Go to Source: Morning Joe
Dems urge White House to reconsider ‘Bidenomics’ as it lands flat with voters
President Joe Biden placed a big bet that he could sell an improving economy under the banner of “Bidenomics.”
Three months later, some allied Democrats fear he’s made a serious misstep.
Several top Biden allies have privately raised concerns about the phrase to the White House, according to two people familiar with the backchanneling.
And Rep. Steven Horsford, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said in an interview this week that he’s warned the White House that the Bidenomics brand is built on shaky ground. He believes it advances a message that wrongly centers the conversation on the president and his electoral ambitions rather than the voters who stand to gain from the administration’s economic accomplishments.
“With all due respect to the president, to the White House, this is not so much about them as it is the people who are benefiting by the policies that they came out and demanded,” said Horsford (D-Nev.). “We have to do a better job framing this not so much for one person — for the office of the presidency — but for the people.”
Their worries are underscored by a slew of polling showing that the economic recovery the White House has sought to spotlight as a triumph is not making a dent in the public’s psyche. Most Americans are still skeptical the U.S. is in an upturn, let alone one resilient enough to last much longer. The rising cost of living remains a dominant theme in voters’ minds, crowding out major gains in jobs and wages. And so far, the Bidenomics drumbeat that began earlier this summer has yet to prove it can change their minds.
“At this point, Bidenomics doesn’t really have strong answers to people’s biggest worries,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank. “There ought to be a lot of thinking in the White House now about changes in the way they present their case for the economic good that this administration has done.”
Inside the White House, aides have largely dismissed Democrats’ fears as premature and overblown, arguing it’s far too early to judge a messaging strategy designed to play out over the yearlong run-up to the 2024 election. They remain confident that, after winning the presidency and then defying predictions of a midterm wipeout, they have a better read on the national mood than their critics.
“Bidenomics is the president’s economic agenda and it is strongly supported by the American people,” said White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa. “That work and our message build on what the midterms and recent special elections proved: Americans favor the president’s vision for growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up over trickle-down MAGAnomics.”
Americans are just beginning to reap the rewards of Biden’s economic agenda, officials said. Consumer spending continues to rise, signaling greater confidence in the economy’s stability than people may be willing to admit.
Perhaps most crucially, Biden officials believe voters don’t yet see the issue as a choice between Biden’s economic vision and the policies of former President Donald Trump and his GOP allies. Sharpening that contrast will prove critical in changing Americans’ attitudes over the next several months, they said.
“Like they did in 2022, Americans will face a choice between MAGA Republicans whose agenda serves the rich and powerful, and Joe Biden, whose agenda serves the middle class,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz, highlighting a pair of early ads that spotlight individual voters. “That strategy worked then, and it will again in 2024.”
The administration has increasingly leaned into that contrast in recent weeks, emphasizing GOP proposals to cut taxes for the wealthy and roll back popular drug pricing moves. Bidenomics, top aides believe, gives the president a shorthand for comparing his various achievements against Republicans’ unpopular policies.
“It’s important to have a unifying theme and a vision that we’re explaining and that all these policies fit within,” said one longtime Biden aide, waving off strategy concerns as “bedwetting and Monday morning quarterbacking” from nervous Democrats. “The president didn’t win in 2020 adjusting his concern every day to the latest concern on cable news.”
But the administration’s case for patience is no longer masking the angst within the party that Bidenomics as a brand is falling flat — and perhaps is a microcosm of larger obstacles facing the coming campaign. An administration with accomplishments to sell has struggled to do so. A president who wants more credit for his work may, Democrats worry, be alienating voters by appearing insulated from their real life struggles.
In more than a dozen interviews across the party, Democrats offered various defenses and diagnoses of the administration’s messaging strategy and what may need to change. But nearly all acknowledged that the Bidenomics messaging blitz has failed to brighten voters’ view of the economy to date. Some now bemoan that the White House has tied itself so closely to a future economic trajectory it can’t really affect and certainly can’t control.
