Early Life, Education, & Launch of Political Career

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was born in November 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and lived there for ten years before moving to, and growing up in, New Castle County, Delaware. He graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware in 1961. In 1965 he earned his undergraduate degree (with majors in history and political science) from the University of Delaware in Newark, and in 1968 he earned his Juris Doctor degree from Syracuse University College of Law. Biden then found work as a public defender in Wilmington, Delaware. He also spent some time working as an attorney for a member of the Black Panther Party.

In 1972 Biden ran successfully for one of Delaware’s seats in the U.S. Senate, beating Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs.

Biden became a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 1975, and of the Senate Judiciary Committee two years later.

Biden Lies About the Circumstances Under Which His Wife & Daughter Died

Just 18 days prior to Biden’s January 5, 1973 swearing-in as a senator, his then-wife Neilia Hunter and the couple’s three children were involved in an automobile accident. Neilia and daughter Naomi died from the injuries they sustained, while Biden’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, eventually made full recoveries.

For many years thereafter, Biden would claim that his wife and daughter had been killed by a “drunk driver.” For example, in mid-September 2001 he told an audience at the University of Delaware: “It was an errant driver who stopped to drink instead of drive and hit a tractor-trailer, hit my children and my wife and killed them.”

But Biden’s claim was false. Curtis C. Dunn, the man driving the truck that broadsided Mrs. Biden’s vehicle, was never charged with drunken driving. In fact, some investigators thought at the time that the accident had occurred because Biden’s wife pulled into the intersection not having noticed Dunn’s approaching truck. “The rumor about alcohol being involved by either party, especially the truck driver, is incorrect,” said Delaware Superior Court Judge Jerome O. Herlihy, the chief deputy attorney general who worked with crash investigators in 1972. Each time Biden uttered his false account of the event, Dunn’s family suffered great anguish.

Dunn’s daughter, Pamela Hamill, was so disturbed by Biden’s false recitation of the events surrounding his wife’s death, that she wrote the senator a letter expressing the profound grief that had afflicted her father until his death in 1999. According to the Newark Post: “Biden responded in a handwritten note, which, in part, reads, ‘All that I can say is I am sorry for all of us and please know that neither I or my sons feel any animosity whatsoever.'”

But a few years later, in a 2007 speech at the University of Iowa, Biden told the same lie once again, saying: “Let me tell you a little story. I got elected when I was 29, and I got elected November the 7th. And on Dec. 18 of that year, my wife and three kids were Christmas shopping for a Christmas tree. A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly — and I never pursued it — drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly, and killed my daughter instantly, and hospitalized my two sons, with what were thought to be at the time permanent, fundamental injuries.”

In 2008, Hamill demanded that Biden apologize publicly for having lied yet again about her late father. When the senator did not respond, Hamill sent him a registered letter. Eventually, after CBS aired an accurate television report about the accident, Hamill said that Biden called her and “apologized for hurting my family in any way.”

Member of the U.S. Senate

When Biden was sworn in to office at his son’s hospital bedside in Wilmington, Delaware on January 5, 1973 — just 18 days after his wife’s fatal car accident — he became the fifth-youngest senator in American history. Biden would win each of his reelection bids — in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, and 2002 — with relative ease, becoming the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Delaware’s history.

Biden’s Support for Busing — Followed by His Opposition to Busing & Integration

When Biden ran for the Senate in 1972, an election which he won by a margin of by just 1.4 percent, he supported busing as a public policy. But as it became increasingly clear that the vast majority of Biden’s majority-white constituents passionately opposed the policy, the senator reversed his position. In September 1975, for instance, he supported a federal anti-busing amendment proposed by Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a former segregationist. Later that same month, Biden also supported an amendment introduced by Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, to forbid the busing of children to any school other than the one nearest to their homes.

In a September 1975 interview with the Washington Post, Biden boasted about the love and respect that Delaware’s black community felt for him: “I still walk down the street in the black side of town. Mousey and Chops and all the boys at 13th, and — I can walk in those pool halls, and quite frankly don’t know another white man involved in Delaware politics who can do that kind of thing.”

In yet another 1975 interview — this one with NPR — Biden argued that black people in fact preferred segregation because they felt it was in their best interests:

“I think the concept of busing … that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride a rejection of the entire black awareness concept, where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied; and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality….

“There are those of we social planners who think somehow that if we just subrogate [sic] man’s individual characteristics and traits by making sure that a presently a heterogeneous society becomes a totally homogeneous society, that somehow we’re going to solve our social ills. And quite to the contrary, I think the concept of busing, which implicit in that concept is the question you just asked or the statement within the question you just asked, that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride, is a rejection of the entire black awareness concept where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied, and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality. And I think that’s a healthy, solid proposal….

“I give you my word as a Biden, I put in over 100 hours, by far — I would say close to 300 hours — on just torturing this [anti-busing concept]. Calling my staff together, and the blacks on my staff together, saying ‘Look, this is what I think. Do you think I am [racist]? Is there something in me that’s deep-seated that I don’t know?’”

Biden’s present-day account of his voting record on busing is highly misleading. In a March 2018 interview with the “Pod Save America” podcast, he said: “I have never, ever, ever voted for anything I thought was wrong. In the middle of the single most extensive busing order in all the United States history, in my state, I voted against an amendment, cast the deciding vote, to allow courts to keep busing as a remedy. Because there are some things that are worth losing [elections] over.” In short, Biden singled out and highlighted his lone pro-busing vote from an anti-busing record that lasted for years.

Member of Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Remarriage

On June 17, 1977, Biden married schoolteacher Jill Tracy Jacobs.

Biden’s Senate Voting Record & Policy Positions

Following is an overview of Biden’s policy positions and his voting record on key pieces of legislation during his years in the Senate:

Opposed Funding for South Vietnam in 1970s

Shortly after he was first elected to the Senate, Biden voted against U.S. funding to help the South Vietnamese government stave off its North Vietnamese Communist invaders. He insisted that “the United States has no obligation to evacuate one — or 100,001 — South Vietnamese.” Biden’s vote, which was in line with the votes of most in Congress’ new Democrat majority, paved the way for the ultimate fall of Saigon (in April 1975) and the subsequent mass slaughter of Indochinese peasants.

Favored Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 Rise to Power in Iran

In 1979 Senator Biden shared President Jimmy Carter‘s belief that the fall of the Shah in Iran and the advent of Ayatollah Khomeini’s rule represented progress for human rights in that country. Throughout the ensuing 444-day hostage crisis, during which Khomeini’s extremist acolytes routinely paraded the blindfolded American captives in front of television cameras and threatened them with execution, Biden opposed strong action against the mullahs and called for dialogue.

Opposed Reagan’s Funding of Nicaraguan Contras in 1980s

Biden opposed President Ronald Reagan’s effort to fund the Contras, an anti-Communist rebel group in Nicaragua. As the New York Sun points out:

• “On October 3, 1984, Mr. Biden voted to prohibit the Reagan administration from spending money against Nicaragua from the intelligence budget.”
• “On June 6, 1985, the Senate approved an amendment offered by a Georgia Democrat, Sam Nunn, to release $38 million in humanitarian aid to the Contra rebels fighting Mr. Ortega’s Sandinistas. The amendment passed, but Mr. Biden was one of 42 Senators who opposed it.”
• “In 1986, Mr. Biden wanted to require the Reagan administration to negotiate with Mr. Ortega’s government before sending any money to the Contras.”
• “Mr. Biden voted again in March 1987 for halting aid to the Contras.”

Opposed Reagan Military Buildup in 1980s

Throughout the 1980s, Biden opposed Reagan’s proactive means of dealing with the Soviet Union. Biden instead favored détente — which, in practice, meant Western subsidies that would have enabled the moribund USSR to remain solvent much longer than it ultimately did. Biden was a leading critic of the Reagan defense buildup, specifically vis a vis the MX missile, the B-l bomber, and the Trident submarine.

Missile Defense

Biden criticized President Reagan for his “continued adherence” to the goal of developing a missile defense system known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, calling the President’s insistence on the measure “one of the most reckless and irresponsible acts in the history of modern statecraft.”

Biden’s opposition to missile defense continued for decades thereafter:

On July 24, 2001, on July 24, 2001, Biden chaired a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in which he said in a prepared statement:

“I worry that funds devoted to missile defense, or the recent tax cut, are hurting our ability to meet these more current and realistic threats. And I worry that a narrow-minded pursuit of missile defense, without having any notion of what missile defense to develop, could derail both our programs in Russia, as well as our negotiations with North Korea.”

On July 31, 2007, Biden said:

“In 2001, Bush’s new foreign affairs team were so intent on going ahead with Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense shield that they were willing to pull out of earlier arms control treaties to get there, inviting, in my view, another arms race. The missile defense system seemed to be the perfect metaphor for the neoisolationist policy. Let’s arm the heavens, they were saying, and protect the US, the rest of the world be damned. The [Bush] administration had said they were willing to walk away from the decades-old ABM Treaty in order to unilaterally develop and deploy the missile defense system, and now they were putting real money behind it. They were willing to put tens of billions of dollars into the Maginot line in the sky that could quite likely set off another arms race, while cutting funding for a program to help Russia destroy its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons before they got into the hands of terrorists.”

On December 13, 2007, Biden said:

“[We should] cut somewhere in the order of $20 billion a year out of the military for special programs, from Star Wars, to a new atomic weapon, to the F-22, to the Nimitz-Class Destroyer. You can save $350 billion. That would allow me to do everything I want to do — my priorities on education, health care and the environment — and still bring down the deficit by $150 billion.”

Environment

Biden believes that global warming is caused by industrial and automotive pollution, and that broad and immediate action must be taken to curb its effects. In 2007 he co-sponsored the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, perhaps the most stringent climate bill in the history of the Senate. Labeling the U.S. as the world’s “largest emitter of greenhouse gases,” the bill sought to implement a cap-and-trade system requiring the U.S. to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Biden has called for the raising of fuel-economy standards for automobiles to an average of 40 miles per gallon by 2017.

During a September 2008 vice presidential debate against his Republican opponent Sarah Palin, Biden said: “I think it [climate change] is manmade. It’s clearly manmade. If you don’t understand what the cause is, you cannot come up with a solution.”

Alaskan Oil Pipeline

In the midst of the Arab oil embargo of 1973, Biden was one of only five U.S. senators to vote against the first Alaskan pipeline bill. That pipeline has since yielded many billions of barrels of oil for the United States.

Oil Drilling 

Biden consistently opposed all bills seeking to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

In 2006 he voted against a bill “providing for exploration, development, and production activities for mineral resources in the Gulf of Mexico.”

And in 2007 he voted against a bill that would have allowed for natural gas exploration and extraction off the coast of Virginia.

Regarding the use of coal, Biden has said: “We’re not supporting clean coal,” and “no coal plants here in America.”

Abortion

His Roman Catholic beliefs notwithstanding, Biden believes that abortion should remain legal in the United States, and that the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision should not be overturned. “The best policy for our country on the question of abortion is a policy of government neutrality,” he once said. “Put another way: I do not believe that the government should be involved in making judgments on whether a woman can, or should have an abortion, or — if she chooses to do so — in paying for that abortion.”

In 1997 Biden voted against the continuance of a policy stipulating that federal health insurance plans would not pay for abortions except in cases where the woman’s life was in danger or the pregnancy was the result of incest or rape.

In 2004 Biden voted against a bill that would have attached criminal penalties to the killing or injuring of a fetus while carrying out a violent crime on a pregnant woman.

In July 2006 he voted against parental notification laws and against punishing those who would transport minors across state lines to get an abortion.

In 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2003, Biden voted in favor of bills to prohibit the procedure commonly known as partial-birth abortion.

Gun Rights

In 2007, Biden received an “F” rating from the Gun Owners of America, and in 2008 he garnered a 7% rating from the National Rifle Association — all for his consistent record of voting to limit the rights of gun owners and manufacturers.

Biden also voted in favor of exposing the firearms industry to potentially crippling lawsuits when guns they produce are used in criminal activity.

Counter-Terrorism

In 2007 Biden voted against a bill permitting the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General “to authorize foreign intelligence acquisition concerning those reasonably believed to be outside of the U.S., provided that written certification is presented that the procedure does not constitute electronic surveillance under existing law, the surveillance is made with the assistance of a communications provider, and the significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information.”

Immigration & the Border

Biden voted “Yes” on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security, and “Yes” on allowing more foreign workers into the U.S. for farm work.

In 2006 he voted in favor of erecting a fence on the U.S./Mexico border, but later explained that for him, the vote was an anti-drug trafficking vote, not one aimed at curbing illegal immigration.“I voted for the fence related to drugs,” Biden said. “A fence will stop 20 kilos of cocaine coming through that fence. It will not stop someone climbing over it or around it.”

In 2007 Biden voted against a bill to prohibit illegal aliens convicted of serious crimes — such as aggravated felonies, domestic violence, stalking, violation of protection orders, crimes against children, or the illegal purchase or sale of firearms — from gaining legal status.

That same year, he voted to scrap a point-based immigration system (i.e., a system which seeks to ensure that people with skills that society needs are given preference for entry into the United States). He advocates instead a system focusing on the reunification of family members, even if that means permitting the foreign relatives of illegal aliens to join the latter in America.

Sanctuary Cities

Biden voted in favor of continuing to send federal funds to sanctuary cities.

Voter ID

Biden voted against requiring a photo ID from people registering to vote.

English Language

Biden voted “No” on declaring English the official language of the United States.

In 2006, Senator Biden received an 8 percent rating from the U.S. Border Control (a nonprofit lobbying organization dedicated to ending illegal immigration and securing our America’s borders), signifying that his voting record reflected an open-borders stance.

Taxes

Throughout his Senate career, Biden, with few exceptions, generally supported higher taxes, though he did vote against specific tax increases which were advanced by Republican presidents.

When President Reagan pushed for across-the-board-tax cuts in 1981, Biden twice voted for bills that would have watered down Reagan’s proposal. When the full Reagan tax cuts came up for a final vote, however, Biden voted in favor of them, as did 88 of his 99 Senate colleagues.

In March 1983 Biden voted for a $40 billion increase in Social Security taxes.

In June 1986 Biden supported Democrat Senator George Mitchell’s effort to raise the top income tax rate to 35 percent.

In October 1990 Biden voted against President George H.W. Bush’s proposed 5-year, $164-billion tax hike.

Also in 1990, he supported an amendment sponsored by then-Senator Al Gore to raise the income-tax rate on middle-class Americans (i.e., married couples earning more than $78,400 a year and individuals earning more than $47,050) from 28 percent to 33 percent.

In August 1993 Biden voted in favor of Bill Clinton’s proposed $241 billion in new taxes over five years.

In May 2001 Biden voted against both of President George W. Bush’s major tax cut proposals — one for $350 billion and another for $1.35 trillion over a ten-year period.

In all but three of the 16 years spanning 1992 to 2007, the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union (NTU) — which grades each member of Congress on taxing and spending issues — gave Biden an “F” rating. In 2007, NTU gave him a 4 percent rating and ranked him 94th out of 100 senators.

On September 18, 2008, Biden (who was then Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate) said this about Obama’s proposed tax hike on people earning more than $250,000 per year: “We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people…. It’s time [for high earners] to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

Supreme Court

In 1987 Biden was a key player in preventing the confirmation of President Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, warning that Bork would strip minorities, women, and children of their civil rights.

In later years, Biden similarly (though unsuccessfully) sought to derail the Supreme Court nominations of Clarence Thomas, William Rehnquist, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito, who, like Bork, were all strict constructionists who opposed judicial activism; i.e., they subscribed to the tenet that a Justice’s duty is to interpret the law and the Constitution as it is written, and not to legislate from the bench.

The First Gulf War

In 1990 Biden opposed President George H.W. Bush’s decision to forcibly drive Saddam Hussein‘s army of occupation out of Kuwait. He stated that the U.S. had no “vital interests” in repelling the invasion, and he predicted that American casualties would be astronomical in number.

The 9/11 Attacks: Biden Calls for U.S. to Send $200 Million to Iran

Shortly after 9/11, Biden told his staff that America should respond to the worst act of terrorism in its history by showing the Arab world that the U.S. was not seeking to destroy it. “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” he said.

Iraq War (2003-07)

Prior to the Iraq War, Biden consistently spoke out about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. “He’s a long-term threat and a short-term threat to our national security,” Biden said of Hussein in 2002. “… We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.” Also in 2002, Biden said: “Saddam must be dislodged from his weapons or dislodged from power.”

Consequently, in October 2002 Biden voted “Yes” on authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. He continued to express his resolve on the matter in 2004, emphatically stating: “I voted to give the President the authority to use force in Iraq. I still believe my vote was just.”

In 2005 Biden told the Brookings Institution: “We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out — equally a mistake.”

In April 2007 Biden appeared with the late newsman Tim Russert and defended Vice President Dick Cheney and the international community’s assessment of Saddam’s WMD (weapons of mass destruction) program. “[E]veryone in the world thought he had them [WMD]…. This was not some, some Cheney, you know, pipe dream.”

