Joe Biden to talk infrastructure in Michigan amid pressure over Gaza – live | US news

Joe Biden is about to deliver remarks on the need to invest in electric car manufacturing at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

The president has just wrapped up a tour of the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, where the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning will be manufactured.

As plant workers explained how the electric trucks come off the assembly line, Biden could be heard saying, “I’ll be damned.”

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has joined Joe Biden and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer in calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

“Israel is our friend and ally in the Middle East with whom we have shared values. It is in the U.S. national security interest to support security in Israel,” the Democratic speaker said in a new statement.

“Hamas exploited a volatile situation to initiate hostilities against Israel, launching more than 3,000 rockets, and as always, Israel has a right to defend herself.
“Now, after more than a week of hostilities, it has become even more apparent that a ceasefire is necessary. There must be a serious effort on the part of both parties to end the violence and respect the rights of both the Israeli and Palestinian people.”

Pelosi’s statement comes a day after Biden indicated his support for a ceasefire in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, the US president stopped short of demanding an immediate end to the violence.

Asked about Biden’s stance earlier today, the White House press secretary said, “He’s been doing this long enough to know that the best way to end an international conflict is typically not to debate it in public.”

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Joe Biden has arrived in Michigan to tour a Ford electric car facility. The president’s trip to the Dearborn plant is meant to promote his infrastructure plan, but local groups have organized protests in response to Biden’s visit due to his response to the Israeli and Hamas attacks in Gaza, which have killed more than 200 people.
• House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said he will oppose the bipartisan bill to form a September 11-style commission to study the Capitol insurrection. Republican congressman John Katko negotiated the bill and helped secure many of the party’s demands for the legislation, but McCarthy claimed the proposal was still insufficient. The bill is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House tomorrow, but its fate in the evenly divided Senate remains unclear.
• A North Carolina district attorney said sheriff’s deputies were justified in their fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr, a Black man. District attorney Andrew Womble said the deputies had to fire at Brown because he tried to drive his car at one of the officers. However, lawyers for Brown’s family have claimed the car was stationary when the deputies started shooting. Brown’s death last month sparked protests in North Carolina.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

A district attorney in North Carolina has concluded that sheriff’s deputies were justified in their actions last month, when they shot and killed Andrew Brown Jr, a Black man.

The AP reports:

District Attorney Andrew Womble said Andrew Brown Jr.‘s actions caused deputies to believe it was necessary to use deadly force. Brown ignored deputies’ commands to stop and began to drive his car directly at one of the officers, Womble told a news conference.

He said the first shot fired at Brown’s car went through the front windshield, not the back as was previously reported.

Deputies attempting to serve drug-related search and arrest warrants shot and killed Brown outside his Elizabeth City home on April 21. Three deputies involved in the shooting remain on leave, while four others who were at the scene were reinstated after the sheriff said they didn’t fire their weapons.

Lawyers for Brown’s family have previously said that his car was stationary when the deputies started shooting. The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into Brown’s death, which sparked protests last month.

Joe Biden has arrived in Detroit, where he was greeted by two Michigan lawmakers, congresswomen Debbie Dingell and Rashida Tlaib.

The president was seen speaking to Tlaib for a few minutes after exiting Air Force One, according to a White House pool report. Asked what they discussed with the president, Dingell said, “A lot of things.” Tlaib did not respond.

The trio may have been talking about Tlaib’s forceful criticism of the administration’s response to the recent violence in Gaza, which has killed more than 200 people, most of whom were Palestinian.

Tlaib tweeted at Biden and secretary of state Antony Blinken yesterday, “If you support a cease-fire, then get out of the way of the U.N. Security Council and join other countries in demanding it.”

Referring to the Israeli prime minister, Tlaib added, “Apartheid-in-chief Netanyahu will not listen to anyone asking nicely. He commits war crimes and openly violates international law.”

During his call with Netanyahu yesterday, Biden indicated his support for a ceasefire in Gaza, but he avoided explicitly demanding an immediate end to the violence.