“I’ve never understood why you would brand an economy in your name when the economy hasn’t fully recovered yet,” said Michael LaRosa, a former spokesperson for first lady Jill Biden. “People need to be able to see and feel an economy in their own personal bank accounts. And it doesn’t change no matter how loud you scream the economy is better.”
The White House’s inability to gain more credit has confounded many Democrats. They believe Biden’s ability to steer the nation out of the pandemic and into an era of wage gains and near-record-low unemployment should be paying major political dividends.
Instead, most polling still shows clear majorities remain unhappy with the overall state of the economy and inflation in particular. A recent NBC News poll found fewer than 4 in 10 approve of the president’s handling of the economy. And though 55 percent said they were satisfied with their own financial situation, that figure tied a record low for the poll question dating back to 1994.
“The place where economic confidence is faltering most is with the base of the Democratic Party — so it’s among young people, among African Americans and Latinos,” said Republican pollster Micah Roberts, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies who handled the economic questions in the bipartisan NBC poll. “There’s a disconnect between the two or three months of [the Bidenomics] campaign and what people are actually feeling.”
Interviews with a diverse group of striking autoworkers and other voters in the critical battleground state of Michigan this week highlighted Biden’s troubles: Many of them had voted for him in 2020 and appreciate that he joined the picket line Tuesday. But several were frustrated with his handling of high prices and other economic issues — and not yet sold on voting for him again next year.
Darnay Curry, a Black United Auto Workers member striking at a plant in Warren, Mich., said he isn’t sure whether he’d back Biden or Trump if the election is a rematch between them.
“Neither one has said anything that actually gets to me just yet,” said Curry, who said he cast a ballot for Biden in 2020.
Tone Woods, a Black building trades worker from Detroit, said he is also undecided after voting for Biden in 2020. He attended Trump’s speech Wednesday in the Detroit area.
“Gas is high. Inflation. So that’s why I’m stuck in the middle,” he said. He is considering Trump because “the economy was a little better when Trump was in office, to be honest with you.”
Faced with sentiments like these, some Biden allies have advocated for a more empathetic approach that scales back on boasting about accomplishments in favor of greater acknowledgment that rising prices remain a challenge. Even as inflation cools, the shock of higher prices for basic needs like groceries and housing still appears to outweigh improvements in the abundance of jobs in the eyes of voters.
Horsford, for one, has directly urged Biden’s inner circle to focus more on selling specific policy wins by highlighting the businesses and individuals better off because of them instead of touting a broader Bidenomics vision that he said simply “isn’t cutting through.”
Trying to package Biden’s range of accomplishments under one umbrella risks obscuring the individual policies that polls show are wildly popular, like capping insulin costs and boosting domestic manufacturing, he and others argue. It asks voters to buy into an overarching economic philosophy they may not be totally sold on, rather than focus on more concrete improvements in their communities.
And crucially, they worry that christening Biden’s legacy well before it’s finished is plain old risky.
“There’s a difference between the actual thing working and the message landing with people,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who praised Biden’s recent focus on touting specific policies and values, such as visiting the UAW picket line and creating a new gun violence office, as encouraging signs the administration is honing its message.
“I’ve told this to the president and the administration, [and] the campaign: You’ve got to make people feel like they’re along for the battle, like they’re part of the battle.”
Go to Source: Politico
No longer ‘any dispute’ Biden ‘lied’ about never talking business with Hunter: GOP lawmaker
President Biden, his 2020 campaign staff and top White House aides have claimed at least 20 times that Biden “never discussed” his son Hunter’s business dealings with him, sparking backlash from a top House Republican who says there “can no longer be any dispute” that “Biden and his staff have repeatedly lied to the American people.”
Between 2019 and 2023, not only has there been mounting evidence that this talking point was false, but the narrative has also shifted multiple times, raising questions from GOP lawmakers.
On August 28, 2019, Biden said as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail that he’s “never discussed” with his son about his business dealings “period.”
