It’s Wednesday aka the First Day of Fall.
For Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021, President Biden has received his daily brief. This morning D.C., time the President held a virtual COVID Summit on the margins of the UN General Assembly.
The White House posted a background press call to preview the Summit. The call with Senior Administration Officials was conducted yesterday but embargoed until this morning.
Senior Admin Official 1: So, tomorrow, President Biden will announce that the U.S. is purchasing an additional 500 million Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines to donate to low- and lower-middle income countries around the world. These half a billion vaccines will be made here in the United States by American workers. They’ll start shipping out in January. And that means from January through September of next year, we will ship out 800 million vaccines to the world.
Senior Admin Official 2:
So what exactly is going to happen tomorrow? It’s a virtual summit that will last for almost four hours with countries from all over the world. And we have over 100 countries, over 100 organizations from across international institutions, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations. Of those, over 30 will speak live, and approximately 10 will be shown during intermissions in taped remarks.
The event will be a mixture of heads of state and non- governmental leaders. And we ask participants who aren’t speaking to send videos; we’ll be playing some of those during the summit and also publishing them after the event for all to see.
So far, what we’re seeing and receiving is a lot of energy, a lot of welcome and embracing for this event, its goals, and U.S. leadership and President Biden’s leadership to host it.
There’s going to be four sessions.
The first session is focused on “Calling the World to Account” and vaccinating the world. That session will be chaired by the President, and it will be moderated by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield. It will include the U.N. Secretary-General; the World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros; at least six other heads of state; and other international organizations.
The second session, “Save Lives Now,” will be chaired by USAIDAdministrator Ambassador Samantha Power, and it will be moderated by Rockefeller Foundation President and former USAID Administrator Raj Shah. That event will focus on representatives and world leaders from foundations, non-governmental organizations to discuss challenges and solutions to persistent issues like oxygen — the oxygen crisis, access to testing and therapeutics, and building stronger health systems.
Our third session, “Build Back Better,” will be chaired by Vice President Harris and it will be moderated by Department of Health and Human Services Global Affairs and Global COVID Lead Loyce Pace. That effort — that session will include world leaders, philanthropists, and public health experts who will be speaking about health security financing, health security leadership, and how to build the capacity we need for the future.
Our closing session will feature Secretary of State Blinken and will be moderated by State Department Coordinator for the Global COVID Response Gayle Smith. That session will call leaders to action from across sectors and challenge them to take more actions this fall, with the U.S. in a leadership role.
And so, finally, what comes next: The summit is meant to be a deliberate beginning to the end of the pandemic, and it will launch a lot of work.
Specifically, we plan to take a leading role in tracking collective progress, working with governments, working with the U.N. and the Secretary-General’s team, working with the Multilateral Leaders Task Force that I mentioned earlier, the ACT Accelerator, COVAX, the private sector, and the philanthropic community.
We plan to convene a series of meetings throughout the fall and reconvene leaders by the first quarter of next year. And we look forward to this event galvanizing more urgency to end the pandemic, vaccinate the world, save lives now, build back better. And the United States intends to continue to lead.
White House.gov. 09/22/2021 (09/21/2021).
The White House posted a live feed. They only covered President Biden’s opening remarks. They will post his remarks later today.
President Biden has tweeted 1 time so far for Wednesday; I’ll be sharing it down thread.
When Biden Bits was published for Tuesday, President Biden had tweeted 4 times. He added 4 tweets giving him a Tuesday Tweeting Total of 8 tweets and 0 retweets.
WEDNESDAY’S FIRST TWEET:
As the News Blender featured on Tuesday; President Biden addressed the United Nations General Assembly.
The YouTube video is 33 minutes and 50 seconds long. His full remarks can be found here.
President Biden (3:49): Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past, we are fixing our eyes on devoting our resources to the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future: ending this pandemic; addressing the climate crisis; managing the shifts in global power dynamics; shaping the rules of the world on vital issues like trade, cyber, and emerging technologies; and facing the threat of terrorism as it stands today.