But later in 2007, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden said that his 2002 vote authorizing the use of force against Iraq “was a mistake” that he regretted. “I vastly underestimated the incompetence of this administration,” Biden said during a 2007 Democratic primary debate in Carson City, Nevada.

Iraq War (Troop Surge of 2007)

In June 2007 Biden told the Boston Globe that General David Petraeus’s “surge” strategy of sending an extra 20,000 troops to Iraq “is not going to work either tactically or strategically” in terms of quelling the insurgency. On Meet the Press, Biden said that while Petraeus “believes that it [the surge] is a good idea,” “[v]irtually no one else believes it’s a good idea.”

Syria

In 2007, Biden scolded then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for testifying (to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) that for the foreseeable future the Bush administration would not be negotiating with Syria or Iran because “they are not engaging in constructive behavior.” Said Biden:

“I do not agree with your statement, Madame Secretary, that negotiations with Iran and Syria would be extortion, nor did most of the witnesses we heard in this committee during the last month. The proper term, I believe and they believe, is diplomacy, which is not about paying a price but finding a way to protect our interests without engaging in military conflict. It is, I might add, the fundamental responsibility of the Department of State, to engage in such diplomacy, as you well know.”

Civil Rights

Biden is a defender of affirmative action (i.e., race-, ethnicity-, and sex-based preferences) in academia and the business world.

He was also a supporter of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Biden’s response to a November 2006 U.S. Airways incident involving six Islamic imams is instructive. The imams in question were removed from a plane shortly before takeoff because several passengers and crew members had become alarmed by what they perceived to be their (the imams’) suspicious behavior. The Council on American-Islamic Relations subsequently filed a lawsuit on behalf of the imams, against both the airline and the complaining passengers. In response to the suit, two Republican congressman, Peter King and Steven Pearce, crafted an amendment seeking to create legal immunity for citizens who report suspicious behavior in good faith. The amendment was initially approved by lawmakers in March 2007, but Senator Biden voted against it.

Failed Presidential Run in 1987

Biden first ran for U.S. President in 1987. He was considered a strong contender for the Democratic Party’s nomination, but in April of that year controversy descended on Biden’s campaign when he told several lies about his academic record in law school. In an April 3, 1987 appearance on C-SPAN, a questioner asked Biden about his law school grades. In response, an angry Biden looked at his questioner and said:

“I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my — in my class to have a full academic scholarship. In the first year in law school I decided didn’t want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class, and then decided I wanted to stay, went back to law school, and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I won the international moot-court competition. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits — I only needed 123 credits. And I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you’d like Frank.”

But each of those claims proved to be untrue. In reality, Biden had: (a) earned only two college degrees — in history and political science — at the University of Delaware in Newark, where he graduated only 506th in a class of 688; (b) attended law school on a half scholarship that was based on financial need; and (c) eventually graduated 76th in a law-school class of 85. “I exaggerate when I’m angry,” Biden would later concede, “but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.”

Then, in August 1987 Biden plagiarized a portion of a speech made by British politician Neil Kinnock. Before long, revelations surfaced that Biden also had plagiarized extensive portions of an article in law school and consequently had received a grade of “F” for the course. (He eventually was permitted to retake the course, and the failure was removed from his transcript.)

As a result of these embarrassing examples of dishonesty, Biden withdrew from the presidential campaign on September 23, 1987 and resumed his duties as a U.S. Senator.

Casting Doubt on the Legitimacy of George W. Bush’s 2000 Presidential Victory

In 2004 Biden told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the U.S. had no moral authority to preach about the need for democracy in the Middle East. “We don’t have much of a democracy ourselves,” he said. “Remember our own presidential election; remember Florida!” — a reference to the disputed ballot recount in 2000.

2008 Bid for the Presidency

As early as June 2005, Biden first made public his intention to seek the nomination for U.S. President in 2008. On January 31, 2007 he officially entered the presidential race. His campaign failed to gain any traction, however, and on January 3, 2008 he withdrew from the race, which by then was being dominated by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Campaigning with Former KKK Leader Robert Byrd

In 2008, Biden campaigned with Senator Robert Byrd, who had formerly served as the Exalted Cyclops of his local Ku Klux Klan chapter.

Controversial Comments Regarding Race During His Presidential Campaign

In July 2006, Biden made a remark that was intended to be humorous, but sparked some criticism: “In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. And I’m not joking.”

In a February 2007 interview, Biden, in the course of evaluating presidential rival Barack Obama, said: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

At a June 2007 Democratic presidential forum at Howard University, Biden responded to a question about AIDS in the black community by saying: “I spent last summer going through the black sections of my town holding rallies in parks trying to get black men to understand it’s not unmanly to wear a condom. Getting women to understand they can say no. Getting people in the position where testing matters. I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack [Obama] got tested for AIDS. There’s no shame in being tested for AIDS.” At that point, Obama said, “I just gotta make clear I got tested with Michelle [Obama] when we were in Kenya in Africa. I don’t want any confusion here about what’s going on.” Biden then said, “I got tested to save my life, because I had 13 pints of blood transfusion.”

In an October 27, 2007 interview with The Washington Post‘s editorial board, Biden, while discussing race and education, gave the impression that he believed that the reason why so many District of Columbia schools failed, was that they had large numbers of nonwhite minority students. After criticizing the Bush administration education policies, Biden attempted to explain why schools in Iowa performed better academically than those in Washington, DC.: “There’s less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”

Prior to his selection as Obama’s running mate on August 23, 2008, Biden had been consistently effusive in his praise of John McCain, the eventual Republican nominee.

• In a March 2004 appearance on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC program Hardball, Biden suggested that “maybe it is time to have a guy like John McCain — a Republican — on the ticket with” the then-Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry.”
• In two separate television interviews later that spring, Biden stated that Kerry ought to select McCain as his running mate. “I think John McCain would be a great candidate for Vice President,” Biden told Tim Russert of NBC’s Meet the Press on one occasion. “I’m sticking with McCain,” Biden added. “I think the single most important thing that John Kerry has to do is … to say … that guy could be President, or that woman could be President.”
• “The only guy on the other [Republican] side who’s qualified [to be President] is John McCain,” Biden said in October 2007. “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off …”

Conversely, Biden had often been critical of Obama and his judgment on matters of import:

• In a February 2007 interview with the New York Observer, Biden expressed doubts that American voters would elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate.” “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic,” Biden added.
• Around that same time, Biden, in an interview with the Huffington Post, said: “The more people learn about them [Obama and Hillary Clinton] and how they handle the pressure, the more their support will evaporate.”
• In August 2007, Biden was asked during a debate if he stood by his previous criticism of Obama’s inexperience when he said that “the presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.” Biden responded, “… I stand by that statement.”
• Assessing Obama’s Iraq plan, Biden said on September 13, 2007: “My impression is [Obama] thinks that if we leave, somehow the Iraqis are going to have an epiphany [of diplomatic coexistence among the warring factions]. I’ve seen zero evidence of that.”
• In December 2007, Biden said in a campaign ad: “When this campaign is over, political slogans like ‘experience’ and ‘change’ [the latter was Obama’s signature slogan] will mean absolutely nothing. The next president has to act.”

Lies & Errors During His 2008 Vice Presidential Run

During his vice presidential campaign, Biden occasionally exhibited a tendency to exaggerate and misrepresent facts, just as he had done in 1987. At a September 9th fundraiser, for example, he spoke about “the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down [during a February 2008 fact-finding mission Biden had taken with fellow senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel]. John McCain wants to know where [Osama] bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That’s where al Qaeda is. That’s where bin Ladin is.” During a speech in Baltimore later that month, Biden said: “If you want to know where al Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.” Two days after that, in Cincinnati, Biden reiterated that al Qaeda had re-established a safe haven “in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where my helicopter was recently forced down.”

Though Biden’s implication was that his plane had been forced down by enemy fire, in fact the unscheduled landing was due to a severe snowstorm that had suddenly hit the area. “It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges,” John Kerry told the Associated Press immediately after the incident. “So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed…. We sat up there and traded stories. We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn’t have to do it…. Other than getting a little cold, it was fine.” Biden’s plane was traveling with air cover from an F-16.

In the midst of a major stock-market crisis in late September 2008, Biden told CBS interviewer Katie Couric that it was incumbent upon the U.S President to demonstrate leadership and allay public fears by clearly explaining how the crisis will be solved. Said Biden: “Part of what being a leader does is to instill confidence, is to demonstrate that he or she knows what they are talking about and to communicat[e] to people … this is how we can fix this…. When the stock market crashed [in October 1929], Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”

Biden’s error was twofold: First, when the stock market crashed in 1929, Herbert Hoover was the U.S. President; FDR would not take office until March 4, 1933. Nor could any President have addressed the American people on television in 1929, because TV would not be introduced to the public until a decade later, at the 1939 World’s Fair.

Vice President Biden

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were elected President and Vice President of the United States, respectively. The Obama-Biden ticket defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin by a margin of 364 electoral votes to 162.

Biden & Israel^[1]

Joe Biden has made a habit of describing himself as a loyal, stalwart friend and ally of Israel. At a presidential campaign stop earlier this monthin March 2020, for instance, he declared: “I’m so proud of the Obama-Biden administration’s unprecedented support for Israel’s security.” But a careful examination of Biden’s track record reveals his long and extremely troubling history of undermining Israel’s security and public image. Some lowlights:

1982: Biden’s Angry Exchange with Menachem Begin

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on June 22, 1982, an animated Senator Biden, banging the desk in front of him with his fist, warned then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin that if Israel did not stop establishing new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, U.S. aid to that country might be cut off.

Begin responded forcefully:

Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.

And with regard to Biden’s theatrical furniture-banging, Begin said:

This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the U.S. lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us.

1995-2020: Biden’s Stance on the Relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel

Biden voted for the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and required the U.S. president to relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, though the law allowed the president to waive the move every six months if he believed that a delay would further the interests of national security.

When he ran for vice president with Barack Obama in 2008, Biden said: “I think we should move the embassy, but you don’t have a [Israeli] government asking us to move the embassy there. Let them make the judgment.”

Throughout the eight years that followed, the Obama-Biden administration never even hinted that it might contemplate relocating the U.S. embassy. Indeed, the administration refused even to affirm that Jerusalem was Israel’s capital. For example, in March 2012, an Obama-Biden State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, told a gathering of journalists: “With regard to our Jerusalem policy, it’s a permanent-status issue. It’s got to be resolved through the negotiations between the parties…. We are not going to prejudge the outcome of those negotiations, including the final status of Jerusalem….. [O]ur embassy, as you know, is located in Tel Aviv.”

When Donald Trump announced in December 2017 that he not only recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital but also planned to move the embassy to that city, Biden remained silent. Nor did he issue a statement when the embassy was actually physically relocated in May 2018. More recently, in a November 2019 interview with PBS, Biden was asked if he, as president, would reverse Trump’s move. He replied: “Not now. I wouldn’t reverse it. I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

2009-2017: The Obama-Biden Administration’s Strained Relationship with Israel

No American presidential administration ever had so strained a relationship with Israel as did Obama-Biden. As Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said in 2010, “Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 … a crisis of historic proportions.” Author and scholar Dennis Prager concurred, “Most observers, right or left, pro-Israel or anti-Israel, would agree that Israeli-American relations are the worst they have been in memory.” In the spring of 2011, David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, lamented that the “traditional, special relationship between America and Israel” was being thrown “out the window in a sense.” And in October 2012, Israeli lawmaker Danny Danon, chairman of Likud’s international outreach branch, said that the Obama administration’s policies vis-a-vis Israel had been “catastrophic.”

2010: The Obama-Biden Administration Criticizes Israeli Settlements:

While Vice President Biden was visiting Israel in March 2010, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans to build some 1,600 housing units for Jews in a section of that city. In response, Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that this development “endangers regional peace” in the Middle East. In a separate statement, Biden added, “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem,” calling it “precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now” for constructive peace talks.

Ten days later, Netanyahu traveled to Washington in an effort to put the U.S.-Israel relationship back on more solid footing, but as the Wall Street Journal reported, the prime minister “was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama — no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door.” Washington Post columnist and Middle East expert Jackson Diehl wrote that “Netanyahu is being treated as if he were an unsavory Third World dictator.” And ambassador Michael Oren called Israel’s rift with America “the worst with the U.S. in 35 years.”

2010-2015: The Obama-Biden Administration’s Repeated Leaks to the Press About Israel

In 2010, the Obama-Biden administration – determined to do everything in its power to turn public opinion against a possible Israeli military strike targeting Iranian nuclear facilities – leaked information about a covert deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, whereby the Saudis had agreed that they would allow Israel to use their airspace in order to wage an attack against Iran and its nuclear facilities.

On March 22, 2012, the Obama-Biden administration leaked to The New York Times the results of a classified war game which predicted that an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities could lead to a wider regional war and result in hundreds of American deaths. Institute for National Security Studies analyst Yoel Guzansky interpreted the motives behind the Obama-Biden leaks as follows: “It seems like a big campaign to prevent Israel from attacking. I think the [Obama-Biden] administration is really worried Jerusalem will attack and attack soon. They’re trying hard to prevent it in so many ways.” In a May 29, 2012 column in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, longtime defense commentator Ron Ben-Yishai noted that the leaks would “make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] to carry out a strike, and what’s even graver, [would] erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties.”

On April 8, 2012, the New Yorker reported that according to information leaked by the Obama-Biden administration, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was helping to fund and train the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). This revelation was intended to portray Israel as being unwilling to negotiate in good faith with the government in Tehran, and to thereby undermine any moral authority that Israel might claim in the event of a future military strike against Iran.

In early May 2013, two Obama-Biden administration officials leaked classified information to the media indicating that Israel was behind a May 3rd airstrike against a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles at the airport in Damascus, Syria. Israeli security analysts said that the leak could not only endanger any Israeli agents who were still on the ground in Syria, but could also increase the likelihood that Syrian President Bashar Assad would retaliate against the Jewish state. Again, the purpose of the leak was to paint Israel as an unnecessarily aggressive, bellicose nation.

For similar purposes, in early November 2013 an Obama-Biden administration official leaked to CNN the fact that Israeli warplanes had attacked a Syrian base in the port of Latakia. The planes were specifically targeting Russian-made SA-8 Gecko Dgreen mobile missiles, so as to prevent their delivery to the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Israeli officials called the leak “scandalous” and “unthinkable.”

In January 2015, the Obama-Biden administration — which opposed the notion of imposing any new economic sanctions against the Iranian regime — leaked information indicating that an unnamed Mossad official had recently acknowledged that the enactment of such sanctions would be akin to “throwing a grenade into the [nuclear negotiation] process.” The leak’s implication was that the Mossad official was privately opposed to sanctions. But approximately 12 hours later, that official – Mossad leader Tamir Pardo – stepped forth and, by means of a written statement issued by his office, clarified exactly what he had said and meant:

Contrary to what has been reported, the head of the Mossad did not say that he opposes imposing additional sanctions on Iran…. Regarding the reported reference to ‘throwing a grenade,’ the head of the Mossad did not use this expression regarding the imposition of sanctions, which he believes to be the sticks necessary for reaching a good deal with Iran. He used this expression as a metaphor to describe the possibility of creating a temporary crisis in the negotiations, at the end of which talks would resume under improved conditions.

2013: The Obama-Biden Administration’s Secret Negotiations with Iran

In early November 2013, it was reported that the Obama-Biden administration had begun softening U.S. sanctions against Iran (vis-a -vis the latter’s nuclear program) soon after the election, five months earlier, of that country’s new president, Hassan Rouhani. This move set the stage, in turn, for the United States — in conjunction with Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany — to propose a short-term “first step agreement” with Iran at a November meeting in Geneva. The deal, which sought to freeze Iran’s nuclear program for approximately six months in order to create an opportunity for a more comprehensive and lasting bargain to be negotiated later, required Iran to stop enriching uranium to a weapons-grade level, to refrain for six months from activating its plutonium reactor at Arak, and to stop using its most advanced and powerful centrifuges. “In return,” said the London Telegraph, “America would ease economic sanctions, possibly by releasing some Iranian foreign exchange reserves currently held in frozen accounts. In addition, some restrictions affecting Iran’s petrochemical, motor and precious metals industries could be relaxed.”

On November 8, 2013, the Israeli government, which the Obama-Biden administration had not informed of the negotiations, was stunned to learn of the secret talks with Iran. News of the agreement led to the canceling of a joint media appearance between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One Israeli official was quoted saying that “the Iranians are leading the Americans by the nose.”

Netanyahu, outraged at the prospect of this agreement, said that the Iranians “got everything … they wanted” – most notably “relief from sanctions after years of a grueling sanctions regime” – “and paid nothing.” “It’s the deal of a century for Iran,” Natanyahu added, “it’s a very dangerous and bad deal for peace and the international community.”

