He plans to leave the administration to head the NHL Players' Association.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was to serve as the Biden administration's designated survivor during the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, according to the White House.
The Cabinet-level official tapped to the designated survivor is assigned to stay in a secure, undisclosed location away from the speech — in the event some disaster wipes out the entire presidential line of succession, who are expected to be at the Capitol to watch the address.
Walsh plans to leave administration to head the NHL Players' Association, two people familiar with the matter confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday. The former Boston mayor has roots in organized labor, having previously headed the Building and Construction Trades Council in Boston.
It wasn't immediately clear when Walsh would leave the administration. The news of his exit was first reported by the Daily Faceoff, a hockey publication.
The president, in rare joint appearance with VP Harris, touts first-term accomplishments ahead of an expected formal announcement later in the year.
PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered an early preview of their likely reelection campaign Friday night, rallying the Democratic Party faithful ahead of an expected formal 2024 announcement.
In their back-to-back speeches, Biden and Harris took a victory lap on strong economic numbers released this week, touted accomplishments from their first term and doubled-down on attacking Republicans as “extreme MAGA.” Their rare joint appearance at the DNC served as a soft launch for their reelection efforts as the pair road tested their 2024 pitch.
"Let me ask you a simple question: Are you with me?” Biden said, sparking chants of "four more years" from the crowd, waving signs blazoned with “Go Joe” and “Kamala.”
Biden’s campaign rhetoric on Friday night doesn’t necessarily mean a formal announcement is imminent, as Democrats expect an announcement in late March or April. But the DNC has already hired several communications rapid response directors who will be deployed to the four Republican early states and Florida, according to a party aide.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee plans to reintroduce the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act with a "Tyre Nichols Duty to Intervene" provision, attorney Ben Crump said at the service.
The funeral of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died after being beaten by police officers in Memphis, Tenn., was marked by emotion, music and a renewed call for justice on Wednesday, including by Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This is a family that lost their son and their brother through an act of violence, at the hands and the feet of people who had been charged with keeping them safe,” Harris said at the service in Memphis.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) plans to reintroduce after next week’s State of the Union speech the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act with a “Tyre Nichols Duty to Intervene” provision added, Nichols family attorney Ben Crump said at the service.
With the families of other victims of police violence in attendance, Harris and several other speakers called for passage of the police reform bill, which stalled after passing in the House in 2021. The content of the addition named after Nichols was not outlined at the service.
CBC members are meeting with Biden and Harris a day after the vice president attended Tyre Nichols’ funeral.
When Rep. Steven Horsford heads to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden this week, he will bring a message directly from the family of Tyre Nichols: Act now.
“They want action,” the Nevada Democrat and Congressional Black Caucus chair said of his conversation with Nichols’ parents. “The action is legislative action; that's here in Congress and at the state and local level, they want executive actions that still can be taken by the president and his administration.”
Horsford and the CBC will sit down Thursday with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. But it’s unclear how they will produce the action that Nichols’ family wants following last week’s release of the video that captured the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis, Tenn., police officers.
The White House and the Black community find themselves at another tragic and all-too-familiar inflection point: eager to respond to another police killing of a Black man that has captured the nation’s attention but with limited capacity to do so. Horsford and the Black caucus plan on leading a full court press to show the country that D.C. isn’t completely toothless when it comes to this issue — that this time should be different. But those calls come in the shadow of a lack of movement on police reform. And even reform’s biggest boosters aren’t bullish on that shadow lifting.
Harris will reprise her role championing the U.S.-led West’s defense of Ukraine against Russian aggression.
Vice President Kamala Harris will once again head the U.S. delegation to the Munich Security Conference, two people familiar with her plans said, a sign of the continued importance the U.S. is putting on transatlantic cooperation on Ukraine nearly one year into the war.
