son was located. Despite the close bond they continue to share, she said there was some initial distrust when they were finally reunited.
“When I saw him, I noticed there was a feeling of ‘Why would you leave me?'” she told ABC News. “He didn’t tell me with his words but as a mother, I knew.”
Fear of abandonment, depression and anxiety are just a few of the challenges families like Leticia’s face when they’re finally reunited.
“Money is not everything in the world,” Leticia said of the possible payments. “It won’t return our happiness, it won’t return our health. But it can help start to remediate the trauma and the pain they caused us when they violated our human rights.”
The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project has been helping support her and Yovany while they wait for their asylum case to be heard.
“Reunification is truly only the first step that the government must take for these families. After they reunify, these families have to navigate a complex immigration system that is stacked against them in every way,” said Leidy Pérez-Davis, policy director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.
The Biden administration’s reunification task force has found that more than 3,900 children were separated under by the “zero-tolerance” policy. Gelernt estimated that there are still over 1,000 families that have yet to be reunited and at least 270 that have not even been located.
“I hope this serves as an example for future governments to never repeat the same damage and trauma they’ve caused,” said Leticia.
(WASHINGTON) — It was a question that plagued Joe Biden’s presidential campaign: Could a 77-year-old man — who at age 78 would be the oldest person ever to assume the presidency — handle the rigors of the job?
Candidate Biden acknowledged it was legitimate for Americans to question his fitness for office.
“The only thing I can say is watch. Watch! Check my energy level, determine whether I know what I’m talking about,” he told voters during the 2020 campaign.
Now, on Friday, nearly a year into his term, Biden has gotten his first physical as president at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
It came the day before he turns 79.
After about five hours inside, Biden walked out giving two thumbs up.
“I’m doing great!” Biden told ABC News Correspondent Karen Travers, when asked how he was feeling. “I’ve had a great physical and a great House of Representatives vote. Good day,” Biden said, referring to House Democrats passing his “Build Back Better” plan earlier in the day.
Shortly before he arrived, the White House revealed that for some of the exam he would be under anesthesia and would briefly transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This morning, the President will travel to Walter Reed Medical Center for a routine physical. While he is there, the President will undergo a routine colonoscopy,” press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
“As was the case when President George W. Bush had the same procedure in 2002 and 2007, and following the process set out in the Constitution, President Biden will transfer power to the Vice President for the brief period of time when he is under anesthesia. The Vice President will work from her office in the West Wing during this time,” she said.
Around noon, the White House said it sent letters at 10:10 a.m. to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Patrick Leahy, president pro tempore of the Senate, to inform them Biden was going under sedation. The House speaker is second in line to the presidency after the vice president and the president pro tempore of the Senate is third in line under the 25th Amendment dictating the order of presidential succession.
Psaki tweeted that Biden had spoken with Harris and chief of staff Ron Klain at approximately 11:35 a.m., saying “@POTUS was in good spirits and at that time resumed his duties.”
Letter to the Speaker of the House on the Temporary Transfer of the Powers and Duties of President of the U… by ABC News Politics on Scribd
Late Friday afternoon, the White House put out a promised detailed medical summary.
Biden is a ‘healthy, vigorous 78-year-old man,” who is “fit for duty” and “fully executes all of his responsibilities without exemptions or accommodations,” the president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor wrote.
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 last year.
“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.”
O’Connor noted that Biden being president and the increased attention could be playing into the perception of the symptoms, but required further investigation. Ultimately though, O’Connor said that his initial assessment that “gastroesophageal reflux” was to blame for the cough still stands.
Of his stiffened gate, O’Connor said Biden acknowledges that he is stiff in the morning, though it improves over time. O’Connor said that after a battery of tests, general “wear and tear” of the spine was partly to blame– though no specific treatment was needed.
A new finding for Biden was a “mild peripheral neuropathy in both feet.”
“He did not demonstrative any motor weakness, but a subtle difference in heat/cold perception and great toe proprioception could be elicited,” O’Connor wrote, noting this, along with the wear and tear could contribute to the stiffened gate, and “Physical Therapy and exercise prescription will continue to focus on general flexibility and proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”
Biden’s regular screening colonoscopy found a 3mm benign-looking polyp was identified in the in ascending colon, and was removed without difficulty, the report said.