A month later, while campaigning in Iowa, Biden again said to Fox News reporter Peter Doocy that he has “never” spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings.
HUNTER BIDEN’S FIRM EXCHANGED MORE THAN 1,000 EMAILS WITH JOE BIDEN’S VP OFFICE, RECORDS SHOW
“I don’t discuss business with my son,” Biden said again in October.
Biden made the same claim 3 more times in October while campaigning for president including a comment at a Democratic presidential debate where he said, “I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having do with Ukraine.”
Once elected president, the same narrative emanated from Biden and his White House staff including in April of 2022 when White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked if it was “still the case” that Biden had never spoken to his son about his “overseas business dealings.
“Yes,” Psaki said.
Several weeks later, Psaki said that Biden “maintains his same statements that he’s made in the past” regarding talking business with his son.
“Nothing has changed,” White House Press Secretary Karine-Jean Pierre said in June 2023 when asked again if the father and son spoke about overseas business dealings.
Also in June 2023, Biden said “no” when asked if he had lied in the past about never speaking to Hunter about his business dealings.
After those repeated statements, the White House was accused of “moving the goalposts” in July when White House spokesperson from the White House Counsel’s Office Ian Sams said, “As we have said many times before, the president was not in business with his son.”
“The answer remains the same,” Jean-Pierre said during a July 24 briefing. “The president was never in business with his son. I just don’t have anything else to add.
It was in late July when testimony from former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer showed that, according to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, Biden “lied” about never talking business with his son when Archer revealed that Hunter put his father on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times. Archer described how Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”
Vice President Biden also met with more than a dozen of Hunter’s foreign business partners, Fox News Digital previously reported.
“There can no longer be any dispute that Joe Biden and his staff have repeatedly lied to the American people about his knowledge of and involvement in his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings,” GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik told Fox News Digital.
“House Republicans’ rigorous investigations have uncovered mounting evidence that Biden not only knew about Hunter’s business dealings from phone calls to meetings, but was a willing participant.”
Stefanik continued, “This week, House Oversight Chairman James Comes released evidence that Hunter Biden listed Joe Biden’s house as the beneficiary address for two bank wires from Communist China in 2019 – while Joe Biden was actively campaigning to be President of the United States. It is clear the American people that Joe Biden is compromised, and House Republicans will leave no stone unturned as we deliver transparency and accountability on behalf of the American people.”
Additionally, Hunter’s lawyer’s claims earlier this month about Hunter not sharing profits with his father do not appear to hold up when looking at Hunter’s text messages and emails from his abandoned laptop, according to previous Fox News Digital reports.
In a January 2019 text message, Hunter expressed frustration with his daughter, Naomi, and revealed that his father forced him to fork over half his salary.
“I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family Fro (sic) 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary,” Hunter wrote.
In a 2018 WhatsApp message with his uncle, Hunter fumed about now-first lady Jill Biden and called her a “f—ing moron” after she shot down a proposal about him teaching and said he needed to get sober first or that he would not be able to support his family.
“I suooorted (sic) my GM (sic) family including some of the costs you should have used your salary to lay (sic) for- for the last 24 years,” Hunter said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman, Cameron Cawthorne, and Jessica Chasmar contributed reporting.
Go to Source: Latest Political News on Fox News
Dem, GOP reps raise alarm that Biden admin looking other way on solar industry’s alleged forced labor ties
FIRST ON FOX: A bipartisan group of five lawmakers are sending a letter Friday, urging the Biden administration to fully enforce laws preventing goods manufactured with forced labor from entering through American ports.
The lawmakers — led by Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., and who are all members of the House Ways and Means Committee — penned the letter to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Acting Commissioner Troy Miller. They urged Miller to ensure full enforcement of the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), especially as it pertains to the billion-dollar solar industry, citing information showing his agency may be falling short of the law’s requirements.
