It’s Friday…
President Biden’s public schedule for 01/19/2024:
| 10:00 AM Presidential Daily Brief | The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing The White House Closed Press |
| 12:00 PM | Out-of-Town Pool Call Time The White House Out-of-Town Pool |
| 1:30 PM Press Briefing | Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby James S. Brady Press Briefing Room |
| 3:45 PM Welcomes Mayors | The President welcomes bipartisan mayors attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting to the White House East Room Pre-Credentialed Media & Pooled for TV |
| 4:00 PM | Supplemental Pool Call Time Gordons Pond State Park, Rehoboth Beach, DE |
| 5:45 PM Leaves the White House | The President departs the White House en route to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware South Lawn Open Press |
| 6:40 PM Arrives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware | The President arrives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware Gordons Pond State Park, Rehoboth Beach, DE Out-of-Town Pool |
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and John Kirby @1:30 p.m. D.C., time:
President Biden Welcomes Bipartisan Mayors Attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting @3:45 p.m. D.C., time:
“Bidenomics”/Investing in America Tweet
From Thursday…
Join me in Raleigh as I announce a new high-speed internet investment in North Carolina that’ll bring 16,000 additional homes and businesses online. https://t.co/xXguQlvKJG
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 18, 2024
The YouTube is 22 minutes and 32 seconds long. His full remarks can be found here.
Unemployment in America has been below 4% for the longest stretch in 50 years.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 18, 2024
And unemployment has been below 4 percent for the longest stretch in American history in the last 50 years. And here in North Carolina, unemployment is even lower. It’s 3.5 percent. (Applause.) And the stats coming out today show that seeking unemployment insurance has even gone down. Fewer people are needing help.
White House.gov. 01/18/2024.
When I became president, 24 million Americans didn’t have access to affordable high speed internet.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 19, 2024
Now, we’re well on our way to connecting every last American to affordable, reliable high-speed internet by 2030. pic.twitter.com/kZniRBZM4f
High-speed Internet isn’t a luxury anymore, it’s an absolute necessity. It’s an absolute — (applause) — no, it really is. And yet, when I became president, around 24 million Americans didn’t have access to affordable high-speed Internet. And for millions more, their Internet connection was limited or unreliable.
[snip]
And, look, our goal is to connect everyone in America to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet by the year 2030 — everyone in America — just like Franklin Roosevelt did a generation ago with electricity.
White House.gov. 01/18/2024.
From Friday…
Right now, America has the strongest growth and the lowest inflation of any major economy in the world.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 19, 2024
And, look, put it all together, America has — this is a fact — the strongest growth rate of any — and the lowest inflation rate of any major economy in the world — in the world.
White House.gov. 01/18/2024.
Critical Incident Review Tweet
From Thursday…
No community should ever have to go through what Uvalde families suffered when 21 students and educators were killed at Robb Elementary School.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 18, 2024
Here’s my full statement on today’s @TheJusticeDept report on the Uvalde school shooting response: pic.twitter.com/EMsc5KGhkE
In May 2022, Jill and I traveled to Uvalde to grieve 21 students and educators senselessly and tragically gunned down at Robb Elementary School. Twenty-one souls stolen from us in a place where they are supposed to feel safe—their classroom.
Following this tragedy, my administration conducted a review to determine lessons learned from the response that day and best practices to ensure a swifter and more effective response to future active shooter incidents. Today’s report makes clear several things: that there was a failure to establish a clear command and control structure, that law enforcement should have quickly deemed this incident an active shooter situation and responded accordingly, and that clearer and more detailed plans in the school district were required to prepare for the possibility that this could occur. There were multiple points of failure that hold lessons for the future, and my team will work with the Justice Department and Department of Education to implement policy changes necessary to help communities respond more effectively in the future.
No community should ever have to go through what the Uvalde community suffered. After the Uvalde shooting, the families of the victims turned their pain into purpose and pushed for the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years, which I signed into law. And I continue to take historic executive action, including the establishment of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
Congress must now pass commonsense gun safety laws to ensure that mass shootings like this one don’t happen in the first place. We need universal background checks, we need a national red flag law, and we must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The families of Uvalde – and all American communities — deserve nothing less.
The longer we wait to take action, the more communities like Uvalde will continue to suffer due to this epidemic of gun violence.
White House.gov. 01/18/2024.
We will never forget the 19 children and two teachers who were killed in their classrooms during a senseless mass shooting carried out with a weapon of war. In the days and months since they lost their lives and 17 others were injured, the families in Uvalde have channeled their anguish into advocacy – demanding accountability, justice, and action to change the unacceptable fact that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in our nation.
With their help, President Biden and I fought to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years. Working with gun safety organizers and advocates including young leaders across the country, we have also taken more executive action to reduce gun violence than any other Administration in history. This includes establishing the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. But we know more must be done.
Today’s devastating report by the Justice Department makes it clear that there were multiple failures in Uvalde that hold urgent lessons for our nation, and our Administration remains committed to ensuring that communities have the resources and support they need to respond more effectively.