To date, the most recent physical and medical report was one his campaign released in December 2019: 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.”
At the time, Biden was said to be under treatment for four different conditions: non-valvular atrial fibrillation — a type of irregular heart rhythm, hyperlipidemia — higher concentrations of fats or lipids in the blood, gastroesophageal reflux and seasonal allergies.
The most notable health incidents in Biden’s past were the two cranial aneurysms he suffered in 1988.
Since winning the presidency, Biden suffered a fractured foot after falling while chasing his dog Major at his Wilmington, Delaware, home last Thanksgiving. He had to wear a walking boot for the injury, and was said to be “healing as expected,” according to scans from a follow-up appointment in December.
Biden named O’Connor as his White House physician shortly after taking office.
O’Connor has served as Biden’s primary care physician and was appointed physician to the then-vice president in 2009. Biden chose him for the new role due to their long history and personal relationship, according to a White House official.
Questions about fitness for office are far from exclusive to Biden — President Donald Trump, who was the oldest president elected before Biden, also faced questions about his mental and physical fitness.
Trump faced particular scrutiny for the first physical of his administration in January 2018, which his then-White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, said went “exceptionally well.”
He came under fire for his effusively rosy outlook on Trump’s health while briefing reporters afterward.
In other recent administrations, physicals have generally been conducted within a president’s first year in office.
President George W. Bush got a physical in August 2001, and was found to be “fit for duty” with “every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his Presidency.”
President Barack Obama received his first physical in office just over a year into his presidency, in February 2010. He also was found to be in “excellent health,” although doctors told hi to stop smoking.
At her news briefing Friday, Psaki declined to detail any actions Harris took during her 85 minutes as “acting president,” but observed the moment’s historic nature.
“I will leave that to her team to characterize. I know that other people have been talking about this and a woman myself, I will note that the president, when he selected her to be his running mate, obviously knew he was making history that was long overdue in our view,” she said.
“Part of that was selecting someone who would serve by your side as your partner, but also … step in if there was a reason to,” Psaki said.
ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden issued the first pardons of his presidency Friday to some lucky turkeys named Peanut Butter and Jelly.
In a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, Biden spared the poultry pair from becoming Thanksgiving dinner this year.
Biden said the turkey pardoning tradition is meant to remind Americans at Thanksgiving to be grateful — but also provides the chance to have “a little bit of fun.”
“Turkey is infrastructure. Peanut Butter and Jelly are going to help build back the butterball,” Biden said, in the wake of a big week for his infrastructure agenda.
“As a University of Delaware man, I’m partial to a Blue Hen,” Biden joked about that college’s mascot, later adding the two turkeys would be getting their booster shots soon.
“It’s important to continue traditions like this to remind us how from the darkness, there’s light and hope and progress — and that’s what this year’s Thanksgiving, in my view, represents,” he said.
With the National Turkey Federation pledging that there are plenty of turkeys to gobble up during this year’s celebration — when more Americans will gather than in 2020 — Biden stuck to tradition, sparing two turkeys from the dinner table this year.
The White House selected the names Peanut Butter and Jelly from a list of options submitted by students in Indiana.
Peanut Butter, and his alternate, Jelly, traveled to the White House from Jasper, Indiana, early Wednesday, driven in a minivan outfitted as a “mini-barn” to the nation’s capital.
The responsibility of deciding which farm will supply the birds each year falls to the chairman of the National Turkey Federation — a process that Phil Seager, this year’s chair, began in July, when he asked turkey grower Andrea Welp if she would accept the challenge.
“That turkey needs to kind of learn to sit, stay, and in a perfect world, kind of strut a little bit and look good for the cameras,” Segar said.
Welp worked with a small flock to try to prep them for this process in the last six weeks, with Peanut Butter and Jelly last week being deemed the turkeys with the best temperament to handle the big moment, according to Segar.
Welp, a third-generation farmer from Indiana, said raising the presidential flock has been a lot of fun for her and her family and a highlight of her career.
“With another year of uncertainties with the pandemic, this project has really been something to look forward to, and has been a joy to be able to participate in. I know the kids have really had a lot of fun raising the birds, especially dancing to loud music to get them ready for all the media attention on the big day,” Welp said at a news conference Thursday, where the turkeys were first trotted out before the public.