Eventually, this 2013 agreement would evolve into the famous Iran Nuclear Deal of 2015 – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – where the Obama-Biden administration joined the governments of Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany in signing an accord with Iran.

2013: Biden Is Keynote Speaker at J Street Conference

In September 2013, Biden was the keynote speaker at the 4th annual conference of J Street, an Israel advocacy organization that traces the Mideast conflict chiefly to the notion that “Israel’s settlements in the occupied territories have, for [many] years, been an obstacle to peace.”

2014: The Obama-Biden Administration Threatens to Shoot Down Israeli Fighter Jets

In 2014, not long after Israel had discovered that the U.S. and Iran had been involved in the aforementioned secret negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program, the Netanyahu government prepared a military operation designed to destroy that program. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported that when an unnamed Israeli minister revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, President Obama threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could get within striking distance of their targets in Iran.

2014: The Obama-Biden Administration Tells Israel to Stop Assassinating Iranian Nuclear Scientists

On March 3, 2014, the Associated Press reported that the Obama-Biden administration had told Israeli authorities to stop their targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists. According to AP: “Israel’s Mossad spy agency has supposedly taken out [mostly with car bombs] at least five top Iranian nuclear experts in an attempt to slow the country’s nuclear program … An unidentified U.S. official disclosed the program to CBS while claiming [that] the … administration is leaning on its Middle Eastern ally to stop the targeted killings and wait for the current deal to disarm to play out.”

2015: The Obama-Biden Administration Is Enraged by Netanyahu’s Acceptance of John Boehner’s Invitation to Address Congress

On January 21, 2015, Republican House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was strongly oposed to the emerging U.S. agreement with Iran regarding the latter’s nuclear program, to speak (on March 3) to a joint session of Congress about the security threat posed by Iran. In response to Boehner’s action, an outraged Obama-Biden administration accused the House Speaker of having violated “protocol” by extending the invitation on his own initiative instead of asking the executive branch to extend an invitation.

When it was subsequently announced that Obama would not be meeting personally with Netanyahu during the latter’s March 3rd visit, the president offered this explanation: “We don’t meet with any world leader two weeks before their election. I think that’s inappropriate.” “As a matter of long-standing practice and principle,” added White House officials, “we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections,” so as to “avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country.”

The Obama-Biden administration also urged members of the Congressional Black Caucus to boycott Netanyahu’s speech, and to speak out against it publicly as well. Vice President Joe Biden, for his part, vowed to skip the speech.

In early February 2015, it was learned that the Obama-Biden White House’s tale of having been blindsided by Boehner and Netanyahu was a lie. This was made evident by a correction added to a New York Times article that stated: “Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the [Obama-Biden] administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.”

Also in February 2015, it was learned that the Obama-Biden administration’s claim that its decision not to meet with Netanyahu in Washington was based on a desire to avoid “inappropriate[ly]” influencing the upcoming Israeli election, was also a lie. This was evidenced by the fact that during the weekend of February 7-8, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Munich, Germany to meet with Israeli Labor leader Isaac Herzog, Netanyahu’s opponent in the election.

2015: Declassification of a Document Revealing Israel’s Nuclear Program

In early February 2015 – when the Obama-Biden administration was enraged by the recent announcement that Prime Minister Netanyahu would soon be addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress regarding Iran’s nuclear program — the Pentagon quietly declassified a top-secret, 386-page Defense Department document from 1987 containing extensive details of Israel’s nuclear program. The document was entitled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations.” As the Israel National News (INN) explained, the Jewish state’s nuclear program was “a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced [so as] to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the U.S. until now has respected by remaining silent [about it].” Added INN: “[A] highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel’s sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.”

2015: The Obama-Biden Administration Criticizes Netanyahu for Seeming to Abandon Support for a Two-State Solution

The Obama-Biden administration was angered in March 2015 when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, late in his re-election campaign, told the Israeli news outlet Maariv that he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state on his watch — a position which Obama-Biden viewed as a shift away from Netanyahu’s previous assertion (in 2009) that his “vision of peace” included “two free peoples” — i.e., Israelis and Palestinians — living in separate, independent, adjacent states. Responding to Netanyahu, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: “The prime minister’s recent statements call into question his commitment to a two-state solution. We’re not going to prejudge what we would do if there was a U.N. action” — implying that Obama-Biden might depart from America’s customary practice of vetoing United Nations Security Council resolutions opposed by Israel.

Netanyahu subsequently clarified that he remained open to a two-state solution, but only if “the Palestinian leadership [would agree] to abandon their pact with Hamas and engage in genuine negotiations with Israel.” Notwithstanding the prime minister’s clarification, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated that “[w]ords matter” and that there could be “consequences” for Netanyahu’s initial remarks in this instance.

2015-2020: Biden & The Iran Nuclear Deal

On July 14, 2015, the Obama-Biden administration – along with the leaders of Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany – together finalized a nuclear agreement with Iran. The key elements of the deal were as follows:

• Iran would be permitted to keep some 5,060 centrifuges, one-third of which would continue to spin in perpetuity.
• Iran would receive $150 billion in sanctions relief – “some portion” of which, according to Obama-Biden National Security Adviser Susan Rice, “we should expect … would go to the Iranian military and could potentially be used for the kinds of bad behavior that we have seen in the region up until now.”
• Russia and China  would be permitted to continue to supply Iran with weapons.
• Iran would have the discretion to block international inspectors from military installations and would be given 14 days’ notice for any request to visit any site.
• Only inspectors from countries possessing diplomatic relations with Iran would be given access to Iranian nuclear sites; thus there would be no American inspectors.
• The embargo on the sale of weapons to Iran would be officially lifted in 5 years.
• Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program would remain intact and unaffected; indeed it was never even discussed as an issue in the negotiations.
• The heavy water reactor in Arak and the underground nuclear facility in Fordo would remain open, violating the “red lines” that Obama had repeatedly cited.
• Iran would not be required to disclose information about its past nuclear research and development.
• The U.S. would provide technical assistance to help Iran develop its nuclear program, supposedly for peaceful domestic purposes.
• Sanctions would lifted on critical parts of Iran’s military, including a previously existing travel ban against Qasem Suleimani, leader of the terrorist Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Iran would not be required to release American prisoners like Iranian-American Christian missionary Saeed Abedini, Iranian-American Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, or U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati.
• The U.S. and its five negotiating partner nations would provide Iranian nuclear leaders with training courses and workshops designed to strengthen their ability to prevent and respond to threats to their nuclear facilities and systems.
• Iran would not be required to renounce terrorism against the United States, as the Obama-Biden administration deemed such an expectation to be “unrealistic.”
• Iran would not be required to affirm its “clear and unambiguous … recognition of Israel’s right to exist” – a requirement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pleaded for. As Obama-Biden State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue … [and] doesn’t deal with any other issues, nor should it.” Similarly, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said “we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position [accepting Israel’s right to exist] as part of the final agreement.”
• Whatever restrictions were placed on Iran’s nuclear program, would begin to expire – due to so-called “sunset clauses” – at various times over the ensuing 5 to 26 years. Specifically: the ban on Iranian arms exports would expire in 2020; the ban on Iran’s manufacture of advanced centrifuges would begin to expire in 2023; unilateral or multilateral nuclear sanctions against Iran would become extremely difficult to re-impose after 2023; the cap of 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz facility would expire in 2026; and restrictions on the number and types of centrifuges and enrichment facilities operated by Iran, would expire in 2031.

Joe Biden took on the role of being the administration’s leading public promoter of the Iran deal. He casually dismissed the concerns of critics – most notably Netanyahu – who warned that the sunset clauses for key parts of the agreement would “pave Iran’s path to a bomb.” Those people, Biden said, simply “don’t get it, they’re wrong.”

After President Trump decided to pull America out of the Iran nuclear deal, Biden characterized Trump’s strategy as “a self-inflicted disaster” that would make “military conflict” and “another war in the Middle East” much “more likely.”

During a January 2020 presidential campaign event, Biden called on Trump to rejoin the Iran agreement. “The seeds of danger were planted by Donald Trump himself on May 8, 2019 — the day he tore up the Iran Nuclear Deal,” said Biden, forgetting that the date on which the U.S. withdrew from the agreement was actually May 8, 2018. Biden added that Trump had “turned his back on our closest European allies” by selfishly “decid[ing] that it was important to destroy any progress that the Obama-Biden administration did.”

2016: Biden Publicly Ridicules Israel After a Terrorist Bombing Wounds 21 Jews

Just a few hours after an April 18, 2016 terrorist bus bombing in Jerusalem had wounded at least 21 people, Vice President Biden delivered a speech to the aforementioned Israel advocacy group J Street. In the course of his talk, Biden said: “I firmly believe that the actions that Israel’s government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures — they’re moving us, and, more importantly, they’re moving Israel in the wrong direction.” “The present course Israel’s on is not one that’s likely to secure its existence as a Jewish, democratic state,” Biden added. Conversely, he singled out for praise a young left-wing member of Israel’s parliament, Stav Shaffir, who was a harsh critic of Benjamin Netanyahu: “May your views begin to once again become the majority opinion in the Knesset,” Biden said to Shaffir.

2016: The Obama-Biden Administration Urges Israel to Exercise “Restraint” in the Wake of Palestinian Terror Attack

In the immediate aftermath of a June 7, 2016 terrorist attack in which two Palestinian gunmen had shot nine Israelis (killing four) in a Tel Aviv shopping complex, the Obama-Biden State Department cautioned the Israeli government to “exercise restraint” in carrying out its vow to increase security control over the West Bank and its residents.

2016: The Obama-Biden Administration Again Condemns Israeli Settlements

In the summer of 2016, the Obama-Biden administration renewed its attacks against Israeli settlements.  In what journalist and scholar Caroline Glick characterized as a “shockingly hostile assault” against Israel, the State Department issued the following statement:

We are deeply concerned by reports today that the government of Israel has published tenders for 323 units in East Jerusalem settlements. This follows Monday’s announcement of plans for 770 units in the settlement of Gilo. We strongly oppose settlement activity, which is corrosive to the cause of peace. These steps by Israeli authorities are the latest examples of what appears to be a steady acceleration of settlement activity that is systematically undermining the prospects for a two-state solution…. We are also concerned about recent increased demolitions of Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which reportedly have left dozens of Palestinians homeless, including children…. This is part of an ongoing process of land seizures, settlement expansion, legalizations of outposts, and denial of Palestinian development that risk entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict. We remain troubled that Israel continues this pattern of provocative and counter-productive action, which raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful, negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

2016: The Obama-Biden Administration Abstains on U.N. Vote Regarding Israeli Settlements

On December 24, 2016, the Obama-Biden administration – in a major departure from traditional U.S. policy – abstained from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the existence and construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The resolution also declared that all of eastern Jerusalem – including Judaism’s most sacred site, the Temple Mount – was “Palestinian territory” that was being illegally “occupied” by Israel in “a flagrant violation under international law.” The Obama-Biden abstention allowed this resolution to pass, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to condemn the administration’s “shameful betrayal.” “From the information that we have,” Netanyahu added, “we have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated [the abstention], stood behind it, coordinated on the wording, and demanded that it be passed.”

2019: Biden Draws a Moral Equivalence Between Israel & the Palestinians

During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden, drawing a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, stated that “neither the Israeli nor Palestinian leadership seems willing to take the political risks necessary to make progress through direct negotiations.”

2019: Biden Reaches Out to J Street

In November 2019, Biden sent a video message conveying his support and friendship to a conference of the aforementioned organization J Street. One of the featured speakers at this conference was Osama Qawasma, a spokesman for the terrorist Fatah organization created by the late Yasser Arafat, mass murderer of Jews. Qawasma is also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council; an advisor to the Palestinian Authority’s current anti-Semitic president, Mahmoud Abbas; and an opponent of “the American-Israeli attempts to denounce Hamas as terrorist.”

Another Islamic extremist who spoke at the J Street conference which Biden saluted was Saeb Erekat, Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee, who has openly defended Hamas and the funding of Islamic terrorists.

2019-2020: Biden Demands a Two-State Solution and Condemns the Israeli “Occupation”

In 2019 Biden stated that “there’s no answer” to the Arab-Israeli conflict other than “a two-state solution,” adding that “I think the [Israeli] settlements are unnecessary.” Asked if he considered the “occupation” to be “a human rights crisis,” Biden replied, “I think occupation is a real problem, a significant problem.” He reaffirmed that “I will insist on Israel, which I’ve done, to stop the occupation of those territories, period.”^[2]

2020: Biden Again Draws a Moral Equivalence Between Israel & the Palestinians

On March 1, 2020, Biden called on both Israelis and Palestinians “to work together to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, because it is a crisis.” “And we’re not going to achieve that future if we don’t condemn steps on both sides that take us further from peace,” he added. By Biden’s telling:

Palestinians need to eradicate incitement on the West Bank. Eradicate it. They need to end the rocket attacks from Gaza. Stop it. And Israel, I think, has to stop the threats of annexation and settlement activity, like the recent announcement to build thousands of settlements in E1 [an undeveloped area outside Jerusalem]. That’s going to choke off any hope for peace. And to be frank, those moves are taking Israel further from its democratic values, undermining support for Israel in the United States especially among young people in both political parties.

2020: Biden Dismisses Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan Without Even Reading It

When President Trump in February 2020 unveiled a new Mideast peace initiative, Biden, claiming to have “spent a lifetime working to advance the security and survival of a Jewish and democratic Israel,” characterized the plan as nothing more than “a political stunt that could spark unilateral moves to annex territory and set back peace even more.” He based his opinion not on having read the full plan, but on merely having read “some outline” of it.

The Biden and Kerry Families’ Profitable Deals With Communist Chinese Firms, and the Selling Out of America’s National Security^[3]

In the summer of 2009, Vice President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, collaborated with two individuals – Chris Heinz (the stepson of Senator John Kerry) and Devon Archer (Chris Heinz’s former college roommate who had served as a major fundraiser for Senator Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign) – to form Rosemont Capital, an investment firm that was, according to author Peter Schweizer, “positioned to strike profitable deals overseas with foreign governments and officials with whom the U.S. government was negotiating.” Rosemont Capital also had several separate branches, including Rosemont Seneca Partners and Rosemont Realty.

On May 9, 2011, Joe Biden delivered the following remarks to the Opening Session of the U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue:

“I made my first trip to China as a young man, meeting with Deng Xiaoping in 1979, in April of ’79…. I think we were the first delegation to meet after normalization … And on that trip when we met with then Vice Premier Deng and witnessed the changes that were being initiated, beginning to spark China’s remarkable — absolutely remarkable transformation, even back then it was clear that there was — that great things were happening.  And there was also a debate — there was a debate here in the United States and quite frankly throughout most of the West as whether a rising China was in the interest of the United States and the wider world. As a young member of a Foreign Relations Committee, I wrote and I said and I believed then what I believe now:  That a rising China is a positive, positive development, not only for China but for America and the world writ large.”

Peter Schweizer asserts that the financial relationship that Hunter Biden, Chris Heinz, and Devon Archer established with China, strongly influenced the Obama administration’s posture toward that country. Consider, for instance, what occurred in 2013 and 2014, while China – to the deep consternation of other countries in the region – was unilaterally creating artificial islands equipped with sophisticated military bases in the South China Sea and claiming ownership of them. In December 2013, Joe Biden, accompanied by Hunter, visited China, where he publicly emphasized the importance of an American-Chinese trading relationship but avoided talking about what China was doing in the South China Sea. During the Bidens’ stay in China, reports journalist Tyler O’Neil: “Hunter Biden was negotiating a major deal between Rosemont Seneca [Partners] and the state-owned Bank of China. As the vice president discussed China’s trade with the United States, his son was putting these economic ties into practice, and the U.S. effectively caved in the conflict over the South China Sea.”

Ten days after the Bidens’ visit to China, the state-run Bank of China created an investment fund with Rosemont Seneca Partners, called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). In 2014, writes Schweizer, BHR became an “anchor investor” in the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC), a state-owned nuclear company which was under FBI investigation at the time, and which eventually charged with stealing U.S. nuclear secrets. “In short,” says Schweizer, “the Chinese government was literally funding a business [BHR] that it co-owned along with the sons of two of America’s most powerful decision makers.” As a result of that business relationship, Rosemont Seneca Partners, unlike any other Western investment firm, “could take Chinese government funds and invest them in China or outside the country, even in the U.S.”

When Senator Kerry visited China in July 2014, he, much like Vice President Biden, echoed President Xi Jinping’s call for a bilateral commitment to “boost Sino-U.S. economic ties.” “China and the United States represent the greatest economic alliance trading partnership in the history of humankind,” said Kerry.

Meanwhile, a former subsidiary of the Chinese government, Gemini Investments, was trying to purchase the Rosemont Realty branch of Rosemont Capital. (Gemini’s parent company, Sino-Ocean Land, grew out of the the China Ocean Shipping Company, which in turn has close ties to the People’s Liberation Army Navy. And the director of Gemini Investments, Li Ming, served for several terms as a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s elite conference.)