“In the name of climate change, the Biden Administration is surrendering the United States to the CCP. By allowing solar panels manufactured with Chinese polysilicon to avoid detection, they are encouraging Uyghur forced labor, distorting the market, and killing American jobs,” Miller told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“I am calling on Customs and Border Patrol to strongly enforce the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and stop products that were made by forced labor into the United States. We have the moral obligation to have a strategic decoupling from China and their inhumane labor practices,” she continued.
BIDEN VETOES BIPARTISAN BILL PROTECTING US SOLAR PANEL MAKERS FROM CHINESE COMPETITION
The letter Friday referenced comments from an executive at Chinese solar panel maker JA Solar which were made during a recent call with investors. The remarks were obtained by the Ways and Means Committee and shared with Fox News Digital.
The executive suggested that, since U.S. customs officials started enforcing the UFLPA last year, the solar industry has identified that there may be some American ports where products originating from China are more easily released into the U.S.
BLUE STATE GOVERNOR DEFENDS DEAL WITH CCP-TIED COMPANY, LABELS CRITICISM ‘XENOPHOBIA’
“Any companies that continue to skirt U.S. law designed to prevent economic benefits from these crimes must be stopped and held accountable,” the lawmakers wrote to Miller. “In this regard, we are concerned that statements by an executive at JA Solar, a solar company located in the PRC with supply chain ties to Xinjiang, recently stated publicly that its shipments are treated differently depending on which U.S. port the products enter.”
“This is unacceptable, particularly if it suggests that some ports are not providing appropriate scrutiny to fully implement the UFLPA,” they continued. “We cannot give JA Solar or any company a free pass to import goods tainted with forced labor into the U.S.”
The group — which, in addition to Miller, included Reps. Blake Moore, R-Utah, Greg Steube, R-Fla., Terri Sewell, D-Ala., and Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio — further called on the CBP to coordinate “civil society, private industry and through the interagency task force to ensure all products entering the U.S. are in full compliance with the UFLPA.”
In 2021, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., introduced the UFLPA to prohibit goods made with Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang from entering the U.S. and empower the Department of Homeland Security and CBP to maintain a list of Chinese entities linked to forced labor. President Biden signed the legislation into law months later and it went into effect in June 2022.
Federal data published by CBP, though, suggests that, while CBP is stopping solar shipments originating from China under the UFLPA, it releases the majority of those shipments into the U.S. market.
To date, the CBP has detained a total of 2,412 shipments of electronics worth $1.5 billion, but has only denied 36% of those shipments which have an estimated worth of $391 million, according to the most recent data updated on Sept. 12. The electronics category includes solar panel supplies.
The UFLPA and broader push in the West to crack down on Chinese forced labor practices came after a series of reports and studies tying the solar panel industry, particularly the production of raw material polysilicon, and other industries like clothing manufacturing to facilities in China’s Xinjiang province. About 40% of global polysilicon manufacturing is located in Xinjiang, according to a July 2022 analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
For example, a May 2021 report published by Sheffield Hallam University’s Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice in the U.K. highlighted how the Chinese government deploys “labor transfer” programs in Xinjiang which consist of forcibly placing millions of indigenous citizens and members of the Uyghur Muslim minority into jobs.
The report determined the programs are “tantamount to forcible transfer of populations and enslavement” and are utilized for polysilicon production in Xinjiang.
LOBBYISTS FOR CCP-TIED EV COMPANY FUNNELED CASH TO DEMOCRATS AFTER FILING AS FOREIGN AGENTS
And late last year, the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China released its 2022 annual report which concluded that senior Chinese government officials continue to carry out mass detention and persecution of Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang. Authorities also continue to maintain a system of forced labor of former mass internment camp detainees and other Turkic and Muslim individuals.
Still, the Chinese government has repeatedly denied both that it employs any forced labor programs and that China’s solar industry uses forced labor.