After arriving in D.C., the two turkeys spent the day ahead of the pardoning having their feathers fluffed at the nearby five-star Willard Hotel.
“We do some extra prep to the room to make sure it’s comfortable for them, putting down shavings and making sure their food and water is accessible,” Beth Breeding, the spokesperson for the National Turkey Federation, told ABC News.
“We do our best to make sure that we leave the room cleaner than we even found it. We clean up afterwards and then we also work with the hotel to make sure the room is cleaned,” she added.
History of Poultry Pardons
The origin of the presidential turkey pardons is a bit fuzzy. Unofficially, reports point all the way back to President Abraham Lincoln, who spared a bird from its demise at the urging of his son, Tad. However, White House Historical Association Historian Lina Mann warns the story may be more folklore than fact.
Following Lincoln’s time in office, the White House was often gifted a bird for the holidays from Horace Vose, the “turkey king” of Rhode Island, sending his top turkey to 11 presidents over four decades — though these turkeys were already slaughtered and dressed for the president’s table, Mann says.
The true start of what has evolved into the current tradition has its roots in politics and dates back to the Truman presidency in 1947.
“There had been this government-led initiative called “poultry-less Thursdays” to try and conserve various foods in the aftermath of World War II,” Mann said.
“But the poultry industry balked because Thursday was the day of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, and those were the big turkey holidays. So, they were outraged,” she added.
After the White House was inundated with live birds sent as part of a “Hens for Harry” counterinitiative, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board presented Truman with a turkey to smooth the ruffled feathers and highlight the turkey industry — although the turkey was not saved from the holiday fest.
Instead, President John F. Kennedy began the trend of publicly sparing a turkey given to the White House in November 1963, just days before his assassination. In the years following, Mann says the event became a bit more sporadic, with even some first ladies like Pat Nixon and Rosalynn Carter stepping in to accept the guests of honor on their husband’s behalf.
The tradition of the public sparing returned in earnest under the Reagan administration, but the official tradition of the poultry pardoning at the White House started in 1989, when President George H.W. Bush offered the first official presidential pardon.
“Let me assure you and this fine Tom Turkey that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table — not this guy,” Bush said on Nov. 17, 1989.
“He’s granted a presidential pardon as of right now and … allow him to live out his days on a children’s farm not far from here,” he added.
In the 32 years since, at least one lucky bird has gotten some extra gobbles each year.
After they receive the first pardons of Biden’s presidency, Peanut Butter and Jelly will head back to Indiana to live out the rest of their lives at the Animal Sciences Research and Education Farm at Purdue University.
“Those folks who are going to be the next generation of leaders in our industry, so we’re really excited to partner with Purdue on that and to make sure that the turkeys have a home where they’re going to receive the highest quality of care,” Breeding said.
(WASHINGTON) — It was a question that plagued Joe Biden’s presidential campaign: Could a 77-year-old man — who at age 78 would be the oldest person ever to assume the presidency — handle the rigors of the job?
Candidate Biden acknowledged it was legitimate for Americans to question his fitness for office.
“The only thing I can say is watch. Watch! Check my energy level, determine whether I know what I’m talking about,” he told voters during the 2020 campaign.
Now, on Friday, nearly a year into his term, Biden is getting his first physical as president at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
It comes the day before he turns 79.
“Later this morning, the President will travel to Walter Reed Medical Center for his routine annual physical. We will provide more details after he arrives at Walter Reed,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in an early morning statement.
To date, the most recent physical and medical report was one his campaign released in December 2019: 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.”
At the time, Biden was said to be under treatment for four different conditions: non-valvular atrial fibrillation — a type of irregular heart rhythm, hyperlipidemia — higher concentrations of fats or lipids in the blood, gastroesophageal reflux and seasonal allergies.
The most notable health incidents in Biden’s past were the two cranial aneurysms he suffered in 1988.
Since winning the presidency, Biden suffered a fractured foot after falling while chasing his dog Major at his Wilmington, Delaware, home last Thanksgiving. He had to wear a walking boot for the injury, and was said to be “healing as expected,” according to scans from a follow-up appointment in December.
Biden named Dr. Kevin O’Connor as his White House physician shortly after taking office.
O’Connor has served as Biden’s primary care physician since 2009, when he was appointed physician to the then-vice president. Biden chose him for the new role due to their long history and personal relationship, according to a White House official.