The video is 43 seconds long. The snips were taken from remarks he gave on September 2nd, 2021, on the Administrations Hurricane Ida response efforts. The below YouTube video is 17 minutes and 18 seconds long.
President Biden (15:31): And to the country: The past few days of Hurricane Ida and the wildfires in the West and the unprecedented flash floods in New York and New Jersey is yet another reminder that these extreme storms and the climate clisis [sic] — crisis are here. We need to do — be much better prepared. We need to act.When Congress returns this month, I’m going to press for their action on my Build Back Better plan. That’s going to make historic investments in electrical infrastructure, modernizing our roads, bridges, our water systems, sewer and draining systems, electric grids and transmission lines, and make them more resilient to these superstorms and wildfires and floods that are going to happen with increasing frequency and ferocity. We’re reminded that this isn’t about politics. Hurricane IDA didn’t care if you were a Democrat or Republican, rural or urban. Its destruction is everywhere. And it’s a matter of life and death, and we’re all in this together.
There was a pool spray prior to their meeting.
The YouTube is 3 minutes and 46 seconds long. Their full remarks can be found here.
The White House posted the following readout of the bilateral meeting:
President Biden met today with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia and celebrated the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-Australia Alliance. The leaders affirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region, based on shared values and mutual interests, and agreed on the importance of working with allies and partners around the world, including through historic partnerships and organizations and new configurations, to defend against threats to the international rules based order. They discussed the critical role European allies and partners, including NATO and the EU, play in the Indo-Pacific and ways to deepen that cooperation and joint work. The President and Prime Minister Morrison committed to take steps to strengthen the resilience of our respective economies and their mutual commitment to work through the Quad. They also discussed the upcoming Quad Leaders Summit, including efforts to expand access to vaccines in the Indo-Pacific and to cooperate to address the climate crisis.
The White House.gov. 09/21/2021.
The White House hasn’t upload the pool spray as of 7:57 a.m. CA., time.
The White House did publish their remarks.
The White House posted the following readout of the meeting:
President Biden met today with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom at the White House. This meeting reaffirmed the strong bond between the United States and the United Kingdom, as the leaders agreed to continue working together to fulfill the vision set forward in the Atlantic Charter. President Biden and Prime Minister Johnson reviewed our cooperation on shared global challenges, including building consensus for action to address the climate crisis, promoting global health security, supporting democracy and human rights, and developing a more inclusive economic future for all countries. The leaders also discussed our ongoing work on Afghanistan, as well as developments in the Indo-Pacific and the critical role of European allies and partners, including NATO and the EU, in the region. They also discussed Northern Ireland, and President Biden reiterated his longstanding support for a secure and prosperous Northern Ireland in which all communities have a voice and enjoy the gains of the hard-won peace.
White House.gov. 09/21/2021.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also met with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The YouTube video is 3 minutes and 25 seconds long. Their remarks can be found here.
The White House also published a readout from their meeting:
Vice President Kamala Harris met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom today to convey her appreciation for the special friendship and shared values between the United States and the United Kingdom. Vice President Harris and Prime Minister Johnson discussed a wide range of current global challenges and opportunities. They expressed their shared desire to continue to strengthen the relationship and expand economic cooperation, as well as our cooperation in areas such as global health, girls’ education, and the environment. The Vice President thanked Prime Minister Johnson for the UK’s contributions and sacrifice over two decades in Afghanistan and its leadership in combatting climate change. As part of the discussion on actions needed to address the climate crisis, the Vice President highlighted the President’s recent announcement to seek Congressional support to double the United States’ previous commitment to public international climate finance. They also discussed the need for more coordinated international efforts to address the root causes of migration.
White House.gov. 09/21/2021.
The daily press briefing is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. D.C., time.
This is an Open Thread.
I shared this before but…