Harris’ appearance at Europe’s premier defense conference is meant to underscore that America won’t abandon Kyiv even as the war is expected to grind on for at least another year. She’ll arrive in the southern German city after a few tense weeks of negotiations between Washington and Berlin over supplying more advanced weapons to Ukraine.
Following discussions with German officials, who had said they’d send their Leopard tanks to Ukraine if the U.S. sent its Abrams tanks, President Joe Biden authorized the transfer of 31 Abramson Wednesday. In response, Germany quickly greenlighted its own Leopard tanks and those held by other nations.
It’ll be Harris’ second go in front of the conference, taking place Feb. 17-19.
The vice president's trip follows shootings in Monterey Park, Half Moon Bay and Oakland that left 19 people dead and many others wounded.
Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Monterey Park, Calif., on Wednesday to mourn the victims of the weekend mass shooting in the Southern California city. The visit follows three mass shootings that occurred over the course of just a few days in the state.
President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that Harris would be making a trip, with the White House later providing details.
“Our hearts are with the people of California,” Biden said at a meeting with Democratic leadership at the White House. “The vice president’s going to be going out. I’ve been talking with Gavin Newsom and Judy Chu and Anna Eshoo and Hilda Solis, and we’re working out a number of things that we can and are going to be doing.” Newsom is the state’s governor, Chu and Eshoo are members of its congressional delegation, and Solis is a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
The announcement comes a day after seven people were killed in two related shootings in Half Moon Bay, and three days after a shooting at a Monterey Park dance hall east of Los Angeles that left 11 people dead. On Monday, another shooting killed one person in Oakland and wounded seven others.
The decision to give her speech in the state capital was seen as a direct rejoinder to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday brought the battle over abortion directly to the doorstep of potential 2024 president contender Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of what could become another contentious fight over abortion in the weeks ahead in Florida.
Harris gave a midday speech in Tallahassee highlighting the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, where she not only weaved in several mentions of “freedom” — a subtle dig at DeSantis’ recurring remarks about the “free state of Florida” — but said “extremists” in the statehouse had passed a “radical abortion ban” last year.
“And can we truly be free if so-called leaders claim to be ‘on the vanguard of freedom’ while they dare to restrict the rights of the American people and attack the very foundations of freedom,” Harris said.
The Biden administration has clashed repeatedly with DeSantis over the last two years, but Harris’ appearance just a mile from the state Capitol seemed to signal a higher level of engagement with the governor, who is viewed as the top challenger to former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
After a career as a social activist for Afro-Colombians and climate justice, Francia Márquez Mina decided to run for the vice presidency — and won. Her next goal: getting global superpowers to pay reparations.
NEW YORK — Walk into almost any diplomatic office in the world, and you’ll notice that the décor inevitably paints a portrait of the country its occupant represents. On this occasion, intentionally or not, the office of the Colombian ambassador to the United Nations is curated with some of the country’s best-known cultural exports: Gabriel García Márquez’s literature, the paintings of Fernando Botero, the tri-color flag. Signs of the nation’s changing outward visage also peek out, as with a coffee table book depicting the Wayúu Indigenous tribe.
But the most immediate evidence that a deep transformation is taking place in Colombia — and Latin America writ large — is the woman who strides into the room shortly after 11 a.m. with several protocol staffers trailing her yet without much pageantry: Francia Elena Márquez Mina. Two years ago, when she was still a climate and social justice activist in the Pacific region of the South American country, Márquez picked up a pen and wrote a letter to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who’d just been inaugurated, with the hopes of starting a conversation about the murder of George Floyd.
“I am sure that the majority of the people who voted for you and for President Biden did so in hope[s] of taking the knee off of the necks of African Americans in your country,” she wrote. “As Afro-Colombians and Indigenous peoples, we suffer the same situation; those who have imposed armed conflict, lethal politics, gender-based violence, structural racism — they keep their knees on our necks.”