As we do so, I am continuing to call on Congress and state legislators throughout America to have the courage to act by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, passing red flag laws, and making background checks universal. These commonsense solutions will save lives and ensure that fewer children, families, and communities experience the trauma and pain that Uvalde has suffered.
White House.gov. 01/18/2024.
From the Department of Justice…
01/18/2024:
The Justice Department announced today the release of a report on its critical incident review of the law enforcement response to the tragic school shooting at Robb Elementary School. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the review shortly after the tragedy on May 24, 2022, in which 19 children and two teachers died at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The report provides a thorough description of the critical incident review that has taken place over the past 20 months.
The report is intended to provide the most comprehensive assessment available of the law enforcement response to the horrific incident on May 24, 2022, as well as the emergency medical response, communications, and trauma services in the wake of the tragedy. It begins with a minute-by-minute timeline reconstructing key events before, during, and immediately following the shooting. The report addresses many previously unanswered questions, builds on the existing knowledge base for responding to incidents of mass violence, and identifies generally accepted practices for effective law enforcement responses. In doing so, this report endeavors to honor the victims and survivors of this tragedy, as well as offer recommendations to improve future responses in other communities.
“The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better,” said Attorney General Garland. “The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary on May 24th, 2022 — and the response by officials in the hours and days after — was a failure. As a consequence of failed leadership, training, and policies, 33 students and three of their teachers — many of whom had been shot — were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside. We hope to honor the victims and survivors by working together to try to prevent anything like this from happening again, here or anywhere.”
“Uvalde is a community that is healing, and getting clear on the facts is part of healing,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “As I made clear last April when I came to Uvalde to meet with families and reiterated to them last night, we promised that our report would honor the victims and survivors; provide a detailed, independent, and authoritative accounting of the events; and would not only look backward but would also identify lessons learned and recommendations for other communities to prevent something like this from happening again.”
“The observations and recommendations in this report are based on national standards, generally accepted standards and practices, current research, and the expectations of communities,” said Director Hugh T. Clements, Jr. of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office). “Reports like this are critical to law enforcement and, by extension, to the community. As agencies constantly strive to do better and be more fully prepared, detailed observations and recommendations like those within this report are invaluable to agencies planning for the future.”
The report examines the multiple failures in the response to the tragedy, including the breakdowns in leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training that contributed to those failures. It describes the responding officers’ most significant failure as not treating the incident throughout as an active shooter situation and using the available and sufficient resources and equipment to push forward immediately and continuously to eliminate the threat. Although several of the first officers on the scene initially acted consistent with generally accepted practices to try to engage the subject, once they retreated after being met with gunfire, the law enforcement responders began treating the incident as a barricaded subject scenario rather than as an active shooter situation. In all, there was a 77-minute gap between when officers first arrived on the scene and when they finally confronted and killed the subject.
The report also examines the communications challenges during and after the shooting, including the inaccurate narrative that was initially delivered. It also documents the trauma and support services that were provided, as well as those that were not provided, to victims, survivors, family members, and responders.
The critical incident review was led by the COPS Office, with the support of leading subject matter experts with a wide variety of relevant experience. The team established the following areas of focus: (1) incident timeline reconstruction; (2) tactics and equipment; (3) leadership, incident command, and coordination; (4) post-incident response and investigation; (5) public communications during and following the crisis; (6) trauma and support services; (7) school safety and security; and (8) pre-incident planning and preparation.
The team collected and reviewed more than 14,000 pieces of data and documentation, including policies, training logs, body camera and CCTV video footage, audio recordings, photographs, personnel records, manuals and standard operating procedures, interview transcripts, investigative files and data, and other documents. The team also spent 54 days onsite in Uvalde and conducted over 260 interviews of individuals who either played a role or had important information related to areas of the review. Those interviews included personnel from the law enforcement agencies involved in the response to the mass shooting; other first responders and medical personnel; victims’ family members; victim services providers; communications professionals and public information officers; school personnel; elected and appointed government officials; survivors and other witnesses; and hospital staff.
The report, in both English and Spanish, as well as profiles of the victims and additional resources, is available on the COPS Office website at cops.usdoj.gov/uvalde.
The team took great care to be intentional about the words used in the report to convey the facts, observations, and recommendations. Nevertheless, the descriptions may be activating for some readers due to the explanations of this mass casualty incident, including the age of the victims. For resources, including free and confidential emotional support, please visit www.988lifeline.org or call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Justice.gov. 01/18/2024.
Critical Incident Review Active Shooter at Robb Elementary School PDF is 610 pages long.
“New” from the White House…
01/18/2024:
- Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NSC Coordinator For Strategic Communications John Kirby; the YouTube is 52 minutes and 36 seconds long (the transcription of the briefing was posted on 01/18/2024; the briefing is from 01/17/2024)
- Press Gaggle by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton and NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby En Route Morrisville, NC; the YouTube is 23 minutes and 33 seconds long.
01/19/2024:
This is an Open Thread.