Questions about fitness for office are far from exclusive to Biden — President Donald Trump, who was the oldest president elected before Biden, also faced questions about his mental and physical fitness.
Trump faced particular scrutiny for the first physical of his administration in January 2018, which his then-White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, said went “exceptionally well.”
He came under fire for his effusively rosy outlook on Trump’s health while briefing reporters afterward.
In other recent administrations, physicals have generally been conducted within a president’s first year in office.
President George W. Bush got a physical in August 2001, and was found to be “fit for duty” with “every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his Presidency.”
President Barack Obama received his first physical in office just over a year into his presidency, in February 2010. He also was found to be in “excellent health,” although doctors told hi to stop smoking.
(WASHINGTON) — Candidate Biden acknowledged it was legitimate for Americans to question his fitness for office.
“The only thing I can say is watch. Watch! Check my energy level, determine whether I know what I’m talking about,” he told voters during the 2020 campaign.
Now, on Friday, nearly a year into his term, Biden was getting his first physical as president at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
It comes the day before he turns 79.
Biden waved to reporters as he arrived at the hospital.
The White House revealed that for some of the exam he will be under general anesthesia and briefly transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This morning, the President will travel to Walter Reed Medical Center for a routine physical. While he is there, the President will undergo a routine colonoscopy, ” press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
“As was the case when President George W. Bush had the same procedure in 2002 and 2007, and following the process set out in the Constitution, President Biden will transfer power to the Vice President for the brief period of time when he is under anesthesia. The Vice President will work from her office in the West Wing during this time,” she said.
Psaki added that, later Friday afternoon, the White House will publicly release a written summary of the president’s physical.
To date, the most recent physical and medical report was one his campaign released in December 2019: 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.”
At the time, Biden was said to be under treatment for four different conditions: non-valvular atrial fibrillation — a type of irregular heart rhythm, hyperlipidemia — higher concentrations of fats or lipids in the blood, gastroesophageal reflux and seasonal allergies.
The most notable health incidents in Biden’s past were the two cranial aneurysms he suffered in 1988.
Since winning the presidency, Biden suffered a fractured foot after falling while chasing his dog Major at his Wilmington, Delaware, home last Thanksgiving. He had to wear a walking boot for the injury, and was said to be “healing as expected,” according to scans from a follow-up appointment in December.
Biden named Dr. Kevin O’Connor as his White House physician shortly after taking office.
O’Connor has served as Biden’s primary care physician since 2009, when he was appointed physician to the then-vice president. Biden chose him for the new role due to their long history and personal relationship, according to a White House official.
Questions about fitness for office are far from exclusive to Biden — President Donald Trump, who was the oldest president elected before Biden, also faced questions about his mental and physical fitness.
Trump faced particular scrutiny for the first physical of his administration in January 2018, which his then-White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, said went “exceptionally well.”
He came under fire for his effusively rosy outlook on Trump’s health while briefing reporters afterward.
In other recent administrations, physicals have generally been conducted within a president’s first year in office.
President George W. Bush got a physical in August 2001, and was found to be “fit for duty” with “every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his Presidency.”
President Barack Obama received his first physical in office just over a year into his presidency, in February 2010. He also was found to be in “excellent health,” although doctors told hi to stop smoking.
(WASHINGTON) — House Democrats passed their roughly $1.75 trillion social and climate spending package on Friday morning, even as Republicans successfully delayed a final vote.
The vote on passage of the “Build Back Better Act” fell largely along party lines at 220-213.
As the vote crossed the threshold to pass, Democrats started applauding on the floor and chanting “Build Back Better!”
Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to oppose the package, signaling opposition to a provision to raise the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes that could benefit high-earning homeowners. Democrats could afford to lose three votes and still pass the legislation. Not a single Republican supported it.
The social spending bill would generate the largest expansion to the social safety net in 50 years and contains $555 billion for climate and clean energy investments. It would reduce the cost of some prescription drugs, extend the child tax credit, expand universal preschool and includes electric-vehicle tax credits, paid leave, housing assistance and dozens more progressive priorities.
Now that it’s passed the House, the Senate is expected to amend the proposal in the coming weeks after the Thanksgiving recess as Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have not committed to the package in its current form.