Although she never received a response from Harris, she pressed on with her activism — weaving it into a career in electoral politics and becoming, in August of last year, Colombia’s first Black vice president, winning on a leftist ticket with now-President Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla rebel. She turned into a symbol of hope for millions of Afro Colombians, who saw in her the opportunity to have a seat at the table in a country where discussions of race and class are often cast aside for fantasies of a post-racial society.
No longer tied to the Senate, the vice president feels comfort and flexibility as she hits the road on abortion, climate and other issues
For Kamala Harris and her aides, the new year — and a new Congress — has brought a sense of optimism.
After spending much of her time in office managing bad headlines, staff turnover and persistent questions about her portfolio and position in Biden world, the vice president is in a better place, her allies and aides say.
She no longer is tied to the whims of an evenly split Senate, where she had been called to cast more than two dozen tie-breaking votes. And they say she no longer feels her every move is being eyed in the context of a potential 2024 Harris presidential campaign since her boss is highly likely to seek another term.
“Now that it looks like he's running, she's really being treated like what I would call a ‘normal vice president,’” said one former Harris aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There's just less attention, which I think actually frees her up to focus on excelling and not have to worry about the relentless scrutiny.”
Whenever the House does elect a speaker, Murray will shift back to third-in-line to the presidency after the vice president and speaker.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) may be the closest to the presidency she’ll ever get — even if it’s only for a brief moment.
That’s because the position of House speaker lies unclaimed for now with no timeline for a resolution. Murray, who assumed the position of Senate president pro tempore on Tuesday, therefore sits right behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential line of succession until Republicans pick their speaker.
Murray said in a statement she is “truly honored” to assume the pro tem role, which is now held by a woman for the first time in history. Harris, the first woman vice president, administered the oath of office to Murray — wearing her trademark tennis shoes — on Tuesday as her predecessor, former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), stood behind her.
“It’s a responsibility I am deeply honored to take on for my country and for Washington state,” Murray said. “And I hope that when young women watch footage of the first female vice president — my friend Kamala Harris — swearing me in [Tuesday], they don’t question for a moment whether their voices matter, or if they belong in Congress. Because we need even more women to serve at every level of government.”
The 2024 race for president began a long time ago. In fact, we already have candidates who have lost; Andrew Cuomo’s unspoken bid died in 2021 when he resigned the New York governorship over sexual misconduct allegations. This year, Republican Sens. Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Rick Scott, despite their past preening, indicated they would forgo a presidential campaign. And the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, announced he would not run, regardless of President Joe Biden’s plans.
Now, with Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago stemwinder of an announcement coming just one week after the 2022 midterms, the playing-it-coy phase is winding down. So, with the race about to begin in earnest, who had the best year of jockeying for position?
In my previous 2019, 2020 and 2021 year-end assessments of the 2024 candidates, I did not christen singular winners in each party. But 2022 is different. We have undisputed victors: Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis.
The WinnersJoe Biden and Ron DeSantis While many Trump-backed Republican candidates faltered in the midterms, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (whom Trump endorsed in the 2018 gubernatorial primary, as he will surely remind us all repeatedly over the next several months) won his re-election by a ludicrous 19 points. That’s the widest margin for a Florida gubernatorial victory in 40 years, just four years after DeSantis survived a nail-biter.
The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people.
WASHINGTON — Three buses of recent migrant families arrived from Texas near the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in record-setting cold on Christmas Eve.
Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus drop-offs are in line with previous actions by border-state governors calling attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people, according to Tatiana Laborde, managing director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants who have been dropped off in recent months.
Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. The people on board included young children.
“You can speed up our victory. I know it,” Zelenskyy said in the House chamber.
In an emotional speech to Congress Wednesday night that party leaders compared to the wartime pleas of World War II, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged lawmakers to continue providing weapons and aid to help Ukraine fend off Russia through the winter and beyond.
“You can speed up our victory. I know it,” Zelenskyy said in the address, dressed in his battle fatigues and combat boots on the dais in the House chamber. “Let the world see that the United States are here.”