“The so-called ‘forced labor’ is flat-out lie of the century fabricated by institutions and personnel in certain Western countries such as the United States. There is no ‘forced labor’ in the production of photovoltaic products in Xinjiang, China,” Chinese government spokesperson Liu Pengyu previously told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“Employees in Xinjiang choose occupations according to their own wishes, sign labor contracts with photovoltaic companies in accordance with the principle of equality and voluntariness and the law, and obtain corresponding remuneration,” Pengyu said. “Xinjiang implements a proactive labor and employment policy, which effectively protects the basic rights of people of all ethnic groups to employment.”
Overall, China continues to dominate the global solar supply chain even as nations including the U.S. attempt to increase domestic manufacturing capabilities. According to the July 2022 IEA report, China has a greater than 80% share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels. China produces a staggering 95% of all global polysilicon, ingot and wafer supplies necessary for solar products.
The IEA concluded that Chinese government policies identifying the solar industry as a “strategic sector” have helped strengthen the nation’s solar supply chain. In 2021, the nation exported $30 billion worth of solar supplies, equivalent to roughly 7% of China’s trade surplus in recent years.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, continues to aggressively push solar energy investments as part of its climate agenda. Biden announced in 2021 his goal for the U.S. to have a carbon-free power grid by 2035, a target that would require a massive solar energy expansion nationwide. About 3% of the nation’s utility-scale electricity is currently generated by solar power.
The CBP and JA Solar didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Go to Source: Latest Political News on Fox News
Democrats’ new Hunter Biden talking point: Biden only guilty of being a loving father
House Democrats are now claiming that President Joe Biden actually is guilty – of loving his son Hunter.
The House Oversight Committee held an impeachment inquiry hearing Thursday that delved into the relation to between President Biden and his involvement in his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings.
Democrat Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas., fumed at House Republicans during their 5-minute remarks, attempting to argue that the president is innocent on the basis that he is just “a father.”
DEMOCRATS SEEK TO SWITCH BIDEN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY HEARING FOCUS TO TRUMP
“This entire fake impeachment inquiry isn’t about the United States; it’s about Hunter Biden. And the only thing the president can be guilty of here is being a father,” Bowman said during the hearing.
After using up most of her time shifting the focus from Biden to former President Donald Trump, Crockett also claimed that Biden is nothing but “guilty of loving his child unconditionally.”
“Tell you what the president has been guilty of. He has unfortunately been guilty of loving his child unconditionally, and that is the only evidence that they have brought forward. And honestly, I hope and pray that my parents love me half as much as he loves his child.”
HUNTER BIDEN’S $250K WIRE FROM CHINA LABELED AS A ‘PERSONAL INVESTMENT’
House Republicans launched the inquiry pledging to provide “accountability” as they investigate Biden family finances and business dealings.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer alleges they have a “mountain of evidence” indicating that President Biden had previously leveraged his public office for personal gain for his family.
“The bottom line is that the committee has shown the Bidens alone brought in over $15 million in their foreign influence peddling, over $24 million if you account for their associate’s earnings from the schemes,” Comer said.
“We have established in the first phase of this investigation where this money has come from Ukraine, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, China; it didn’t come from selling anything legitimate,” he continued. “It largely went unreported to the IRS. It was funneled through shell companies and third parties to hide the Biden’s fingerprints.”
“This deserves investigation,” he added. “This deserves accountability. The American people expect this committee to investigate public corruption.”
Comer then outlined the committee’s next steps in the inquiry.
“Now we know much of the money goes — Hunter Biden, Haley Biden, James Biden, Sarah Biden, other Biden family members and their business entities,” Comer said. “What we need to understand is where it goes next. That is the question this committee has to answer. And the evidence supports that next step.”
Comer said he would subpoena the bank records of Hunter Biden, James Biden and their affiliated companies.
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Republicans aim to strip salary from Biden climate official who kept job after failed Senate confirmation
EXCLUSIVE: Republican Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., are introducing a bill Friday that would strip the federal salary from a Biden administration official overseeing aggressive fuel efficiency regulations.