Since Democrats plan to pass the measure through reconciliation, a lengthy budget process that would not require them to have any Republican support since Democrats have a narrow majority in both chambers, the legislation — months in the making — still has a long way to go, including back to the House, before it would even hit Biden’s desk.
Overnight, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., took to the floor for more than eight hours to rail against the bill and Democrats’ agenda, breaking a record previously held by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for longest House floor speech, knocking Democrats off their plans to approve the measure late Thursday evening, in a show to his conference that he’s fighting for the GOP on his quest to become speaker.
“I know some of you are mad at me and think I have spoken too long, but I’ve had enough. America has had enough,” he said, rallying his conference after a week of intraparty tensions over his leadership as the party seeks to recapture the House.
When Pelosi took the floor on Friday morning ahead of a full floor vote, she took a swipe at McCarthy’s lengthy speech.
“As a courtesy to my colleagues, I will be brief,” she said, wearing an all-white suit to mark the occasion. Pelosi said Democrats are “proud to pass this legislation under President Joe Biden.”
Earlier Thursday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the total Democratic package would add $160 billion to the national deficit over the next 10 years, an assessment requested by some moderate Democrats ahead of any vote to send the Build Back Better Act to the Senate.
Democratic leaders, progressives and most moderates have rallied around the package they said would make historic investments in fighting climate change, lower prescription drug prices, expand Medicare coverage and provide universal pre-kindergarten.
“Those of us who serve on this date will be able to tell our children and grandchildren we were there when the Congress passed one of the most transformational bills in the history of the Congress,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said on Thursday.
Republicans, meanwhile, assailed Democrats over the scope and cost of the package — given President Joe Biden’s initial pledge that it would cost “zero dollars” — and predicted it would further fuel inflation ahead of Thanksgiving.
Speaking through the night on the House floor, McCarthy repeatedly likened Biden to President Jimmy Carter, the one-term Democratic president who presided over inflation and rising gas prices in the late 1970s. Republicans repeatedly said Democrats were overstating their mandate from the 2020 election and argued that a Republican victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race earlier this month signaled unease with Democrats’ spending plans.
“Nobody elected Joe Biden to be FDR,” McCarthy said.
The tone of floor debate was acrimonious, with tensions between Republicans and Democrats still running high after Democrats voted to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., for posting a provocative cartoon video showing him killing Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Biden.
McCarthy was heckled repeatedly by Democrats over the course of his speech, and lawmakers shouted at each other from across the chamber.
“No one’s listening!” Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, shouted at McCarthy at one point.
As Republicans and Democrats flitted in and out of the chamber and wandered around to stretch their legs, McCarthy riffed on everything from foreign policy and not being able to afford a Tesla, to the 1984 film “Red Dawn” and China’s development of hypersonic missiles. He also lamented that former President Donald Trump did not win a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the Abraham Accords.
Democrats mocked McCarthy’s speech on social media, while Republicans cycled in and out of the chamber to fill the seats immediately behind the California Republican in a show of support.
Pelosi at a press conference on Thursday expressed confidence that with control of Congress hanging in the balance ahead of the midterm elections less than a year away, Democrats will be able to successfully sell their work to the American people — and do so more effectively than they did in 2010 after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, due, in part, to Biden using the “bully pulpit.”
Democratic members of Congress are also planning to hold 1,000 events before the end of the year to make clear to Americans what’s in Biden’s infrastructure plans.
“The messaging on it will be immediate, and it will be intense, and it will be eloquent, and it will make a difference,” Pelosi said.
Giving remarks in Woodstock, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, Biden endorsed Pelosi’s timeline to pass part two of his infrastructure agenda this week.
“I’m confident that the House is going to pass this bill. And when it passes, it will go to the Senate,” Biden said. “I think we’ll get it passed within a week.”
McCarthy blasted Pelosi at his press conference on Thursday and said the reconciliation bill will “be the end of their Democratic majority.”
While the already-passed bipartisan infrastructure law itself and its individual components — rebuilding and repairing bridges, ports and roads, expanding broadband internet, and more — are widely popular, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Americans aren’t giving Biden credit for championing the law and getting it through Congress. The president’s approval rating is at an all-time low at 41%.