Peter Beaumont and Quique Kierszenbaum report:

Israeli television stations are providing security for some of their highest-profile reporters after physical attacks and death threats from far-right Jewish extremists.

According to reports in the Israeli media, the N12 channel has provided security details for four of its on-air reporters: Dana Weiss, Guy Peleg, Yonit Levi and Rina Mazliah, after a rise in online threats against them amid recent intercommunal violence.

Police have arrested one suspect in connection with threats against Weiss.

Reporters from Channel 12, Kan news and Channel 13 have been physically attacked in recent days after rightwing extremists took to the streets to target Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin in various locations.

Among them was Ayala Hasson, a journalist and presenter who was part of a TV crew assaulted in Lod with rocks last week by a group from the far-right Jewish La Familia. “La Familia wanted to smash his camera and they threw a rock the size of a boulder at me, the soundman protected me,” she said.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, gaggled with reporters aboard Air Force One as Joe Biden traveled to Michigan to tour a Ford electric car plant.

Psaki began the gaggle by noting that the president’s trip is meant to highlight the need to invest in the electric vehicle sector, but reporters’ questions immediately turned to Biden’s response to the attacks between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.

A reporter asked Psaki if Biden insisted that a ceasefire happen immediately when he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday.

The press secretary replied that she would leave the description of the conversation to the readout released by the White House yesterday, which said Biden “expressed his support for a ceasefire and discussed US engagement with Egypt and other partners towards that end”.

“The president’s objective is clear, which is that he wants to see an end to the violence on the ground,” Psaki said. “He’s been doing this long enough to know that the best way to end an international conflict is typically not to debate it in public.”

She added that sometimes diplomacy “needs to be quiet” to meet the objectives of those talks.

Psaki’s comments come as Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rocket attacks continue in Gaza, where more than 200 people, most of them Palestinian, have already been killed in the violence.

One House Republican told the Hill that as many as 50 members of the GOP caucus may join Democrats in supporting the 6 January commission bill tomorrow, even after minority leader Kevin McCarthy said he would vote against it.

The bill was already expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House, but the true test will come when the evenly divided Senate takes up the legislation.

No surprise here: the Biden administration has released a statement of administration policy saying the president supports the bipartisan bill to create a September 11-style commission to study the Capitol insurrection.

“The attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on our democracy, an effort to undo the will of the American people and threaten the peaceful transition of power,” the statement says.

“While the Federal Government has already begun taking action to improve the safety and security of the U.S. Capitol, the Administration supports the proposed bipartisan, independent National Commission to study and investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The Nation deserves such a full and fair accounting to prevent future violence and strengthen the security and resilience of our democratic institutions.”

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy announced this morning that he will oppose the bill, which was negotiated by Republican congressman John Katko.

The bill will still likely pass the Democratic-controlled House when it comes up for a vote later this week, but McCarthy’s opposition indicates the hurdles that the legislation will face in the evenly divided Senate.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to oppose a bill that one of his members, John Katko, helped craft may deter other congressional Republicans from working with Democrats, as a New York Times reporter noted.

Katko, the ranking member of the House homeland security committee, worked with the Democratic chairman, Bennie Thompson, to secure many Republican requests in the bill to create a 6 January commission, but McCarthy still says the legislation is insufficient.

If the 6 January commission bill fails to pass the Senate, Democrats will probably continue to investigate the Capitol insurrection through their leadership of congressional committees.

That leadership gives them the power to call hearings and subpoena witnesses, meaning Republicans will actually have less say in the investigations than they would have had on the committee proposed by the bill.

However, the lack of a bipartisan committee will probably make it easier for Republicans to dismiss the investigations’ findings as the result of a partisan attack strategy.

That strategy will certainly please Donald Trump, who praised the Capitol insurrectionists as the attack unfolded and has continued to spread the lies of election fraud that incited the riot.

