To say President Joe Biden “celebrated” one year in office this week would be a mistake. One “minor” slip during a rambling, two-hour press conference on Wednesday resulted in the White House going on a 24-hour cleanup tour explaining the United States will respond to any incursion by Russia into Ukraine.
Besides the foreign policy hiccup, the president’s speech included shades of former President Donald Trump when Biden suggested the 2022 midterm elections could be considered “illegitimate” unless his party’s partisan voting “reform” bills are passed, which they won’t be as the Senate, as expected, rejected an attempt to do away with the filibuster on Wednesday evening.
Here are the quotes of the week.
“No, no, [Biden’s] had a bad year. He’s had 52 weeks of bad weeks. People are 7% poorer now because of Biden inflation. Gasoline prices are, what, 50% higher than they were when he took office. The border is a mess. COVID was resurgent. He didn’t have in place the [COVID] tests people needed to keep themselves safe. There was a disaster in Afghanistan. Russia is now threatening Ukraine. Things are not going well.”
– Utah Sen. Mitt Romney criticizes the first year of President Joe Biden’s administration on Meet the Press.
“The No. 1 is still the elections out here. … They don’t trust them. They don’t trust the machines.”
– Mike Collins, a candidate for Georgia’s 10th Congressional District race, said voters are concerned about election integrity.
“YouTube shut me down, which by the way, I begged them to do, and is now the greatest moment of my life. We’re taking a victory lap,”
– Dan Bongino, after YouTube demonetized his show for his comments about masks.
“It is unclear to us why we are facing such dire circumstances now. It does not appear to be because of lack of funding, but a more fundamental lack of strategy and a failure to anticipate future testing needs by the administration.”
– GOP senators asked why COVID-19 tests are still hard to come by after approving more than $82 billion for testing measures.
“From Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the present day, our economy has never worked fairly for black Americans — or, really, for any American of color. Our administration has tried to change that; to ensure that neither the figurative bank of justice — nor any literal economic institution — fails to work for people of color.”
– Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the racist legacy of the U.S. economy.
“While Joe Biden spends this afternoon parroting the talking points written for him by Stacey Abrams and her far-left allies, I will continue fighting for the truth and secure elections in Georgia.”
– Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp defended his state’s efforts to shore up voting integrity.
“Over the past 48 hours, President Biden’s Justice Department has gone from denying the clear and religious, antisemitic implications of this attack to now backtracking to what we all already knew to be true.”
– House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused the DOJ of backtracking its assessment of a hostage situation at a synagogue in Texas.
“The vast majority of our caucus strongly disagrees with Sen. [Joe] Manchin and [Sen. Kyrsten] Sinema on rules changes. The overwhelming majority of our caucus knows that if you’re going to try to rely on Republican votes, you will get zero progress on voting rights right now. Zero.”
– Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Democratic support for abolishing the filibuster.
“The Republicans would absolutely do this to us, so we shouldn’t have any sort of notion of virtue that we are better than they are.”
– Rep. Eric Swalwell claimed Republicans will not concede an election peacefully ever again.
“We also have gone a step further than the prior administration and many administrations in releasing visitor logs of people who visit the White House and will continue to do that.”
– White House press secretary Jen Psaki in response to a question about whether the White House will release visitor logs for the president’s homes in Delaware.
“From now on, the government is no longer asking people to work from home … And having looked at the data carefully, the Cabinet concluded that once regulations lapse, the government will no longer mandate the wearing of face masks anywhere.”
– British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced England will roll back many COVID-19 restrictions as early as next week.
“If campaign finance and voting rights reforms are blocked again this week, I will support the proposed changes to pass them with a majority vote. Protecting the vote-by-mail system used by a majority of Arizonans and getting dark money out of our elections is too important to let fall victim to Washington dysfunction.”
– Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly announced he would support Democratic efforts to abolish the filibuster.
“I think we’re going to hold the majority. I know that is contrary to what some people think.”
– House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer offered contrarian analysis on whether Democrats will still control the House after midterm elections.
“It is clear that there will be a high price to pay and that everything will have to be discussed should there be a military intervention in Ukraine.”
– German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the possibility of stopping the Nord Stream 2 pipeline running from Russia through Germany.
“The speed and the dynamic of our relations between Ukraine and the United States, which was started by our presidents, President [Volodymyr] Zelensky and President Biden, actually was towards Formula One speed.”
– Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on efforts to arm Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
“if Justice Sotomayor is too ‘at risk’ to be around Justice Gorsuch without his mask on, then Sotomayer is not fit to serve on the Supreme Court and should step down.”
– Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested Justice Sonia Sotomayor should resign from the Supreme Court, though the reports Greene was referring to had been denied earlier in the day.
“Oh, yeah, I think it could easily be illegitimate.”
– Biden suggested the 2022 midterm elections could be questioned if Democrats’ voting reforms aren’t enacted.
“Russia will be held accountable if it invades, and it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do … but if they actually do what they’re capable of doing with the force they’ve amassed on the border, it’s going to be a disaster for Russia.”
– Biden, in a speech on Wednesday, sent mixed messages about how the U.S. plans to deal with Russia if it attacks Ukraine.
“It is Newton’s second law: An object in motion has a tendency to stay in motion, and Biden is in motion downward. He’s fallen, and he can’t get up.”
– Presidential historian Craig Shirley on Biden’s prospects of resetting after a rocky first year and inauspicious start to 2022.
“We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the president of a great power.”
– Ukrainian President Zelensky responded to Biden’s comments about varying levels of response should Russia commit a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.
“Clearly, if all that effort was expended by the other side to get me out of Congress, they feared my pro-life voice in the Democratic Party, no two ways about it.”
– Former Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski on his appearance at the annual March for Life and his struggle as an anti-abortion Democrat.
“We’re going to have the best growth we’ve ever had this year — I think since maybe sometime after the Great Depression. Next year will be pretty good too.”
– Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on the prospects of an economic bounce back amid the highest inflation in 40 years.
“What a stupid question.”
– Biden responded to a White House reporter asking why the president is letting Putin make the first move in a mounting pressure situation on Ukraine’s eastern border.