Pelosi on Thursday tried to defend Democrats’ “Build Back Better” proposal from criticism over a key tax provision that has angered some in the caucus. Some moderates and leading progressives have criticized plans to undo a cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deductions — a reversal of Republicans’ 2017 tax law — popular in California, New York and New Jersey, given that the change would benefit wealthy suburban property owners.
The change would allow taxpayers to deduct up to $80,000 in state and local taxes from their federal tax returns after Republicans imposed a $10,000 cap on federal deductions four years ago.
A recent analysis from the Tax Policy Center found the SALT cap increase would primarily benefit the top 10% of income-earning Americans. About 70% of the tax benefit would go to the top 5% of earners, who make $366,000 a year or more, the analysis said.
“That’s not about tax cuts for wealthy people. It’s about services for the American people,” Pelosi said. “This isn’t about who gets a tax cut, it’s about which states get the revenue they need to help the American people.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at her briefing Thursday that the White House was “comfortable” with the SALT cap increase being included in the version of the “Build Back Better” bill on which the House is expected to vote — but she wouldn’t say the president’s excited it.
“This is a part of the bill that the president — that has been proposed, that is important to key members, as you all know,” Psaki said. “That’s why it’s in the package. The president’s excitement about this is not about the SALT deduction. It’s about the other key components of the package. And that’s why we’re continuing to press for it to move forward.”
ABC News’ Trish Turner and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration auctioned off large swaths of federally owned waters in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from oil and gas companies eager to begin drilling — while stoking the ire of environmental groups.
The auction was held less than two weeks after President Joe Biden pushed countries around the world to make collective sacrifices for the sake of the planet at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
The timing was not lost on environmental groups, who called for a halt to Wednesday’s auction — and are now slamming the Biden administration for allowing it to happen.
“Today I woke up enraged, but not surprised, that Biden would choose to cater to fossil fuel corporations over our futures,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environment-focused political group. “It speaks volumes that days after COP26 … he is approving major lease sales in the Gulf rather than doing everything in his power to stop extracting more fossil fuels.”
Wednesday’s auction yielded hundreds of bids from more than 30 oil and gas companies — including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron — who collectively dished out nearly $200 million for drilling rights in 1.7 million acres of the oil-rich Gulf.
Fossil fuel extraction of this type contributes to toxic gas emissions that are responsible for climate change — a reality at odds with Biden’s pledge to halve U.S. emissions by 2030.
The situation has put Biden administration officials on the defensive. Earlier this week, Interior Department Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau spoke at a panel discussion sponsored by the University of Chicago and tried to deflect criticism of the auction, describing it as a legal requirement engineered by the Trump administration.
“The fact is, the upcoming oil lease sale … is part of the legacy system that we’re here to reform,” he said Monday.
Beaudreau did not directly address a question about why the administration had not done more to prevent the auction from taking place, but instead sought to cast blame on the Trump administration, which initially scheduled the lease sale.
“The administrative process for that lease sale had been completed during the previous administration,” Beaudreau said. “It is not the way that we would prefer to do business.”
Biden promised to end new drilling on federal lands during his presidential campaign, and in his first week in office he issued an executive order pausing the lease sales, pending a review of their environmental impact.
In June, however, a federal judge ordered the resumption of the lease sales, siding with 13 states that sued the administration for overstepping its authority.
The administration appealed the judge’s ruling, but environmental groups say the appeal came too late to impact this lease sale.
Beaudreau said the judge’s ruling left the administration “in a situation of, while we are fully committed to reforming the oil and gas program … we have to deal with the litigation, and we have to deal with the terms that we inherited from the previous administration.”
“It’s beyond frustrating that the administration is forced choose between two awful options: a massive court-mandated and climate-damaging lease sale or violating a court order and having a cabinet Secretary held in contempt of court,” said Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “We absolutely must accelerate reform of the leasing program.”
Other environmental groups were not so satisfied with the administration’s explanation.
On Monday, protesters in New Orleans gathered to voice their discontent with the sale. In Washington, D.C., activists projected messages onto the Interior Department building, including “The Gulf is Not For Sale” and “Biden: Keep Your Promise.”
Environmental organizations also collected more than 100,000 signatures on a petition calling on Biden to uphold his commitment to ending new leasing for offshore oil and gas, which it planned to share with the administration.
A coalition of environmental groups is suing the administration to prevent the oil leases from taking effect, which the government said will occur on Jan. 1.