By December 2014, Gemini had bought out the Rosemont Opportunities Fund II for $34 million.

When Kerry visited China again in May 2015, he emphasized, as Schweizer puts it, that “the two powers shouldn’t let the South China Sea issue get in the way of broader cooperation.” Three months later, in August 2015, Gemini Investments bought a 75% stake in Rosemont Realty, including a $3 billion commitment from China.

In September 2015, BHR teamed up with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) – a Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor which in 2014 had stolen technologies related to the U.S. F-35 stealth fighter – to purchase Henniges, an American “dual-use” (meaning civilian and military uses) parts manufacturer. The transaction gave 49% ownership of Henniges to BHR, and 51% ownership to AVIC.

Because the Henniges technology was considered a strategic asset with implications for American national security, it was on the restricted Commerce Control List, and thus the sale to BHR and AVIC could not be permitted without the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a panel composed of several of the most powerful members of the cabinet — the Attorney General as well as the Secretaries of Defense, Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security, Energy, and State. (The State Department, of course, was headed by Kerry.)

Schweizer adds that even after it was well known that “Chinese companies have a long history of stealing American nuclear secrets,” “Rosemont did not change its relationship with its Chinese partners, nor did BHR divest from the state-owned Chinese company [CGNPC] that had been stealing America’s nuclear secrets.”

Moreover, in 2016 BHR invested in China Molybdenum, a state-owned company with deep ties to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, and whose goal is to acquire large quantities of molybdenum and other rare-earth minerals that have both military and nuclear applications. Then, in the latter part of 2016, China Molybdenum helped BHR purchase a 24% stake in the Tenke Fungurume copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As Schweizer sums it up: “[T]he son of the vice president and a confidant of the secretary of state where invested in deals that would help Beijing win [the global minerals] race.”

Biden Says U.S. Must Spend Its Way out of Recession

In July 2009, when the debate over healthcare reform was in full swing, Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported healthcare plan became law, “we’re going to go bankrupt as a nation.” Biden continued: “Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

Biden Wrongly Predicts a Peaceful and Successful Transition for Iraq As the U.S. Military Leaves That Country

While the Obama administration was drawing down America’s military presence in Iraq in 2010, Biden said the following in February of that year:

“I am very optimistic about Iraq. I think it’s going to be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government. I spent — I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months — three months. I know every one of the major players in all of the segments of that society. It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.”

Biden Opposed the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden; Later Says He Actually Supported the Mission

When President Obama authorized the May 2011 mission in which a U.S. Navy SEAL team ultimately killed Osama bin Laden, Biden was the only one of Obama’s advisors who opposed the plan. Mark Bowden — author of a The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden — wrote in October 2008: “It was widely reported in the weeks and months after the raid that most, or at least many, of the president’s top advisors opposed the raid. That is not true. Nearly everyone present favored it. The only major dissenters were Biden and [then-Defense Secretary Robert] Gates, and before the raid Gates would change his mind.”

According to Bowden, the two options under consideration were a drone strike and the special operations raid. Most of the President’s advisors favored the latter. But when it was Biden’s turn to speak at the Situation Room meeting, he told Obama: “Mr. President, my suggestion is: don’t go.” Wrote Bowden, “Biden believed that if the president decided to choose either the air or the ground option, and if the effort failed, Obama could say goodbye to a second term…. So in the end, every one of the president’s top advisors except Biden was in favor of immediate action.”

Biden confirmed this account in January 2012, when he said that he had directly advised President Obama against the bin Laden raid. “Every single person in that room hedged their bet except Leon Panetta,” Biden recalled. “Leon said go. Everyone else said, 49 [percent], 51[ percent]. He [Obama] got to me. He said, ‘Joe, what do you think?’ And I said, ‘You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists around the table.’ I said, ‘We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he’s there.’”

But in October 2015, when Biden was contemplating the possibility of running for President, he altered his account of what had occurred in the lead-up to the bin Laden operation, telling an audience at George Washington University that he had given his direct support to President Obama after a cabinet meeting. Said Biden:

“It was something that was a difficult call for the president. So, we sat in the cabinet room at the end of the day making the decision. He said, ‘I want everybody’s opinion.’ Everybody went around the room. There were only two people who were definitive and absolutely certain: Leon Panetta said go and Bob Gates said don’t go, and others were 51-49, some ended up saying go, but it was such a close call. I joked and I said, ‘You all sound like 17 Larry Summers,’ the economist, on one hand then on the other. They said, ‘Joe, what would you do?’ There was a third option I didn’t really think we should do. I said, I think we should make one more pass with a UAV to see if it is him. The reason I did that is because I didn’t want to take a position to go if that was not where [Obama] was going to go. So as we walked out of the room and walked upstairs, I said, I told him my opinion that I thought he should go, but follow his own instincts. But it would have been a mistake – imagine if I had said in front of everyone, don’t go or go, and his decision was different. It undercuts that relationship. I never say what I think finally until I go up into the Oval with him alone.”

Removal of U.S. Troops from Iraq, and the Rise of ISIS

After President Obama and Vice President Biden completed the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, the genocidal terrorist group ISIS (Islamic State) filled the vacuum and increased its terrorist activities dramatically. As ISIS continued to expand the breadth of its dominion, especially in northern and western Iraq, it earned a fearsome reputation for unspeakable barbarism as manifested in kidnappings, forced conversions, mass slaughters, and public executions via such methods as crucifixions, beheadings, pushing people off the tops of tall buildings, confining people in cages and burning them alive, and beating people to death before ceremoniously dragging their corpses through the streets.

In addition to the aforementioned atrocities, ISIS also engaged in the widespread destruction of “pagan” archaeological relics, museum collections of priceless statues and sculptures dating back thousands of years, and ancient shrines considered holy by Christians and Jews. Charging that these items promoted idolatry, one ISIS member said: “The Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him.” When ISIS blew up the Mosul Public Library in Iraq, sending 10,000 books and more than 700 rare manuscripts up in flames, another ISIS terrorist declared: “These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned.”

On June 29, 2014, ISIS announced the existence of what it called a new Islamic caliphate that would thenceforth go by the name “Islamic State” (IS) and would recognize no existing national borders. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for his part, declared himself master of all the world’s Muslims and began using the name Al-Khalifah Ibrahim.

By July 2014, IS had overrun every Syrian city between Deir Ezzor and the Iraq border. As of September, the organization was believed to have somewhere between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters in its ranks. Among these were numerous foreign jihadists from the Arab world, the Caucasus, the U.S., and European countries like the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

By this time (August 2014), IS was the world’s wealthiest terror group, possessing some $2 billion in cash and other assets.

As of January 1, 2015, IS controlled at least 45 separate cities and towns across northern Iraq and eastern Syria. In December 2014, an IS spokesman ceremoniously announced his group’s genocidal intentions: “We will conquer Europe one day. It is not a question of [whether] we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen. But it is certain…. For us, there is no such thing as borders. There are only front lines…. Our expansion will be rapid and perpetual. The Europeans need to know that when we come, it will not be in a nice way. It will be with our weapons. Those who do not convert to Islam or pay the Islamic tax will be killed—150 million, 200 million or 500 million, it does not matter to us, we will kill them all.”

The rise and expansion of ISIS — which occurred as a direct result of the Obama-Biden administration’s ill-advised withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 — resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the Middle East. It was not until the Trump administration subsequently escalated America’s military support for ISIS’s adversaries, that the terror group was finally decimated.

Biden Announces Support for Gay Marriage, Then Is Ostracized by Obama Administration

In a May 2012 television interview, Biden stated that he favored the legalization of gay marriage. This forced President Obama, who had been planning to wait until a later point in time (perhaps after the 2012 elections) before publicly adopting that same position, to announce immediately that he, too, was in favor of gay marriage. Biden’s gaffe came with significant political consequences for him. He apologized personally to Obama and offered to do all the less glamorous assignments — “every [expletive] job in the world,” as Biden put it — so long as he could still be included in major White House decisions. But from that point forward, White House staffers treated Biden with coldness; essentially froze him out of all internal discussions; prevented him from attending planning meetings; kept him out of key private dinners with fundraisers; limited his public appearance schedule; and failed to emphatically refute rumors that Hillary Clinton might replace him as the 2012 vice presidential candidate.

Biden Says Romney and Republicans Seek to Put African Americans “Back in Chains”

In an August 2012 campaign appearance before a predominantly African American crowd in Virginia, Biden quoted Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as having said that in his first 100 days as president “he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules — unchain Wall Street.” Then the vice president added angrily: “They’re going to put y’all back in chains!”

Biden Pledges to Raise Taxes on the Wealthy by $1 Trillion

In an October 4, 2012 campaign appearance in Iowa, Biden made reference to a Democratic proposal to let the Bush-era income tax rates for households making $250,000 or more expire (and thus increase) at the end of the year, while maintaining existing rates for everyone else. (This proposal was in contrast to the Republican plan, which called for maintaining the current rates for all income groups.) Said Biden: “On top of the trillions of dollars in spending that we have already cut, we’re going to ask the wealthy to pay more. My heart breaks. Come on, man.” Biden then made reference to a Republican claim that, as the vice president phrased it, “Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars..” “Guess what?” Biden continued. “Yes, we do, in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut [i.e., whatever portion of the Bush-era tax cuts benefited high earners] expire so the middle class doesn’t have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That’s not a tax raise. That’s called fairness where I come from.”

Biden Says Immigration Reform Is a Matter of “Dignity”

Speaking at the Conference on the Americas (in Washington, DC) on May 7, 2013, Biden said that every nation has to make “tough choices,” and continued: “In the United States, it means reforming our immigration system and 11 million undocumented men, women and children being able to come out of the shadows and be full participants in American life. Imagine that — the dignity … Granting them the dignity and respect they deserve.”

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Criticizes Biden

On January 7, 2014, Time magazine reported that in his soon-to-be-released memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, President Obama’s former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, wrote the following about Biden: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

In a January 12, 2014 interview, Gates told CBS News: “[W]here I have particular problem with the vice president was in his encouragement of suspicion of the military and the senior military with the president. [Biden said] ‘You can’t trust these guys. They’re gonna try and jam you. They’re gonna try and box you in,’ and so on. And that did disturb me a lot.”

Biden’s MLK Day Speech

On January 20, 2014, Biden spoke at the annual Martin Luther King Day Breakfast held by Al Sharpton‘s National Action Network. Condemning Republican-backed voter-identification laws, the VP said: “Our opponents know, they know, the single most dangerous thing to give us is the right to vote! They know what that is.” Further, Biden criticized the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act which required certain states and localities with a history of pre-1965 discrimination to have any changes to their election laws cleared by the Justice Department or a federal court. “I have to admit, I never thought we’d be fighting the fight again on voting rights,” Biden remarked.

The vice president also said that the U.S. was:

• “on the brink of bringing 11 million people [illegal immigrants] out of the shadows, onto a path to citizenship, making us not only a more humane country but [a] more economically successful country”;
• “in the process of guaranteeing that no one who works 40 hours a week will have to continue to live in poverty; we’re going to raise that minimum wage”;
• “in the final stages of rectifying the injustice of income [in]equality between women and men; not only is it unjust for women to make 70 cents on the dollar compared to a man, it’s stupid economically.”

“And it’s way past time that we stop arguing whether every American has the right to adequate, affordable healthcare,” added Biden. “Thanks to Barack Obama, that fight is over and we are not going back, period.”

Claiming That Voter ID Laws Are Evidence of Racism and Hatred

During a Black History Month event on February 25, 2014, Biden expressed frustration with a recent Supreme Court ruling that had struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act that required certain (mostly Southern) jurisdictions with a pre-1965 history of voting suppression to pre-clear any changes in their voting laws (such as the implementation of Voter ID requirements, or changes to early-voting or same-day-voting regulations — with the Justice Department. Biden also claimed that new voter ID laws in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas were evidence of “hatred” and “zealotry.” Said the Vice President:

“At least 11 states have introduced legislation recently requiring voters to show ID at the polls, making existing voting laws more restrictive. Lawslike in North Carolina which imposed a new photo ID requirement, shortening early voting, and eliminating same-day registration and early voting. These guys never go away…. You guys [African Americans] know it, but it’s an important lesson for me. Hatred never, never ultimately goes away…. The zealotry of those who wish to limit the franchise cannot be smothered by reason…. This fight has been too long, this fight has been too hard, to do anything other than win — not on the margins, but flat-out win.”

Biden Says Illegal Immigrants “Are Already Americans”

In a March 2014 speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Summit, Biden said:

“Eleven million people living in the shadows I believed are already American citizens. These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to be able to contribute fully, and by that standard, 11 million undocumented aliens are already Americans in my view…. Teddy Roosevelt said it better. He said, Americanism is not a question of birthplace or creed or a line of descent. It’s a question of principles, idealism and character….

“It takes a whole hell of a lot of courage to be sitting at a wooden kitchen somewhere anywhere in the world and say, you know, ‘I tell you what kids. Let’s all pick up and go to America where we don’t speak the language, where they don’t seem to want us, where it’s gonna be really, really rough to get there, but let’s go. Won’t that be fun?’

“All they want—they just want a decent life for their kids, a chance to contribute to a free society, a chance to put down roots and help build the next great American century. I really believe that. That’s what they’re fighting for.”

In Midst of Border Crisis, Biden Calls for Massive Numbers of New Immigrants

On June 6, 2014, the Obama administration announced that it would be paying approximately 100 American lawyers to help young illegal immigrants — a rapidly growing demographic — settle in the United States. Attorney General Eric Holder said that these hundred-or-so attorneys — dubbed “justice AmericaCorps” — would “protect the rights of the most vulnerable members of society … particularly young people who must appear in immigration proceedings.”

The number of youths illegally crossing the border into the southern U.S. had reached staggering proportions since 2012, when President Obama had announced that his administration would no longer deport minors who were in the country illegally, so long as they met certain basic requirements. Whereas in 2011 about 6,000 young people were apprehended by border personnel, government officials now estimated that the corresponding totals would exceed 90,000 by the end of 2014, and 140,000 in 2015 — not including the many tens of thousands more who would avoid capture.

Notwithstanding this crisis — and the fact that the open southern border left the U.S. vulnerable to infiltration by Islamic terrorists who had long been known to be working with Mexican drug cartels — Biden, speaking at a National Association of Manufacturers’ meeting, called for a “constant, unrelenting stream” of new immigrants — “not dribbling [but] significant flows” that could bolster the national economy. “We need it badly from a purely — purely economic point of view,’ said Biden. The vice president later tweeted: “The final thing we need to do together is pass immigration reform … We need it badly. -VP at manufacturing summit.”

As the Daily Mail reported, Biden’s comments came as border patrol agents were “appealing to the federal government to help with the thousands of illegal children pouring across the border.”

Profligate Use of Taxpayer Money for Personal Flights

In August 2014, the Daily Mail reported that according to author Ronald Kessler’s forthcoming book, The First Family Detail, Vice President Biden had spent more than a $1 million of taxpayers’ money traveling on Air Force Two for weekend and day trips between Washington, D.C. and his home in Wilmington, Delaware. Kessler claimed that when he filed a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request in 2013 to get accurate numbers on the dates, details, and costs of Biden’s trips, the vice president’s deputy counsel, Jessica Hertz, instructed the Air Force not to provide the data. According to Kessler, an Air Force officer once told him: “They are covering up. We spent a lot of time compiling the records, but Biden’s office said logs for each flight would have to be consulted. This is a smokescreen to delay providing any records as long as possible.” These actions by Biden and his operatives were “unprecedented,” said Kessler, and contradictory to President Obama’s pledge that his administration would “apply a presumption of openness” in fulfilling FOIA requests.

Eventually, Kessler learned that between January 2009 and March 2013, Biden had flown back and forth between DC and Wilmington 225 times. But as the Daily Mail noted, “those trips actually required a total of 400 flights … because of what Kessler calls ‘deadhead’ trips — return flights when Biden was not on the plane.” All told, the cost of just the fuel and maintenance associated with those flights — and not including the salaries of the Air force Two and helicopter crew members — was $979,680.

A Secret Service agent reportedly told Kessler that “the Air Force Two guys pull their hair out over” Biden’s same-day trips back and forth between DC and Wilmington. The agents were also especially vexed, said Kessler, when Biden would travel to Wilmington one day and then jet back to Andrews Air Force Base the next morning to play a five-hour round of golf with Obama while the plane waited on the tarmac at Andrews.

Moreover, Kessler noted that when Obama in 2011 had placed Biden in charge of the administration’s Campaign to Cut government waste: (a) the president claimed that Biden would “hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the federal government,” and (b) Biden told supporters of the administration that he was the “new sheriff in town.”

Also in July 2014, broadcaster and bestselling author Mark Levin reported that an “incredibly good source” had informed him that Biden sometimes flew to Delaware, at taxpayer expense, to get his haircuts.

