President Biden has already offered remarks this morning. I will be switching things up a “tiny bit”…
“Tiny bit” turned out to be a “lot a bit”…
Medal of Valor Tweet
From Wednesday…
Snip from his public schedule for Wednesday 05/17/2023:
| 9:30 AM Remarks | The President honors 2021-2022 Medal of Valor recipients East Room |
The YouTube is 50 minutes and 33 seconds long. The event begins at the 21 minute and 43 second mark. His full remarks have not been postponed at this time (8:51 a.m. my time).
I had to google to find the list.
NYPD officer Wilbert Mora and his police partner Jason Rivera were shot Jan. 21, 2022, while responding to a call about a family dispute in a Harlem apartment. Officer Sumit Sulan shot and killed the gunman, ending the deadly encounter moments after it began. Rivera died that night, Mora was pronounced dead four days later.
Biden was also honoring other New York City bravery; three members of the Fire Department of New York. Lt. Justin Hespeler, who rescued a newborn baby from a burning house, firefighter Patrick Thornton who, aboard an FDNY boat, saved a man trapped under a capsized vessel in the waters off the coast of Staten Island and retired Lt. Jason Hickey who was on the FDNY’s marine training unit when he got a distress call of a man in the Harlem River, a tidal strait that flows swiftly between the Hudson and East Rivers. Hickey jumped in and saved the man from drowning.
The other recipients are:
PBS.org. 05/17/2023.
- Corporal Jeffrey Farmer of the Littleton, Colorado Police Department. Farmer was responding to a call of shots fired possibly out of a car window, and chased the suspect to the door of an apartment where the man opened fire, hitting one of the officers. Farmer worked to fend off the shooter in order to save his fellow officer, who survived.
- Deputy Bobby Hau Pham of the Clermont County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office. Pham saved a drowning woman who had driven her car into a lake, and was being honored for clear thinking and composure, according to the White House.
- Sergeant Kendrick Simpo of the Houston, Texas Police Department. Simpo was working a second job at the Houston area Galleria mall when he heard on the radio a heavily armed man was roaming the mall. Simpo tackled the suspect who was carrying a rifle and 120 rounds of ammunition. No one was injured.
Default Not an Option/Infrastructure Law’s Birthday Tweets
From Tuesday…
The video clip is 30 seconds long.
President Biden: American cannot default on its debt. If we’re to do that, it would be catastrophic. It would be devastating for America, and quite frankly, the whole world. There would be a recession, we’d find that everything was changed. Our economy would really crater. It really would have a profound impact on how we live our lives. We’d find ourselves in a position where we no longer were viewed as a leader of the world economically. And we can’t let that happen. It’s beyond comprehension. No serious person in either party has ever thought this was an option.
The video clip is 24 seconds long featuring snips taken from several different speeches given regarding the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that became law on 11/15/2021.
Added to his public schedule for Wednesday 05/17/2023:
| 10:45 AM | The President delivers remarks on preventing a first-ever government default |
They were short remarks. According to the tweeted video feed it was 5 minutes and 3 seconds long.
President Biden is traveling today to Japan for the G7 Summit:
| 11:25 AM | The President departs the White House en route to Joint Base Andrews South Lawn Out-of-Town Pool |
| 11:45 AM | The President departs Joint Base Andrews en route to Anchorage, Alaska Joint Base Andrews Out-of-Town Pool |
| 2:30 PM Press Gaggle | Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Anchorage, Alaska Joint Base Andrews Out-of-Town Pool |
| 6:25 PM | The President arrives in Anchorage, Alaska (2:25 PM Local) Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, AK Out-of-Town Pool |
| 7:55 PM | The President departs Anchorage, Alaska en route to Hiroshima, Japan (3:55 PM Local) Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, AK Out-of-Town Poo |
After the G7 Summit in Japan, President Biden had planned to travel to Australia and Papua New Guinea. That trip is now postponed according to a statement from the White House (05/16/2023):
President Biden will return to the United States on Sunday, following the completion of the G7 summit, in order to be back for meetings with Congressional leaders to ensure that Congress takes action by the deadline to avert default. The President spoke to Prime Minister Albanese earlier today to inform him that he will be postponing his trip to Australia. He also invited the Prime Minister for an official state visit at a time to be agreed by the teams. The President’s team engaged with the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea’s team to inform them as well.
The President has made clear that members of Congress from both parties and chambers must come together to prevent default, as they have 78 times before. The President and his team will continue to work with Congressional leadership to deliver a budget agreement that can reach the President’s desk.
Revitalizing and reinvigorating our alliances and advancing partnerships like the Quad remains a key priority for the President. This is vital to our ability to advance our foreign policy goals and better promote global stability and prosperity. We look forward to finding other ways to engage with Australia, the Quad, Papua New Guinea and the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum in the coming year.
White House.gov. 05/16/2023.
Celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month Tweets
From Tuesday…
The YouTube is 37 minutes and 29 seconds long. President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff’s remarks can be found here.
Well, the President tossed me a curve ball by issuing a Debt Ceiling tweet with video but featuring remarks from the celebration event that took place yesterday evening.
From Wednesday…
The video clip is 48 seconds long.
President Biden:
And I spoke today with Prime Minister Albanese of Australia and — a short time ago — and let him know what was going on. There was an overwhelming consensus, I think, in today’s meeting with the congressional leaders that defaulting on the debt is simply not an option.
Our economy would fall into recession. It would devastate retirement accounts, increase borrowing costs. And according to Moody’s, nearly 8 million Americans would lose their jobs. And our international reputation would be damaged in the extreme if we were to let that happen.
It’s disappointing that in our discussions the congressional Republicans have not been willing to discuss raising revenues. But the policy differences between the parties should not stop Congress from avoiding default.
I made clear again in today’s meeting that default is not an option. America pays its debt, pays its bills, and there’ll be plenty of time to debate the policy differences. But the country is never — we’ve never defaulted on our debt, and we never will.
White House.gov. 05/16/2023.
The “alt” tabs posted on Twitter but not WordPress say:
The One Random Tweet
From Tuesday…
The tweet comes from an op-ed posted in USA TODAY on Sunday written by President Biden.
The full op-ed was shared in Monday’s Biden Bits.
This is an Open Thread.
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