Throughout his roughly 20-minute speech delivered entirely in English, the Ukrainian president relayed his case for continual support, underscoring his gratefulness for that which has been provided — while saying that it’s not nearly enough.
“Your support is crucial, not just to stand in such a fight, but to get to the turning point to win on the battlefield,” he said, making his case directly to Washington in his first foreign trip since the invasion. “We have artillery, yes. We have it. Is it enough? Quite honestly, not really.”
The Ukrainian president asked for money, weapons and continued support in a trip that comes amid a shifting power dynamic in D.C.
It was the 300th day of a brutal war, and the first day of a terrible winter.
It was also time to leave the country.
Making his first trip beyond Ukraine’s borders since Russia invaded, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy undertook a perilous, secret journey from the war’s front lines to Washington, D.C. He traveled first by train to Poland and then flying abroad under the cover of night to make an urgent in-person appeal Wednesday to the nation most able to continue helping his war-weary homeland.
Zelenskyy’s visit was deliberately timed as the war entered a new, dangerous phase.
The second gentleman will convene a roundtable on Wednesday. It’s the latest step he’s taken as one of the country’s most prominent Jews.
A few months ago, second gentleman Doug Emhoff asked his team about what more he could do about the rise of antisemitic incidents across the country.
The issue had long concerned him. And in private conversations with other Jewish figures, he’d conveyed a desire to do something more forceful about it. His team decided that a roundtable with top officials would be appropriate. A few weeks ago, they started planning for it.
But things took a turn around the Thanksgiving break, when news emerged that former President Donald Trump had dined with two notable antisemitic figures: white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Ye, the rapper better known as Kanye West. Overnight, the roundtable that Emhoff had been planning became the most pointed administration response to a brewing national controversy. Come Wednesday, when top White House officials and Jewish leaders convene for it, it will further cement a status he never set out to have: one of America’s foremost Jewish political figures.
“I've had enough conversations with him and see him often enough to know the severity suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks,” Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, told POLITICO. “And he said, ‘You know, I'm in this position. I’ve got to do something.’ He really in his gut felt that it would be derelict on his part not to somehow try to move the needle or to move things forward.”
California's long-serving senator hasn't revealed her 2024 plans, but Democratic hopefuls are making moves.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein hasn’t said if she intends to seek another term in 2024 — but the competition to succeed the oldest member of Congress is escalating.
Reps. Ro Khanna and Katie Porter are fielding entreaties to jump into the race, and Rep. Adam Schiff has publicly declared he is exploring a run. Rep. Barbara Lee is spending the holidays mulling her next move. Three hopefuls have contacted former Sen. Barbara Boxer to seek her advice, marking the incipient stages of a fierce fight between California Democrats for a seat that has not been open for a generation.
“They’re starting to call me to get ready for what is a massive campaign – truly, massively expensive and hard-fought,” Boxer said. “It will be a very crowded field.”
Schiff fired the first salvo last month by openly admitting his long-known interest in the seat, telling a Los Angeles television station that, after his House leadership bid fizzled, he would “consider running for the Senate if Senator Feinstein decides not to run for reelection.” Schiff also met with Feinstein to inform her of his intentions, according to two people familiar with the exchange.
The longtime communications aide is heading up to New York with his family. A search for a replacement is underway.
Jamal Simmons, communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, is leaving his role after about a year in the post. He is expected to depart next month.
“Working for Vice President Harris has been an honor and a privilege,” Simmons said in a statement to POLITICO. “I’m so thankful for the confidence she put in me and I will miss this fantastic team more than anything.”
A longtime communications aide in Democratic circles, Simmons plans to move to New York with his family. Lorraine Voles, Harris’ chief of staff, told staff Friday of his coming departure, noting Simmons had “agreed to come on board for a year.”
In her email, Voles said she knew Simmons “could help me steady the ship,” and credited him for growing the “V.P’s digital presence and building relationships with national, regional and constituency media.”