Biden’s Use of an Ethnic Slur Against Jews

At a September 16, 2014 conference marking the 40th anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation, Biden made reference to his own son having met fellow members of the U.S. military in Iraq who were in need of legal help because of foreclosures and other problems that they and their families were facing back at home. Said the vice president: “That’s one of the things that he [Biden’s son] finds was most in need when he was over there in Iraq for a year. That people would come to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being—I mean these Shylocks [predatory bankers] who took advantage of, um, these women and men while overseas.” The remark created controversy because it derives from the name of a ruthless Jewish money-lender in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice and is widely considered anti-Semitic.

Biden Calls for the “Emancipation” of Wealthy People’s Money to Fund Additional Government Spending

At a February 23, 2015 Black History Month event, Biden said: “A lot of wealthy white and black people aren’t bad but they control 1 percent of the economy and this cannot stand…. It’s not fair because the business experts are saying that concentration of wealth is stunting growth. So let’s do something that’s worthy of emancipation…. You know better than other groups that there is so much more to do. We find ourselves where a lot of disparities still exist…. We have a chance right now and in the next two years to make a fundamental change in that equation…. We know that 60 percent of jobs require a college education but middle class and poor folks have been left behind. That’s why we’re about changing the equation for working families in America and that’s why the president is focused on childcare to job training to college help and education to free community colleges. This is the way to change the equation and shame on us if we miss the opportunity.”

Biden’s Ukraine Scandal, And Allegations Against President Trump

In February 2014, Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine use. On April 21-22, 2014, Joe Biden, in his role as overseer of the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine, visited that country to urge its government to increase its natural gas production. That same month, British officials who were investigating allegations of money laundering by Burisma Holdings, a large Ukrainian natural gas company, froze a number of London bank accounts containing $23 million that belonged to Burisma owner and president Mykola Zlochevksy.

On May 13, 2014 — just three weeks after Joe Biden’s visit to Ukraine — Hunter Biden was appointed to the Burisma board of directors. That position paid him approximately $50,000 per month, even though he had no background or expertise in either Ukrainian matters or natural gas.

In August 2014, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema opened a corruption investigation into Burisma. Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States were partners in this probe.

In February 2015 Yarema was succeeded as Prosecutor General by Viktor Shokin, who continued the Ukrainian investigation into Burisma.

In September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, publicly called for an investigation into Burisma president Zlochevsky.

According to journalist John Solomon: “[In] January 2016 … the Obama White House unexpectedly invited Ukraine’s top prosecutors to Washington to discuss fighting corruption in the country. The meeting, promised as training, turned out to be more of a pretext for the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine’s prosecutors to drop an investigation into the Burisma Holdings gas company that employed Hunter Biden and to look for new evidence in a then-dormant criminal case against eventual Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a GOP lobbyist.”

On February 2, 2016, the home of Burisma owner Zlochevksy was raided by the Ukrainian state prosecutor’s office. Joe Biden subsequently called Ukrainian president Poroshenko at least three times that same month, following the raid.

In March 2016 – while Prosecutor General Shokin was still actively investigating Burisma’s alleged corruption – Vice President Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to the Ukrainian government unless it agreed to fire Shokin immediately. Because the revocation of American aid would have been devastating to Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko caved to Biden’s threat and fired Shokin on March 29, replacing him with Yuriy Lutsenko. At the time of Shokin’s termination, he and other Ukrainian prosecutors were in the midst of preparing a request to interview Hunter Biden about his activities and the funds he was receiving from Ukraine.

In a sworn affidavit prepared for a European court, Shokin later testified that he had been told that the reason for his firing was that Joe Biden was troubled by the Burisma investigation. “The truth,” said Shokin, “is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in Ukraine and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors. On several occasions President Poroshenko asked me to have a look at the case against Burisma and [to] consider the possibility of winding down the investigative actions in respect of this company but I refused to close this investigation.”

And here is how Joe Biden himself – in a January 2018 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations – boastfully recollected his own role in getting Shokin fired:

“I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. I had gotten a commitment from [Ukrainian President] Poroshenko and from [Prime Minister] Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor [Shokin]. And they didn’t. So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to — or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, ‘you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president [Obama] said’ — I said, ‘call him’ [Obama]. I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.’ I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

Biden claimed that he had pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin not because the prosecutor was investigating the vice president’s son, but rather, because Shokin himself was corrupt and incompetent. But that narrative was debunked by journalist John Solomon, who wrote in September 2019:

“Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents — many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles — conflict with Biden’s narrative…. For instance, Burisma’s American legal representatives met with Ukrainian officials just days after Biden forced the firing of the country’s chief prosecutor and offered ‘an apology for dissemination of false information by U.S. representatives and public figures’ about the Ukrainian prosecutors, according to the Ukrainian government’s official memo of the meeting. The effort to secure that meeting began the same day the prosecutor’s firing was announced. In addition, Burisma’s American team offered to introduce Ukrainian prosecutors to Obama administration officials to make amends, according to that memo and the American legal team’s internal emails.

“The memos raise troubling questions. If the Ukraine prosecutor’s firing involved only his alleged corruption and ineptitude, why did Burisma’s American legal team refer to those allegations as ‘false information’? [And] if the firing had nothing to do with the Burisma case, as Biden has adamantly claimed, why would Burisma’s American lawyers contact the replacement prosecutor within hours of the termination and urgently seek a meeting in Ukraine to discuss the case?”

On August 12, 2019, an unidentified “whistleblower” from the intelligence community filed a complaint in which he expressed his own “urgent concern” regarding a July 25, 2019 conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The day prior to that phone call — July 24, 2019 — special counsel Robert Mueller had testified publicly before two separate congressional panels regarding his probe of President Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential race. Mueller’s testimony was disastrous for Democrats, as it demonstrated quite clearly that his long and costly investigation had not turned up any evidence of wrongdoing by Trump. Thus the Democrats now turned their attention immediately to the Trump-Zelensky phone call.

According to the new whistleblower, Trump on July 25th had asked Zelensky to look into why Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin had been fired in 2016 as a result of political and financial threats by then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Critics and opponents of President Trump claimed that the whistleblower’s allegations provided evidence that Trump had sought to pressure Ukraine’s new president, Zelensky, to dig up political dirt on Trump’s rival, Joe Biden, as a precondition to Ukraine receiving nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military aid from the United States. They also asserted that Trump, seeking to extract a political quid-pro-quo from Zelensky, had delayed the issuance of that aid for 55 days, until its release in September 2019.

But as The Federalist website noted: “The formal complaint from an anti-Trump ‘whistleblower’ alleging various crimes by President Donald Trump is riddled with third-hand gossip and outright falsehoods…. The document itself is riddled not with evidence directly viewed by the complainant, but repeated references to what anonymous officials allegedly told the complainant.” Under traditional whistleblower rules – which required whistleblowers to provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings – this “whistleblower” would not have been able to file his complaint. But sometime between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community had secretly eliminated that rule; now, whistleblower complaints could be filed even by individuals who had only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”

On September 24, 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that House Democrats would seek, because of what they viewed as the impropriety of President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky, to open an impeachment inquiry against Trump.

On October 8, 2019, newsman John Solomon reported that a newly unearthed document showed that Ukrainian officials in the NABU — an FBI-like anti-corruption agency in Ukraine — had already opened a new probe into Burisma Holdings, the firm on whose board Hunter Biden had served, five months prior to the July 25, 2019 telephone conversation between Presidents Trump and Zelensky. “The U.S. government had open-source intelligence and was aware as early as February of 2019 [when Petro Poroshenko was still Ukraine’s president] that the Ukrainian government was planning to reopen the Burisma investigation,” said Solomon. “This is long before the president ever imagined having a call with President Zelensky. This is a significant shift in the factual timeline.” This information, Solomon added, had been omitted from the whistleblower’s complaint recently lodged against Trump. Solomon’s revelation was monumentally significant because it meant that Trump’s calls for a Ukrainian investigation of Biden and Burisma would not have changed anything; the investigation had already been active for five months.

On October 10, 2019, it was learned that the whistleblower was a career CIA analyst who had been detailed to the National Security Council at the White House, where he had worked with Joe Biden during the latter’s tenure as vice president.

On October 30, 2019, journalist Paul Sperry published additional information about the whistleblower:

“Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia ‘collusion’ investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election…. ‘He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump,’ said a former NSC official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. Also, Ciaramella huddled for ‘guidance’ with the staff of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, including former colleagues also held over from the Obama era whom Schiff’s office had recently recruited from the NSC. Schiff is the lead prosecutor in the impeachment inquiry. And Ciaramella worked with a Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, inviting her into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues said.”

For details about the impeachment inquiry and the testimony that was provided therein, click here.

In May 2020, leaked phone conversations between Biden and former Ukrainian President Poroshenko were made public by Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, who also claimed to be in possession of proof showing that Burisma Holdings had paid then-Vice President Biden $900,000 in lobbying fees. In one of the leaked conversations — which took place after Ukrainian Prosecutor General Shokin had been fired and replaced with Yuriy Lutsenko — Biden told Poroshenko: “It’s going to be critical for him [Lutsenko] to work quickly to repair the damage that Shokin did. And I’m a man of my word. And now that the new Prosecutor General is in place, we’re ready to move forward to signing that new $1 billion loan guarantee.”

Scandals Where Biden Used His Political Influence to Gain Advantages for His Family Members (1973-2017)

Joe Biden’s Brother James Receives Unusually Generous Loans While Joe Biden Sits on the Senate Banking Committee

In 1973 Joe Biden’s younger brother James, who had served as the chief fundraiser for Joe’s Senate campaign in ’72, received a series of unusually generous loans that enabled him to raise enough capital to open a nightclub in Delaware. What made the loans so unusual was the fact that James, at that time, was a salesman with no entrepreneurial experience and a net worth of less than $10,000. Eyebrows were further raised by the fact that Joe Biden had just been appointed to the Senate Banking Committee. “No sooner was freshman lawmaker Joe Biden seated on the Senate Banking Committee,” Politico reports, “than James became the beneficiary of business loans that were described … as unusually generous because of the relatively large amount of money he was able to borrow with little or no collateral and a lack of relevant prior experience.”

The first series of loans to James Biden — totaling $165,000 — were provided by Wilmington’s Farmers Bank. When Biden’s nightclub eventually ran up debts totaling more than $500,000 by 1975, he and his business partners applied for a $300,000 bailout loan from First Pennsylvania Bank. Only after the incumbent governor of Pennsylvania made a recommendation on the nightclub’s behalf, did the bailout loan come through for Mr. Biden. The money did not last long, however. By 1977, James Biden’s debt exceeded $700,000 and he was forced to surrender the club to creditors.

“During the same time period James Biden was receiving the extensive lines of credit,” reports Breitbart.com, “Joe Biden was sitting on the Senate Banking Committee, which had purview over the financial sector. A specific jurisdiction of the committee was the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which provides bailouts to banks if they should become over leveraged. Such a bailout was required by Farmers Bank in 1976 when it nearly collapsed after all the troublesome loans [it made], like those to James Biden,… could not be repaid. The bank only survived after the FDIC and the state of Delaware threw it a lifeline by purchasing a majority of the problematic loans.”

A number of the bank’s leading executives were subsequently indicted for fraud and other financial crimes. Additional Delaware banking authorities and the elected officials who supposedly regulated them soon became embroiled in the scandal as well. “A Delaware banking commissioner was found to have received a loan from Farmers [Bank] while overseeing its finances, an apparent violation of federal law,” Politico reports. “Separately … The DOJ also scrutinized unusual loans made by Farmers, including the Biden loan.”

A few months after the height of the controversy, Joe Biden left the Senate Banking Committee in order to join the more prestigious Senate Judiciary Committee.

Trial Lawyers Enlist James Biden’s Assistance in a Multibillion-Dollar Tobacco Case

In the 1990s, a group of Mississippi trial lawyers enlisted the help of Joe Biden’s younger brother James Biden in securing congressional support for a mega-settlement in a tobacco case. A decade later, those same Mississippi attorneys hosted a fundraiser for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. They also “accept[ed] an invitation to accompany Joe to a high-profile Washington dinner,” reports Politico, “while they simultaneously prepared to launch a lobbying firm with James and his wife, Sara.”

Joe Biden’s Sister Steers Campaign Money to Her Political Consulting Firm

When Joe Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, was a senior partner in the political messaging firm Slade White & Company, she served as the campaign manager for her brother’s presidential campaigns. During the 2008 campaign alone, she steered $2.5 million from “Citizens for Biden” and “Biden for President Inc.” to Slade White & Company.

James Biden’s Construction Consulting Firm Receives $1.5 Billion in Government Contracts for Projects with Which It Has No Past Experience

In 2010, the Obama administration tasked Vice President Joe Biden with the responsibility of overseeing the allocation of government contracts for construction projects aimed at rebuilding various decimated regions of post-war Iraq. In November of that year, Kevin Justice, a longtime Biden family friend who served as president of the Philadelphia-based construction consulting firm HillStone International, visited the White House to meet with Michele Smith, a top Biden aide. Less than three weeks later, HillStone announced that Joe Biden’s younger brother, James Biden, would be joining the firm as its executive vice president. Six months after that, HillStone received a $1.5 billion government contract to build more than 100,000 homes in Iraq, even though the firm had no experience whatsoever in handling projects of that magnitude. When HillStone eventually backed out of the deal because it was incapable of seeing it through, the firm nonetheless managed to secure a $22 million construction contract with the U.S. State Department in 2012.

Frank Biden Is Linked to Solar Power Projects Receiving Millions in Taxpayer Loans from the Obama Administration, Despite Having No Experience in That Field

Shortly after President Obama took office in 2009, his administration sought to mend U.S. relations with Costa Rica following a period of acrimony that had existed during the George W. Bush years. Vice President Biden, who had longstanding ties to the Caribbean region dating back to his tenure in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was put in charge of this Costa Rica initiative. At that point, his youngest brother, Frank Biden, began looking for real-estate opportunities in that country.

In March 2009 Joe Biden visited Costa Rica. Just a few months later, Costa Rica News announced that Frank Biden had entered into a multilateral partnership “to reform Real Estate in Latin America” with a developer named Craig Williamson and a posh resort village — expected to include thousands of homes, a world-class golf course, and a number of casinos — which was slated for construction in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican government, knowing of Frank Biden’s connection to the White House, announced that it was “eager to cooperate.”

But in order to carry out the massive construction project, Costa Rica would have to update its electrical grid. Despite having no experience at all in the energy sector, Frank Biden and his company, Sun Fund Americas, entered into a partnership with the Costa Rican National Power and Light Company (CNFL) to construct a solar power complex in the northwest region of the country. The project specifically earmarked more than $6.5 million in taxpayer-backed loans that the Obama administration’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) approved in 2015.

The Biden family’s influence over U.S. activities in the Caribbean did not end there. In June 2014 the Obama administration announced that it was putting Joe Biden in charge of its new Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CESI), which would use American taxpayer dollars to support additional energy-sustainability projects in the region. One of those projects was the construction of a 20-megawatt solar power plant in Jamaica, for which OPIC had approved a $47.5 million loan. Like the aforementioned solar power project in Costa Rica, the Jamaica contract likewise went to Sun Fund Americas. All told, Frank Biden’s Caribbean projects benefited from more than $54 million in U.S. taxpayer loans during the eight years of Obama-Biden.

Hunter Biden’s Firms Scored Big Business Deals with People & Entities Tied to the Governments of Kazakhstan, China, and Russia

There is clear evidence that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and his business partner, Devon Archer, used their involvement with the Burnham Financial Group, an asset-management corporation which they co-chaired, to make deals with foreign governments and oligarchs. One of those oligarchs was Nurlan Abduov, an associate of Kenges Rakishev, son-in-law of the former vice prime minister of Kazakhstan. Specifically, Hunter Biden regularly received funds from an account that was funded in part by a firm run by Rakishev in 2014.

Burnham Financial Group also had business dealings with two Chinese companies, Kirin Global Enterprises Limited and Harvest Global Investors, both of which were linked to the government in Beijing

In addition, Burnham had a financial relationship with the billionaire Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, who had extensive political connections in Moscow and ties to Russian organized crime, According to Devon Archer, Baturina invested some $200 million into “various investment funds” with which Archer was involved.

Moreover, Burnham was involved in a fraudulent bond scheme that stole at least $60 million from eleven labor-union pension funds and the poorest Indian tribe in America, the Oglala Sioux. In May 2016, Archer was arrested and charged with “orchestrating a scheme to defraud investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars.”

Joe Biden Aggressively Promotes His Son-in-Law’s Startup Investment Consultancy

In June 2011, Vice President Biden aggressively promoted StartUp Health, a fledgling New York City-based investment consultancy whose mission was to provide technical and relationship advice to new companies in exchange for a stake in their business revenues. The firm was established by three siblings from Philadelphia: (a) CEO and co-founder Steven Krein, (b) chief strategy officer Bari Krein, and (c) chief medical officer Dr. Howard Krein, who also happened to be the husband of Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley.