Cruz and Lummis’ bill — which will be introduced as an amendment to a so-called “minibus” appropriations package funding the Departments of Transportation, Housing, and Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2024 — would effectively defund Ann Carlson, who is serving as acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a Transportation Department subagency.
Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee led by Cruz, who is the panel’s ranking member, have argued the White House is skirting constitutional requirements by allowing Carlson to lead NHTSA in an “acting” capacity. Earlier this year, after substantial industry and congressional opposition, Carlson failed to clear Senate confirmation to permanently lead NHTSA.
Because the White House withdrew her nomination before she received a floor vote, she is technically allowed to lead the agency as acting administrator since she wasn’t directly rejected, a loophole the bill Friday aims to close.
TOP REPUBLICANS LAUNCH PROBE INTO LEONARDO DICAPRIO-FUNDED BLUE STATE LAWSUITS AGAINST BIG OIL
In a recent letter to President Biden regarding Carlson, Cruz pointed to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act which prohibits “any person who has been nominated to fill any vacant office from performing that office’s duties in an acting capacity.” He argued the provision and the fact that Carlson did not serve in the position of first assistant to former NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff for more than 90 days before he resigned, precludes her from her current position.
In addition, according to Cruz, Carlson continuing to lead NHTSA casts doubt on the legality of the agency’s actions. In the time since her nomination fell through, NHTSA has proposed its most-aggressive-ever fuel economy standards that experts warned would substantially increase car prices and force electric vehicle purchases, but which Carlson said would “reduce harmful emissions.”
BIDEN NOMINEE COORDINATED DARK MONEY CLIMATE NUISANCE LAWSUITS INVOLVING LEONARDO DICAPRIO
“Biden’s EV mandates and subsidies may have been inspired by radical politicians in deep blue states, but they’ve been put into practice by unaccountable bureaucrats like Ann Carlson,” Cruz told Fox News Digital on Sept 20. “With the current strike, it has become increasingly obvious that the left’s full-fledged assault on popular gas-powered cars and trucks is causing chaos in the auto sector — and it’s no wonder workers are concerned about long-term job security.”
“President Biden and Green New Deal absolutists like Ann Carlson own this strike,” he continued. “President Biden’s illegal appointment of Ann Carlson, who was effectively rejected by the Senate due to concerns about her extreme agenda and radical record, will only yield more mandates, higher costs for families and a less vibrant economy.”
In January 2021, the Biden-Harris transition team hired Carlson, then an environmental law professor at UCLA, to serve as NHTSA’s chief counsel. The position didn’t require Senate confirmation, but Carlson has overseen key agency initiatives including fuel economy standards and began serving as acting administrator in September 2022.
Then, in February, Biden nominated Carlson to be the administrator of NHTSA, and the White House subsequently transmitted the nomination to the Senate Commerce Committee a month later. However, Carlson’s nomination faced stiff opposition led by Cruz and fellow Commerce Committee Republicans who pointed to her history of environmental activism and desire to transform NHTSA into a climate-focused agency.
On May 30, the White House announced her nomination had been withdrawn. Carlson, though, has continued serving as NHTSA’s acting administrator, and the White House has yet to nominate a replacement, making her the agency’s chief for the foreseeable future.
“To comply with the law, you should immediately correct your violation of the law by removing Ms. Carlson from her so-called acting administrator position,” Cruz and the 12 other Republicans wrote in their letter to Biden last week. “After doing so, you should nominate a serious and well-qualified person to be NHTSA administrator.”
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Exclusive — Rep. Warren Davidson, Sen. Mike Lee Propose Bill to Define Ukraine ‘Proxy War’ Strategy to End ‘War Hawk Regime’s Latest Obsession’
Go to Source: Breitbart News
James Comer Subpoenas Hunter, James Biden 315 Days After Launching Probe into Family
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Second GOP Debate Without Trump Sees Viewership Drop by More than 25 Percent
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Carney on ‘Kudlow’: Trump Showed Last Night Why He’s the GOP Frontrunner
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