McCarthy may also be betting that it will be easier to take back the House next year without a bipartisan commission releasing findings on a deadly attack launched by a group of Trump’s supporters, as an NBC News reporter noted.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s opposition to the 6 January bill will present a problem for Republican congressman John Katko, who helped negotiate the bipartisan proposal.

Katko, the ranking member of the House homeland security committee, worked with Democratic chairman Bennie Thompson to reach a deal on the bill.

Democrats agreed to most of Republicans’ demanded changes to the original proposal, including making the 10-person commission evenly divided between the two parties.

However, moments after Katko and Thompson announced that a deal had been reached on Friday, McCarthy signaled he had not yet decided whether he would support the revised bill.

“You’ve got to look at what the buildup [was] before and what has gone on afterwards, otherwise the commission does not work,” McCarthy said on Friday.

With McCarthy voting against the bill, many House Republicans will likely do the same.

The vote will throw another harsh spotlight on the divisions within the House Republican caucus, just a week after members ousted Liz Cheney as conference chair over her criticism of Donald Trump and his lies about election fraud, which incited the Capitol insurrection in the first place.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has just released a statement announcing he will oppose the bipartisan bill to form a September 11-style commission to study the Capitol insurrection.

The Republican leader argued that the commission would be “duplicative and potentially counterproductive” because of the other existing investigations into the 6 January attack.

“While the Speaker has wasted time playing political games, numerous Congressional and intergovernmental agency efforts have picked up the slack,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also criticized Democrats for ignoring “the political violence that has struck American cities, a Republican Congressional baseball practice, and, most recently, the deadly attack on Capitol Police on April 2, 2021”.

“Given the political misdirections that have marred this process, given the now duplicative and potentially counterproductive nature of this effort, and given the Speaker’s shortsighted scope that does not examine interrelated forms of political violence in America, I cannot support this legislation,” he concluded.

The bipartisan bill is expected to come up for a vote this week, and it will likely still pass the Democratic-controlled House. However, McCarthy’s stance demonstrates that it may be difficult to get the legislation through the evenly divided Senate.

Joe Biden had another call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, as Israel and Hamas continued to engage in violent attacks in Gaza that have already killed more than 200 people, most of them Palestinian.

In the conversation, the US president indicated he supported a ceasefire in Gaza, but he avoided explicitly calling for an end to the violence.

“The president reiterated his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks,” the White House statement said in readout of the call.

“He encouraged Israel to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians. The two leaders discussed progress in Israel’s military operations against Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. The president expressed his support for a ceasefire and discussed US engagement with Egypt and other partners towards that end.”

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Joe Biden will travel to Dearborn, Michigan, today to tour the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center and deliver remarks at the plant.

The trip marks the president’s latest effort to promote his $2.3tn infrastructure plan as he continues to negotiate with Republicans over the proposal.

Biden has called for a $174bn investment in the electric vehicle industry to create US jobs and lead the world in a sector that is viewed as crucial to decreasing carbon emissions.

However, the president’s trip may not be as promotional as he had originally hoped. The Detroit Free Press reports that a group of Arab-American residents plan to protest Biden’s visit because of his recent comments about the violence in Gaza:

The protests are set for 10am at the American Moslem Society mosque in Dearborn that sits close to the Ford Rouge plant, 1pm outside the Dearborn Police station on Michigan Ave. and 1.30pm in Lapeer Park in Dearborn. Different Arab American groups are organizing the various protests.

The demonstrations would be the latest of several held in Dearborn over the past week as Arab American activists in Michigan are outraged by Biden’s support of Israel over its attacks in Jerusalem and Gaza, where more than 200 have been killed, most of them Palestinians. Dearborn is 47% Arab American, most of them Muslim, the highest percentage among cities in the US. Israeli officials maintain they are defending themselves from Hamas rocket attacks and violence from some Palestinian extremists.

The president will soon leave for Michigan, and the blog will have more details on the trip as it unfolds, so stay tuned.