Though StartUp Health barely had even a website in place as of June 2011, two of the company’s executives were ushered into the Oval Office of the White House that month for a face-to-face meeting with President Obama and Vice President Biden. The following day, the company was featured at a large healthcare tech conference run by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Over the next four years, StartUp Health executives became regular visitors to the White House. And Joe Biden continued to personally help his son-in-law promote StartUp Health at a number of appearances which the vice president made through the end of his tenure in the White House.

More Corruption by Joe Biden & His Family

A Senate Republican report which was released in September 2020 showed that during Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president, his son Hunter had received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the widow of Yury Luzhkov, Moscow’s former mayor. According to The Epoch Times: “The report further alleged that Chinese nationals lavished Hunter and other members of the Biden family with money, giving Hunter and [Joe] Biden’s brother James credit cards for a [$100,000] international shopping spree.”

In October 2020, it was learned that according to emails retrieved from a laptop computer owned by Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s longstanding claim that he knew nothing about his son’s financial arrangement with Ukraine’s Burisma energy company, and that he had never once spoken with Hunter about the latter’s overseas dealings, was false. The New York Post published a bombshell report indicating that, according to an email retrieved from a computer hard drive, Hunter Biden had introduced his father to Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Burisma, in April 2015.

Said the Pozharskyi email: “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.” An earlier email from May 2014 also showed Pozharskyi asking Hunter Biden for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.

The newly uncovered emails from Hunter Biden’s computer also showed that Hunter had pursued a number of highly profitable deals involving the CEFC China Energy Company, China’s largest private energy firm. One email that James Gilliar of the international consulting firm J2cR sent to Biden on May 13, 2017, with the subject line “Expectations,” included details of “remuneration packages” for six people who were involved in a business venture whose nature was not specified. Hunter Biden was identified as “Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC,” and his pay was said to be “850” in addition to “some office expectations he will elaborate.” Moreover, the email outlined a “provisional agreement” stipulating that 80 percent of the “equity,” or shares in the new company, would be split equally among four people whose initials corresponded to those of the sender and three recipients, with the letter “H” referring to Hunter Biden. Gilliar’s email also mentioned “Zang,” a reference to Zang Jian Jun, the former executive director of CEFC China. The deal also listed “10 Jim” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” “The big guy” was a reference to Joe Biden.

Another email — sent by Hunter Biden as part of an email chain on August 2, 2017 — involved a deal he had struck with the then-chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, who had ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army, and who in the 2000s had been an officer for a group controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and intelligence service. The deal was for half-ownership of a holding company that was expected to provide Hunter Biden with more than $10 million annually “for introductions alone.” Wrote Hunter Biden: “The chairman changed that deal after we me[t] in MIAMI TO A MUCH MORE LASTING AND LUCRATIVE ARRANGEMENT to create a holding company 50% percent [sic] owned by ME and 50% owned by him. Consulting fees is one piece of our income stream but the reason this proposal by the chairman was so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners inn [sic] the equity and profits of the JV’s [joint venture’s] investments.”

The documents obtained by the New York Post also included a September 2017 “Attorney Engagement Letter” in which one of Ye Jianming’s top lieutenants, former Hong Kong government official Chi Ping Patrick Ho, agreed to pay Hunter Biden a $1 million retainer for “Counsel to matters related to US law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any US Law Firm or Lawyer.” (NOTE: Fifteen months later, in December 2018, a Manhattan federal jury would convict and sentence Ho to prison for his involvement in two schemes to pay $3 million in bribes to high-ranking government African officials in exchange for oil rights in Chad and lucrative business deals in Uganda.)

Another noteworthy email from Hunter Biden’s computer indicated that members of the Biden family who profited from the fact that they were related to Joe Biden, were required to give half of their profits to “pop,” Joe Biden. As Hunter Biden wrote in that email: “I love you all but I don’t receive any respect, and that’s fine, I guess. Works for you, apparently. I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for thirty years. It’s really hard, but don’t worry, unlike pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

On October 21, 2020, Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski, the recipient of one of the emails retrieved from Hunter’s laptop, provided a large number of documents — including text messages and emails — to investigators from the Senate Homeland Security and Senate Finance Committees. In one text message, Biden family associate James Gilliar said: “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u are face to face. I know u know that but they are paranoid.”

Bobulinski also provided another text message, from 2017, in which Hunter Biden himself stated that a Chinese investor intended to become partners with him in order to “be partners with the Bidens.”

Another email retrieved from Hunter Biden’s computer showed that Hunter’s then-business associates Devon Archer and Bevan Cooney made it possible — with Hunter’s advance knowledge and approval — for a group of Chinese business and political elites from the exclusive China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) to visit the Obama-Biden White House and meet with administration officials in November 2011. According to a CEC document, the Chinese delegation met with then-Vice President Joe Biden during that trip.

On October 28, 2020, Raheem Kassam of The National Pulse leaked an audio from the Hunter Biden laptop. Wrote Kassam: “Hunter Biden — in an audio file labeled ‘Most Genius Shit Ever’ — appears to be referencing Patrick Ho, who was a former Secretary for Home Affairs in Hong Kong, as a ‘spy chief of China’ while lamenting how his business partner Ye Jianming of CEFC China Energy had disappeared.” The recording serves as powerful evidence of Hunter Biden admitting to being in a partnership with the “Spy Chief of China,” and acknowledging that Joe Biden knew. In the recording, Hunter Biden said:

“I get calls from my father to tell me that The New York Times is calling but my old partner Eric, who literally has done me harm for I don’t know how long, is the one taking the calls because my father will not stop sending the calls to Eric.

“I have another New York Times reporter calling about my representation of Patrick Ho – the fucking spy chief of China who started the company that my partner [Ye Jianming], who is worth $323 billion, founded and is now missing. The richest man in the world is missing who was my partner. He was missing since I last saw him in his $58 million apartment inside a $4 billion deal to build the fucking largest fucking LNG port in the world. And I am receiving calls from the Southern District of New York from the U.S. Attorney himself.

“My best friend in business Devon has named me as a witness without telling me in a criminal case and my father without telling me.”

In a May 1, 2017 text message to Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden suggested that he wished to set up a shell company to do business with CEFC China Energy, so he could avoid registering as a foreign agent and thus be able to bid on U.S. government contracts in the future. “We don’t want to have to register as foreign agents under the FCPA [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Foreign Agents Registration Act], which is much more expansive than people who should know choose not to know,” Biden wrote. “No matter what it will need to be a US company at some level in order for us to make bids on federal and state funded projects.”

The very next day, Hunter Biden arranged a meeting between his father, Joe Biden, and Bobulinski, one of the prospective partners in a deal with CEFC.

Presidential Run in 2020

On April 25, 2019, Biden announced that he planned to run for U.S. President in the 2020 election.

Biden’s Presidential Campaign Platform

Below is an overview of the Biden presidential campaign’s positions on a wide array of major issues:

Low Regard for America

Joe Biden and the Democratic Party view America as a nation that is systemically and permanently infested with white racism. As the 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Historic wrongs and abuses perpetrated against Native Americans, two and a half centuries of slavery, a hundred years of Jim Crow segregation, and a history of exclusionary immigration policies have created profound and lasting inequities … for communities of color.”

A very similar Democrat document — the “Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations” — laments “the scourge of anti-Black racism” in the United States.

Joe Biden charges that “White America” has been too reluctant to acknowledge that “systemic racism” has “been built into every aspect of our system.”

Kamala Harris strikes a similar note: “The reality is that the life of a black person in America has never been treated as fully human… It’s no wonder people are taking to the streets [to protest]. And I support them.” Harris says she favors doing away with Columbus Day and replacing it with Indigenous People’s Day because: “we are the scene of a crime when it comes to what we did with slavery and Jim Crow and institutionalized racism in this country.”

Because Democrats have a low regard for America, they wish to transform it into something else, much as then-presidential candidate Barack Obama famously declared in 2008: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

On October 29, 2020, Joe Biden said something very similar: “Five days left [until election day]. Five days. I believe when you use your power, the power of the vote, we literally are going to change the course of this country for generations to come.”

Also during the 2020 campaign, Biden has stated that: (a) “we all have an obligation to do nothing less than change the culture in this country” because it is “a white man’s culture”; (b) “we can transform this nation … so that it goes down in history … as one of the most progressive administrations since Roosevelt”; (c) the coronavirus pandemic is an “incredible opportunity … to fundamentally transform the country”; and (d) America needs to make “revolutionary institutional changes” that “rip the roots of systemic racism out of this country.”

Wages

Biden aims to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Racial Matters

Reparations for Slavery: In 2019, Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield said that in Biden’s view, the U.S. should “gather the data necessary to have an informed conversation about reparations” payments to African Americans as compensation for the centuries of slavery and discrimination that afflicted black people in the United States.

Biden’s Ties to Al Sharpton: For more than 40 years, Al Sharpton has been a highly prominent racist, black supremacist, and Jew-hater. Notwithstanding Sharpton’s ugly history, Joe Biden calls Sharpton “a champion in the fight for civil rights.” Biden speaks to Sharpton on a regular basis, and Sharpton advised him on whom to pick as a vice presidential running mate.

Education

Charter Schools: Biden is opposed to publicly funded, independently-run charter schools, on grounds that they “sipho[n] off money for our public schools, which are already in enough [financial] trouble.” The 2020 Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force said: “Democrats … will ban for-profit private charter businesses from receiving federal funding.”

School Vouchers: The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats oppose private school vouchers and other policies that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from the public-school system.” Likewise, Biden called for the termination of funding for school voucher programs.

Universal Pre-School: Biden is in favor of making taxpayer-funded pre-school “available to every three- and four-year-old” in America. He also aims to “triple funding for Title I, the federal program funding schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families.”

Free College: Biden favors the use of taxpayer dollars to give all students an opportunity to attend two years of community college, tuition-free. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform pledges to “make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students whose families earn less than $125,000 — roughly 80 percent of the American people.” But for Democrats, it is not enough to fund the massive costs of tuition. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform also said: “We will increase federal support for services like child care on college campuses … [and] increased funding for wraparound services, including covering the cost of textbooks and fees [and] programs to address campus food insecurity.”^[4]

Student Debt: To address the issue of student debt, Biden seeks to expand and modify the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, an existing federal benefit that cancels the remaining debt of borrowers who work in public-service jobs for ten years after they graduate.

Energy & Environment

Green New Deal: The Biden campaign website says: “Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face,” because “our environment and our economy are completely and totally connected.”^[5] In a March 2020 presidential debate, Joe Biden told Bernie Sanders: “We both agree that we have a New Green Deal [sic] to deal with the threat that faces humanity.”

Oil & Gas Drilling: Biden vows to issue no new leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands or offshore areas.

No More Fossil Fuels or Fracking: During a July 2019 presidential primary debate, Biden was asked, “Would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?” He replied, “No, we would work it out. We would make sure it’s eliminated.” In a September 2019 campaign appearance, Biden told a questioner: “I want you to look at my eyes. I guarantee you, I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel.”

Carbon Taxes: On the premise that the carbon emissions associated with human industrial activity are a major contributor to the potentially catastrophic global warming/climate change, Biden would impose carbon taxes on the businesses and industries that produce such emissions.

Paris Climate Agreement: 
The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “We will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement … on Day One.”

Guns & Second Amendment

Rejecting the Second Amendment: Neither the 2016 nor 2020 Democratic Party Platforms include a recognition of a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In 2019, Joe Biden was asked, “Do you agree with the D.C. v. Heller decision in regards to protecting the individual right to bear arms that are in common use and which are utilized for lawful purposes?” He replied: “If I were on the Court, I wouldn’t have made the same ruling.”

Banning “Assault Weapons” & Instituting Gun Buyback Programs: Calling for “bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,”^[6] Biden would “institute a national buyback program” for semiautomatic firearms.

In a 2019 interview, Biden had the following exchange with CNN’s Anderson Cooper regarding firearm confiscation by the government. Cooper: “So, to gun owners out there who say, well, a Biden administration means they are going to come for my guns.” Biden: “Bingo! You’re right if you have an assault weapon.”

At a November 2019 fundraiser, Biden made clear his intent to ban 9mm pistols,. saying: “Why should we allow people to have military-style weapons including pistols with 9mm bullets and can hold 10 or more rounds?”

Naming Beto O’Rourke to Lead Gun-Control Efforts: At a 2020 campaign rally in Dallas, Biden promised to name Democrat Rep. Beto O’Rourke as his point man on gun control. “You’re going to take care of the gun problem with me,” he told O’Rourke. “You’re going to be the one who leads this effort. I’m counting on you. I’m counting on you. We need you badly, the state needs you, the country needs you. You’re the best.”

O’Rourke has a long, well-documented history as an opponent of the Second Amendment. Some noteworthy quotes by O’Rourke:

• “We need a mandatory buyback of every assault weapon in our country.”
• “I want to be clear: That’s exactly what we’re going to do [buyback programs]. Americans who own AR-15s and AK-47s will have to sell their assault weapons. All of them.”
• “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR 15, your AK 47 …”
• “It’s not voluntary…. It is mandatory. It will be the law. You will be required to comply with the law.”

Permitting Lawsuits Against Gun Manufacturers: Democrats believe that gun manufacturers should be held criminally liable if the weapons they produce and sell are subsequently used in crimes. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats believe that gun companies should be held responsible for their products, just like any other business, and will prioritize repealing the law that shields gun manufacturers from civil liability.” Such a policy would undoubtedly cause many gun manufacturers to go out of business.

Abortion

Though Biden was staunchly pro-life in the 1970s and ’80s, in later years he became a hardline extremist for unrestricted abortion rights.

From 2001-08, the National Right to Life Committee rated Biden’s voting record on pro-life issues as very close to 0%.

In 2005, for instance, Biden voted against the so-called Mexico City Policy, first implemented in 1985 by the Reagan administration to block U.S. federal funding for overseas non-governmental organizations that provide either actual abortion procedures or ancillary services like pro-abortion counseling, referrals, and advocacy. Also during his years in the Senate, Biden voted repeatedly to require that taxpayer dollars be used to cover the costs of U.S. military service members’ abortions.

Abortion-on-Demand: During his tenure as vice president (2009-17), Biden fully supported the positions of Barack Obama, by far the most pro-abortion president in American history. At an October 2012 campaign rally, for instance, Biden articulated his view that abortion – even though it involves the life (and death) of a human being who is separate from the woman seeking the abortion — is essentially no different than any other medical procedure, from a heart transplant to a pap smear. “I got a daughter and lost a daughter,” said Biden. “I’ve got four granddaughters and Barack has two daughters. And this is to our core. Our daughters and our granddaughters are entitled to every single solitary operation, every single solitary opportunity!”

Permanently Enshrining Roe v. Wade as Law: In a 2020 statement, Biden announced his support for abortion “under any circumstance.” He stated that if the Supreme Court were ever to rule that abortion is unconstitutional, he would circumvent such a decision by passing a law permanently enshrining Roe v. Wade, the Court case that legalized abortion in the U.S. in 1973, as the law of the land: “If they [the Supreme Court] ruled it to be unconstitutional, I will send to the United States Congress, and it will pass I believe, a bill that legislates Roe v. Wade adjusted by Casey. It’s a woman’s right to do that. Period.”

Supporting Planned Parenthood: Biden is in full agreement with the 2020 Democratic Party Platform, which vows to “restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood,” America’s leading provider of abortion services.

Opposing the Hyde Amendment: Soon after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, congressional leaders of both parties enacted the Hyde Amendment, which, starting in 1976, barred the use of public money to fund abortions. But Democrat support for the Hyde Amendment is now virtually nonexistent. The party’s official 2020 platform makes it plain: “We will repeal the Hyde Amendment, and protect and codify the right to reproductive freedom.” Biden, too, has made it clear that as president, he intends to repeal the Hyde Amendment and thereby force all taxpayers to pay for other people’s abortions with tax dollars, regardless of their moral or religious objections to doing so.

The process by which Biden’s personal stance on the Hyde Amendment evolved was exceedingly clumsy and inarticulate. Specifically, on June 5, 2019, the Biden presidential campaign stated that although Biden supported Roe v. Wade without reservation, he still backed the Hyde Amendment as he always had. But when pro-abortion groups, left-wing activists, and other Democrat presidential hopefuls – most notably Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand – criticized Biden for that statement, he suddenly reversed his position 180 degrees within 24 hours. On June 6, Biden announced that he could “no longer support” the Hyde Amendment, and that it “can’t stay” because “times have changed.”

Religious Freedom

Forcing Religious Organizations to Pay for Health Insurance That Covers Contraception, Sterilization, & Abortifacients: When the Supreme Court in July 2020 ruled that the Trump administration had the authority to exempt the Little Sisters of the Poor — an order of Catholic nuns who care for low-income elderly people – and similar organizations from Obamacare’s mandate that employers must provide their workers with health insurance plans that cover contraception/sterilization/abortifacient options, Biden said he was “disappointed” by the Court’s decision. He also vowed to renew legal action against the Little Sisters of the Poor if elected president. “If I am elected I will restore the Obama-Biden policy … providing an exemption for houses of worship and an accommodation for nonprofit organizations with religious missions.” “This accommodation,” said Biden, “will allow women at these organizations to access contraceptive coverage, not through their employer-provided plan, but instead through their insurance company or a third-party administrator.” But the Little Sisters of the Poor have pointed out that this “solution” would still violate their religious beliefs, because it would require them to provide contraception to their employees, albeit through a third party.

Mocking Religious Conservatives As “Forces of Intolerance” & “The Dregs of Society”: Biden has voiced contempt for religious people who oppose LGBTQ dogma. Speaking to the Human Rights Campaign in 2018, Biden described religious conservatives who have “tried to define family” as a mother-father-children unit, as “forces of intolerance” that “remain determined to undermine and roll back the progress you all have made.” They are “virulent people,” said Biden, “some of them the dregs of society.”

Religious Litmus Test in Order to Serve on Supreme Court: In the fall of 2020, Nikitha Rai, the Biden presidential campaign’s deputy data director for Pennsylvania, suggested that traditional religious beliefs opposing homosexuality and same-sex marriage should be regarded as sufficient cause to disqualify an individual from even being considered to serve on the Supreme Court. “I’d heavily prefer views like that not be elevated to SCOTUS [the Supreme Court of the U.S.], but unfortunately our current culture is still relatively intolerant,” Rai tweeted. “It will be a while before those types of beliefs are so taboo that they’re disqualifiers.” In short, Rai advocates the equivalent of a religious litmus test for Supreme Court nominations and confirmations – a direct violation Constitution Article VI, Clause 3, which reads in part that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

LGBTQ Radicalism: In an October 2020 interview, Biden told Philadelphia Gay News that President Trump had given “hate” a “safe harbor” by promoting what Biden described as “discrimination.” Proceeding from the premise that a traditional Christian, Jewish, or Muslim view of sexuality and gender constitutes “discrimination,” Biden said: “Donald Trump and Mike Pence have given hate against LGBTQ+ individuals safe harbor and rolled back critical protections for the LGBTQ+ community. By blocking the ability of transgender individuals to openly serve their country, denying LGBTQ+ people access to critical health care, proposing policies allowing federally funded homeless shelters to turn away transgender people and federally funded adoption agencies to reject same-sex couples, […] the Trump-Pence Administration has led a systematic effort to undo the progress President Obama and I made.”

• Biden’s allusion to “blocking the ability of transgender individuals to openly serve their country,” referred to an August 25, 2017 memorandum by which President Trump directed the secretaries of defense and homeland security to reinstate what had been, prior to the Obama-Biden years, a longstanding policy that disqualified most transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military. Trump’s memorandum stated that his new policy should remain in effect “until such time as a sufficient basis exists upon which to conclude that terminating the policy and practice” would not “hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unity cohesion, or tax military resources.” Such “hindrances” included the fact that: (a) transgender individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria tend to experience extremely high rates of mental health disturbances and suicidal tendencies, and (b) people who undergo expensive cross-sex surgeries and hormone treatments tend to require long recovery periods during which they are not capable of properly fulfilling their duties as members of the military, and are particularly prone to potentially serious medical complications.
• Biden’s lament vis-a-vis instances of “denying LGBTQ+ people access to critical health care” was a veiled, deceptive reference to a Trump policy that simply sought to protect religiously affiliated employers, organizations, and medical groups from being forced to pay the enormous costs associated with transgender surgery – a procedure that is morally unacceptable to them.
• Biden’s reference to “policies allowing federally funded homeless shelters to turn away transgender people and federally funded adoption agencies to reject same-sex couples” relates to the fact that, as Tyler O’Neil notes in PJ Media, “many homeless shelters and adoption agencies are run as religious charities.” “Mandating that homeless shelters must house biological men who claim to identify as female with vulnerable women is a recipe for disaster,” O’Neil explains, “and it violates the religious freedom of faith-based shelters that do not accept transgender ideology. Similarly, adoption agencies should be able to abide by their own standards and many adoption agencies do place kids with same-sex couples.” Requiring such entities to violate their moral and religious values would force many of them to shut down their operations rather than continue to violate their own dearly held principles, and this, in turn, would cause vital services for the needy to be in far shorter supply.

The Equality Act & Forced Acceptance of LGBTQ Dogma Regarding Marriage, Sexuality, & Gender: In an address to the Human Rights Campaign in June 2019, Biden said, “I promise you if I’m elected president it [passage of the Equality Act] will be the first thing I ask to be done. It will send a message around the world, not just at home.” “This is our soul, dammit, this is who we have to be,” Biden expanded. “… This is our real moral obligation. Using religion or culture to discriminate against or demonize LGBTQ individuals is never justified. Not anywhere in the world.” In late October 2020, Biden again pledged that “I will make enactment of the Equality Act a top legislative priority during my first 100 days — a priority that Donald Trump opposes.” The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives had passed an Equality Act bill in 2019, but the Republican-controlled Senate did not bring it up for debate or a vote.

The Equality Act would force employers and workers to either accept and abide by leftwing dogma regarding marriage, sexuality, and gender, or lose their businesses and jobs. The most widely publicized example of what the Equality Act seeks to achieve involved Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who declined to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding and was subsequently sued by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. As the Alliance Defending Freedom explains: “In an exchange lasting about 30 seconds, Phillips politely declined, explaining that he would gladly make them any other type of baked item they wanted, but that he could not design a cake promoting a same-sex ceremony because of his faith.” Phillips’ case eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court.

In June 2018, the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 ruling which held that although a baker is a business person who serves the general public and thus “might have his right to the free exercise of his religion limited by generally applicable laws,” the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s complaint was objectionable because the Commission itself had exhibited hostility towards Mr. Phillips’ religious views. As the Heritage Foundation points out: “Other cases involving disagreement over the meaning of marriage feature florists, bakers, photographers, wedding venue owners, videographers, web designers, calligraphers, and public servants.”

The Equality Act would also politicize the medical profession by forcing hospitals and insurers to provide, and pay for, various gender-reassignment surgeries and therapies against any moral or medical objections they might have. Such abominations are already occurring. Catholic hospitals in California and New Jersey have been sued for refusing to perform hysterectomies on physically healthy women who said that they wished to transition themselves to male. Similarly, a Catholic hospital in Washington was sued by the ACLU for refusing to perform a double mastectomy on a sixteen-year-old girl with gender dysphoria.

The Equality Act also calls for the banning of all sex-specific sports teams and sex-specific facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms. Neither schools nor charities would be exempt from this mandate.

The Equality Act would cause grievous harm to faith-based charities and the populations they serve. Indeed, state and local laws regulating sexual-orientation and gender-identity issues have forced faith-based adoption and foster care agencies in Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia to permanently close their doors – all for the purported transgression of promoting the “discriminatory” belief that wherever possible, children should be placed in a home with both a female mother and a male father.

Religious Freedom & Biden’s Hypocrisy As a Catholic: In a December 2020 essay, Catholic League president Bill Donohue slammed leftist media outlets for their hypocrisy in portraying Joe Biden as a “devout” Catholic while giving harsh treatment to people who actually take their Catholic faith seriously. Wrote Donahue:

“CNN ran a piece December 13 noting that Joe Biden goes to church, prays, and carries a rosary. Right after the election, America, the Jesuit media outlet, commented that Biden prays and carries a rosary. Back in September, NPR observed that Biden uses ‘biblical language,’ prays, is a ‘deeply devout person of faith,’ and, of course, carries a rosary. The Washington Post … [has] noted [Biden’s] ‘devout Catholicism.’ On December 9th, two articles were published on this subject. One mentioned that he goes to church on Sunday and carries a rosary. The other was more pointed: ‘Joe Biden goes to church. Quietly. Calmly.’

“So it is settled. Joe Biden goes to church and carries a rosary. This is empirically verifiable. Clearly the media are enamored of his faith. But why are they so kind? Recall how the media recently treated another Roman Catholic, Amy Coney Barrett. They were anything but kind. Indeed, her ‘devoutness’ was a source of discontent, even rage in some quarters.

“What accounts for the disparate treatment? Biden rejects the teachings of the Catholic Church on abortion—he has become an extremist—marriage (he even officiated at a gay wedding), foster care, gender ideology, healthcare, contraception, sterilization, religious liberty, and school choice. Barrett is in unison with the Church on all of these issues….

“The moral of the story is plain: It is perfectly fine to be a Catholic public official just so long as he or she rejects the teachings of the Church on matters of public policy, even when those policies are life and death issues. In other words, it is okay for Catholics to bludgeon the Little Sisters of the Poor provided they carry a rosary.”

Health Care

Government-Run Health Care: Advocating a government-run system of “single-payer,” “universal” health care, the 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats have fought to achieve universal health care for a century.” In February 2019, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced a Medicare for All plan that had 118 co-sponsors, all Democrats. In other words, more than half of all House Democrats favor the passage of single-payer healthcare legislation.

Expanding Obamacare: Biden seeks to build on, and expand, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which was signed into law by President Obama in 2010. Toward that end, Biden favors the creation of a “public option” —i.e., a government insurance agency to “compete” with private insurers. Because such an agency would not need to show a profit in order to remain in business, and because it could tax and regulate its private competitors in whatever fashion it pleased, this “public option” would soon force private insurers out of the industry.

Drug Costs: Biden wishes to link drug costs to the typically lower prices of those same medications in other countries around the world. He would establish an independent board within the Department of Health & Human Services to set prices in this manner. Moreover, Biden would try to limit drug prices through a tax penalty on manufacturers that raise their prices above the general inflation rate in Medicare and his public option plan.

The “Public Option”: Joe Biden and the Democrats favor the creation of a “public option” — i.e., a government insurance agency to “compete” with private insurers.^[7]

Taxpayer-Funded Health Care for Illegal Aliens: The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “We will expand access to health care for people living and working across the United States by extending Affordable Care Act coverage to Dreamers” — i.e., illegal aliens who first came to the U.S. as minors. When a reporter asked Biden whether illegal immigrants “should be entitled to federal benefits like Medicare [and] Medicaid,” he replied: “Look, I think that anyone who is in a situation where they are in need of health care, regardless of whether they are documented or undocumented, we have an obligation to see that they are cared for.” In a June 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, co-moderator Savannah Guthrie asked the candidates to raise their hand if their healthcare plan would cover “undocumented immigrants.” Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, John Hickenlooper, and Eric Swalwell all raised their hands.

Immigration & Refugee Policy

Amnesty & Citizenship for Illegals: Biden is in favor of granting citizenship to so-called “Dreamers” (illegal aliens who first came to the U.S. as minors), and to illegals affected by President Obama‘s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The latter was an executive action that allowed hundreds of thousands of illegals to gain temporary legal status, work permits, access to certain publicly funded social services, and protection from deportation.

During the October 22, 2020 presidential debate, Joe Biden said: “Within 100 days, I’m going to send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. And all of those so-called DREAMers, those DACA kids, they’re going to be immediately certified to be able to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship. We owe them, we owe them.”

Biden has also said: “You know, 11 million people live in the shadows. I believe they’re already American citizens. These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to contribute fully. And by that standard, 11 million undocumented aliens are already Americans, in my view.”

Border Wall: The 2020 Democratic Party Platform condemns the construction of “an unnecessary, wasteful, and ineffective wall on the southern border.” Joe Biden says: “We don’t need a wall.”

Though Democrats today are unanimously opposed to the construction of a border wall or the strengthening of border-control policies, it was not long ago that many prominent Democrats were vocal supporters of such measures:

• In 2006, then-Senator Joe Biden voted in favor of the Secure Fence Act to fund the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
• In 2009, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said: “The American people need to know that, because of our efforts in Congress, our border is far more secure today than it was … in 2005. This progress includes … construction of 630 miles of border fence that create a significant barrier to illegal immigration on our southern land border.”

Dreamers & DACA: The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “We will reinstate, expand, and streamline protections for Dreamers [illegal aliens who first came to the U.S. as minors] and the parents of American citizen children to keep families together in the communities they have long called home.”

Biden is in favor of granting citizenship to so-called “Dreamers” and to illegals affected by President Obama‘s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The latter was an executive action that allowed hundreds of thousands of illegals to gain temporary legal status, work permits, access to certain publicly funded social services, and protection from deportation.

In 2017, Biden denounced President Trump’s plan to rescind the DACA program: “These people are all Americans,” Biden wrote. “So let’s be clear: throwing them out is cruel. It is inhumane. And it is not America.”

Refugees: The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “We will significantly raise the annual global refugee admissions target, and work with Congress to create a minimum annual number for refugee admissions.”

Asylum Policy: Democrats seek to restore a system where asylum seekers who cross the southern U.S. border illegally, are released into the American interior — never to be seen again, in most cases. As the 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats will end Trump Administration policies that deny protected entry to asylum seekers…. And we will end prosecution of asylum seekers at the border and policies that force them to apply from ‘safe third countries,’ which are far from safe.”

Joe Biden was asked: “Should undocumented immigrants, arrested by local police, be turned over to immigration officials?” He replied, “No. Look, we are a nation of immigrants. Our future rests upon the Latino community being fully integrated…. Xenophobia is a disease.”

Ending Immigration Raids: The Democratic Party Platform of 2020 says: “We … will end workplace and community raids. We will protect sensitive locations like our schools, houses of worship, health care facilities, benefits offices, and DMVs from immigration enforcement actions.”

Increasing Immigration from Muslim Countries: The Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force of 2020 vows to: “Immediately terminate the Trump Administration’s discriminatory travel and immigration bans that have had disproportionate impact on Muslim and African people, and invite visa re-application for individuals from these countries.” Says Joe Biden: “Make no mistake, this anti-Muslim bias is not only morally wrong, it’s like putting up a great big recruiting banner for terrorists…. A ban is a betrayal of all our foundations of American history and American freedom, religious freedom, the first freedom.”

Welcoming Immigrants Dependent on Public Welfare Programs: Democrats condemned the Trump administration’s 2019 announcement that it would make it more difficult for people who are a “public charge” — dependent on government benefits — to apply for citizenship. The Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force of 2020 vows to: “Immediately halt enforcement of and rescind the Trump administration’s new public charge regulations, which have racial underpinnings and undermine critical access to public benefits and resources.”

Greatly Increasing Legal Immigration: Joe Biden has no concern about whether or not the newcomers will be able to assimilate into American society and an American value system, before additional waves of newcomers continue to arrive. In a 2019 speech to the Asian and Latino Coalition PAC, he promised to triple the amount of legal immigration to the U.S. from the current level of roughly 1.2 million legal immigrants who are admitted every year, saying: “We could afford to take in a heartbeat another two million people.”

Support for Sanctuary Cities: In January 2017, Democrats condemned President Trump’s executive order that called for the denial of federal grants to sanctuary cities, portraying Trump’s order as a “shameful” and “divisive” measure that would “betray our nation’s values.”

Soon thereafter, 33 congressional Democrats sent a letter to President Trump, demanding that he “rescind” his “unconstitutional” executive order.

Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley introduced the “Safeguarding Sanctuary Cities Act of 2017,” which stipulated that federal financial assistance could not be denied to any state or local government for reason of its noncompliance with federal immigration authorities. Quigley’s bill drew 52 Democrats as co-sponsors.

Joe Biden likewise believes that sanctuary cities should get federal funding.

Deport No Illegal Aliens Other Than Felons: Joe Biden says that immigration agents should “only arrest for the purpose of dealing with a felony that’s committed [in the United States], and I don’t count drunk driving as a felony.” (NOTE: In fiscal year 2019, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency reported 49,106 criminal convictions for DUIs.)

“We’re not going to deport anybody who has not — in this country — committed a felony in this country,” said Biden on another occasion.

Infrastructure Spending: Biden calls for a $1.3 trillion investment in infrastructure and transportation (roads, bridges, etc.) over a ten-year period. He would pay for this by rolling back some of the 2017 GOP tax cuts, increasing taxes on the “super-wealthy and corporations,” and ending fossil fuel subsidies.

Taxes

Capital Gains Taxes: Regarding the capital gains tax rate, Biden says: “I believe … we should raise the tax back to 39.6 percent instead of [the current] 20 percent.”

Biden is in favor of taxing the capital gains of people with more than $1 million in income at the same (higher) rate as ordinary income.

Corporate Income Taxes: Biden aims to raise the U.S. corporate income tax rate to 28 percent, and to impose a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations with at least $100 million in net profits. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform also says that “corporate tax rates, which were cut sharply [from 35% to 21%] by the 2017 Republican tax cut, must be raised,” and that “estate taxes should also be raised back to the historical norm.”

Personal Income Taxes: Biden seeks to raise the top income tax rate for high earners to 39.6 percent. He would also put a 28 percent cap on the value of tax breaks for wealthy taxpayers.

Asserting that “a guiding principle across our tax agenda is that the wealthiest Americans can shoulder more of the tax burden,” Joe Biden and the Democrats pledge to “make sure the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.”^[8]

Overall Tax Hikes: Condemning President Trump for enacting “irresponsible, sugar-high tax cuts,” Biden contends that it is “pure selfishness” for anyone to object to paying higher taxes that would help pay for government programs benefiting low-income minorities.

“When I’m president,” says Biden, “… we’re going to reverse those Trump tax cuts.” “Eliminating just a few of the [Trump] tax cuts” would be inadequate, he claims. “I’m going to eliminate most all of them.”

Biden’s proposed tax hikes would total $4 trillion over the next 10 years — which would make them the steepest increases in world history.

At an October 30 campaign stop in Texas, vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris said to a cheering audience: “I promise you this — as a first order of business, Joe Biden and I are about to work to get rid of that tax cut.”

Supporting the Disastrous “Community Reinvestment Act”

The Democratic Party Platform states proudly and unequivocally: “We will invest in low-income communities, urban and rural areas, and communities of color by strengthening the Community Reinvestment Act [CRA]” In light of the catastrophic ramifications which the CRA has had on America’s economy in the past, this ranks among the most monumentally significant promises the Democrats have made.

The CRA was enacted with near-unanimous Democrat support in 1977. It required banks to make special efforts to seek out and lend to minority borrowers — particularly mortgagors — of meager to modest means. The Clinton administration later transformed the CRA from an outreach effort into a strict quota system where, if a bank failed to meet its quota for loans to low-income minorities, it ran a high risk of being penalized severely. Thus, banks had no recourse other than to approve many loans to borrowers with weak credit credentials.

Subprime loans — characterized by higher interest rates and less favorable terms in order to compensate lenders for the high credit risk they were incurring — nearly tripled in number within a five-year period. Zero-down-payment loans rose nearly fivefold. Thus, the real-estate market became a proverbial house of cards. When the indebtedness from unpaid loans reached a critical mass, the ensuing financial crash produced a tidal wave of home foreclosures across the United States.

Notwithstanding the colossal disaster which the CRA inflicted on the American people, and on nonwhite minorities in particular, the Democrats now seek to reinstate it — all in the name of “racial equity.”

Criminal Justice

Alleged Racism in the System: Lamenting that “too many people are incarcerated in the United States – and too many of them are black and brown,” the Biden campaign stated that “our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system.”

Joe Biden says there is “absolutely” systemic racism in law-enforcement.

Alternatives to Incarceration:  Biden proposed to “create a new $20 billion competitive grant program to spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention.” This money would be given to help states, counties, and cities initiate “efforts to address some of the factors like illiteracy and child abuse that are correlated with incarceration.” The overall objective would be to “get people who should be supported with social services – instead of in our prisons – connected to the help they need.”

Death Penalty: Biden calls for the abolition of capital punishment, on grounds that it is applied unfairly and it runs the risk of taking the lives of innocent people.

The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats continue to support abolishing the death penalty.”

Cash Bail: Biden wishes to end the cash bail system because it “disproportionately affects low-income Americans — those who can’t afford to post bond.” Instead, he favors a system that would release all defendants prior to their trial, except those charged with the most serious, violent crimes.

Said the Biden campaign: “Cash bail is the modern-day debtors’ prison. The cash bail system incarcerates people who are presumed innocent. And, it disproportionately harms low-income individuals. Biden will lead a national effort to end cash bail and reform our pretrial system by putting in place, instead, a system that is fair and does not inject further discrimination or bias into the process.”

The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats support eliminating the use of cash bail and believe no one should be imprisoned merely for failing to pay fines or fees.”^[9]

Drug Crimes: Biden would “end all incarceration for drug use alone and instead divert individuals to drug courts and treatment.” He has clearly stated that “nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime” or “for a drug problem” of any kind.

Asserting that “no one should be in prison solely because they use drugs,” the 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats will decriminalize marijuana use…. All past criminal convictions for cannabis use should be automatically expunged.”

Cocaine Sentencing Disparities: Biden calls for the termination of all sentencing disparities for crimes involving crack or powder cocaine. For a detailed explanation of this, see Footnote #10, below.^[10]

Mandatory Minimum Sentences: Biden would end mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses — sentences which were significantly expanded at the federal level in 1986.

Private Prisons: Biden aims to eliminate all private prisons, and to have only government-run prisons, so as to “stop corporations from profiteering off of incarceration.”

Decriminalizing Marijuana: Biden favors the decriminalization of marijuana at the federal level, and the automatic expungement of all past convictions for marijuana possession.

Police Misconduct: Biden would expand the power of the U.S. Justice Department “to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices.”

Housing Assistance for Ex-Convicts: Citing “a national goal of ensuring 100% of formerly incarcerated individuals have housing upon reentry” into society, Biden pledged that he would direct the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to “only contract with entities that are open to housing individuals looking for a second chance.”

Protecting Deportable Criminal Aliens: Democrats seek to make it more difficult to deport criminals who are in the U.S. illegally. In December 2019, Democratic Rep. Jesús García introduced the New Way Forward Act, which was subsequently co-sponsored by 44 additional House Democrats. This bill changed an existing law which had made it permissible to deport illegal aliens who committed felonies that were punishable by at least one year in prison. The new legislation said that no illegal alien could be deported unless he had committed a crime punishable by at least five full years in prison. The Daily Wire reports that the legislation also called for “the widespread return” — at taxpayer expense — “of criminal illegal aliens who have been previously deported from the country … since April 1996 — if they would have otherwise been considered undeportable under the terms of this ^[2019] bill.” These would include people deported for their involvement in crimes like auto theft, gun offenses, drug trafficking, child abuse, rape, and manslaughter.

Defunding the Police: In the aftermath of the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd, a movement arose calling for the defunding of police forces in cities across the United States. At least 13 Democrat-governed cities voted to defund their police departments to varying degrees. For example, annual police budgets were cut by $150 million in Los Angeles, $150 million in Austin, $120 million in San Francisco, and $1 billion in New York.

Democrats’ Plan to Eliminate the Suburbs

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: The 2020 Democratic Party Platform says: “Democrats will vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing [AFFH] rule, and the disparate impact standard, and hold lenders accountable for discriminatory practices.”

Stanley Kurtz, a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has provided the best and clearest explanation of AFFH and its radical objective, which is to empower cities “to annex their surrounding suburbs.” When President Obama and Joe Biden first began to implement the policy in 2015, Kurtz wrote:

“AFFH obligates any local jurisdiction that receives HUD funding to conduct a detailed analysis of its housing occupancy by race [and] ethnicity … Grantees must … account for any imbalance in living patterns…. Localities must then develop a plan to remedy these imbalances, subject to approval by HUD….

“[T]hose suburbs could be obligated to nullify their zoning ordinances and build high-density, low-income housing at their own expense. [They] would have to direct advertising to potential minority occupants in the [neighboring urban] region…. Even with no allegation or evidence of intentional discrimination, the mere existence of a demographic imbalance in the region as a whole must be remedied by a given suburb. Suburbs will literally be forced to import population from elsewhere, at their own expense and in violation of their own laws…. In effect, they will become more like the cities their residents chose to leave in the first place.”

This policy is enormously significant from a political standpoint, because it will tend to shift people who are disproportionately Democrats from the cities to the suburbs, thereby increasing the number of majority-Democrat suburbs and Congressional Districts.

The AFFH rule was mostly gutted by the Trump administration soon after Trump took office in 2017. In July 2020, the president officially repealed what was left of the AFFH. As Trump tweeted at the time: “I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule.” Joe Biden and the Democrats, however, would reinstitute it.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Biden & Democrats Support the Deal: On July 14, 2015, the Obama-Biden administration — along with the leaders of Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany — together finalized a nuclear agreement with Iran. Its official name was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The key elements of the deal were the following:

• Iran was permitted to keep and operate more than 5,000 nuclear centrifuges, machines necessary for enriching uranium to the degree necessary for the production of nuclear weapons.
• Iran received $150 billion in revenue from sanctions relief, even though Obama-Biden acknowledged that Iran would likely use some portion of that money to fund its military and terrorist activies.
• Iran was prohibited from purchasing weapons from other countries for five years, and from buying missile technology for eight years. But there were two enormously significant exceptions: Russia and China could continue to make weapons deals with Iran.
• Iran was given the discretion to block international inspectors from its military installations.
• Only inspectors from countries that had diplomatic relations with Iran would be given access to Iranian nuclear sites. Thus, there would be no American inspectors.
• Sanctions were lifted on critical parts of Iran’s military, including a previously existing travel ban against Qasem Suleimani, leader of the terrorist Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Iran would not be required to renounce terrorism against the United States, as the Obama-Biden administration deemed such an expectation “unrealistic.”
• Iran would not be required to affirm its “clear and unambiguous … recognition of Israel’s right to exist” — a requirement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pleaded for.
• Whatever restrictions were placed on Iran’s nuclear program, would expire — due to so-called “sunset clauses” — at various times over the ensuing 5 to 11 years.

Joe Biden took on the role of being the Obama administration’s leading public promoter of the Iran deal. He casually dismissed the concerns of critics who warned that the sunset clauses for key parts of the agreement would “pave Iran’s path to a bomb.” Those people, Biden said, simply “don’t get it, they’re wrong.”

Similarly, the 2016 Democratic Party Platform stated: “We support the nuclear agreement with Iran because, as it is vigorously enforced and implemented, it verifiably cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb without resorting to war.”

Biden & Democrats Oppose Trump’s Withdrawal from the Deal: In response to President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018, Joe Biden characterized Trump’s move as “a self-inflicted disaster” that would make “military conflict” and “another war in the Middle East” much “more likely.” Biden has called on Trump to rejoin the Iran agreement.

The Democratic Party’s 2020 Platform states: “The Trump Administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA isolated us from our allies and opened the door for Iran to resume its march toward a nuclear weapons capacity that the JCPOA had stopped. That’s why returning to mutual compliance with the agreement is so urgent.”

Opposing the Trump “Muslim Ban”

Virtually all Americans have heard elected Democrats and the media condemn President Trump’s infamous “Muslim ban.” In January 2020, Joe Biden characterized that “ban” as an ugly expression of “anti-Muslim bias” that was not just “morally wrong,” but also constituted “a betrayal of all our foundations of American history and American freedom, religious freedom.” Six months later, Biden thundered: “Muslim communities were the first to feel Donald Trump’s assault on Black and brown communities in this country with his vile Muslim ban.”

The term “Muslim ban,” as employed by Biden and fellow Democrats, refers to the fact that President Trump, professing a desire “to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America,” issued a 2017 executive order calling for a temporary suspension of most travel and refugee admissions to the U.S. from seven nations that were hotbeds of Islamic terrorism and/or civil war: Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria. The order also mandated the implementation of an “extreme vetting” process for any and all immigrants and visitors to the U.S.

And how did Trump arrive at his list of targeted nations? Was the list merely a manifestation of what Joe Biden has characterized as Trump’s innate propensity to “fa[n] the flames of hate in this country” and thereby ignite “an unconscionable rise in Islamophobia”?

Not at all. In fact, Trump selected  precisely the same seven countries that had been named in the Visa Waiver Program Improvement & Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, which passed easily through Congress and was signed into law by President Obama in December 2015. In January 2020, Trump altered and expanded the list so as to exclude certain nationals from thirteen countries, Muslim and non-Muslim alike: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Burma, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, and Venezuela.

Supreme Court

Packing the Court: During an October 2018 public forum, Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that if Democrats could gain control of Congress and the White House, they should “pack the Supreme Court of the United States of America.” “Packing” the Court would entail increasing the number of Justices — from 9 to perhaps 13 or 15 — with all the additions being activists who could be counted upon to rule in favor of Democrat agenda items. The issue gained additional traction in October 2020, when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Joe Biden repeatedly refused to give his opinion on Court-packing: “You’ll know my opinion on Court-packing when the election is over,” he told reporters in early October 2020.

In September 2020, a journalist asked Biden: “Have you ruled out expanding the Supreme Court, as president, under any circumstances whatsoever?” Biden replied: “[W]hat I’m not going to do is play the Trump game, which is a good game he plays. Take your eye off the issue before us. If I were to say yes or no to that, that becomes a big issue. That’s the headline here. I am focused on one thing right now. And I really mean it. I’m focused on making sure the American people understand that they’re being cut out of this process they’re entitled to be part of, and the cut-out is designed in order to take away the ACA [Affordable Care Act] and your health care in the midst of a pandemic. That’s the focus. That’s what it’s on. And that’s the deal.” Biden then ended the questioning.

In October 2020, a reporter asked Biden, “don’t the voters deserve to know [your position on Court-packing]?” Biden answered: “No, they don’t.”

During an interview on MSNBC, Senator Kamala Harris stated that she supported Biden’s position “1,000 percent” in refusing to say whether he supported expanding the Supreme Court. Said Harris: “Joe’s been very clear that he is going to pay attention to the fact — and I’m with him on this 1,000 percent — pay attention to the fact that right now … people are voting. They’re voting…. People will be voting up until Election Day, and they have a right, in an election, to elect their next president, who then will make the decision about who will be the nominee.”

But in 2019, Harris had said the following about the possibility of packing the Court: “We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court. We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.”

The Coronavirus Crisis

Condemning President Trump’s Response to the Crisis: According to the official Democratic Party Platform of 2020: “President Trump’s abject failure to respond forcefully and capably to the COVID-19 pandemic — his failure to lead — makes him responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.”  “If the president had done his job … from the beginning,” says Joe Biden, “all the people would still be alive.” In the 2020 vice presidential debate, Kamala Harris characterized Trump’s response to coronavirus as “the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”

The Facts About Trump’s Response: Contrary to the foregoing remarks, President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic stands as one of the most impressive demonstrations of political leadership in living memory. Let us examine the facts.

As early as September of 2019, Chinese medical authorities first noticed a new, unfamiliar type of coronavirus in a number of patients in the city of Wuhan. But those authorities kept this discovery a secret for more than three months, during which time they continued to discover new cases of the virus on a regular basis. A University of Southampton study estimates that the number of coronavirus cases worldwide could have been reduced by 95%, had China taken steps to contain the virus, and to alert the rest of the world about it, just three weeks sooner.

On January 21, 2020, the U.S. confirmed its first known case of coronavirus in a young man who had recently traveled to Wuhan.

Eight days later, President Trump created a White House Coronavirus Task Force to coordinate the federal government’s response to the virus outbreak and to keep the American people as informed about it as possible.

At that time, congressional Democrats were giving precisely ZERO attention to the coronavirus threat. They had not held even a single hearing — for even a single moment — about the matter. Instead, they had spent the preceding four months entirely obsessed with one agenda item: impeaching President Trump and trying to remove him from office. The Senate impeachment trial, which had commenced on January 21, was still in high gear. Coronavirus was, quite literally, the last thing on any of their minds.

On January 31, President Trump formally declared coronavirus to be a public health emergency and became the first national leader in the world to implement a ban on travel from China to the United States. There had not yet been a single known American death from the virus.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, a lead member of the Coronavirus Task Force, later noted that “the very timely decision on the part of the president to shut off travel from China” had “absolutely” gone “a long way” toward limiting the number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. “We did it early,” said Fauci, adding: “When the infection burden shifted from China to Europe, we did the same thing. We shut off travel from Europe, which again was another safeguard to prevent influx from without, in.”  Moreover, Fauci stated that the Trump administration’s “coordinated response” to the crisis had been “impressive.” “I can’t imagine that, under any circumstances, anybody could be doing more,” said the doctor. Fauci also made it clear, in March 2020, that Trump “has never overruled me” vis-à-vis following the science, rather than political concerns, in combating the virus.

Biden Accuses Trump of “Hysteria” and Xenophobia”: On February 1 — the day after Trump’s announcement of the China travel ban — Joe Biden depicted the president as an anti-Asian racist: “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering,” he said.

Allegation of Biden Committing Sexual Assault

On March 25, 2020, podcaster Katie Halper interviewed Ms. Reade, a committed Democrat who had supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, and whose first two choices for president in 2020 were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. In the interview, Reade, who had worked as a Senate assistant for Joe Biden for about eight months in 1992-93, said that one day in the spring of ’93 Biden had pushed her up against a wall, reached up underneath her skirt, inserted two of his fingers into her vagina, and asked her: “Do you want to go somewhere else?” (In 2012, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller — in response to “the voices of survivors, advocates, law enforcement personnel and many others” — had added precisely this type of physical violation to the list of actions that the Bureau defined as “forcible rape.”)

Not long after she had been violated in this way by Biden, says Reade, she recounted the incident to her brother and to a female friend — both of whom today confirm that Reade did in fact tell them the story of Biden’s transgression many years ago.

Reade also says that she described the assault, soon after it happened, to a therapist and to her own mother. At least part of this claim is corroborated by the fact that in 1993 Reade’s mother called then-CNN host Larry King to seek on-air advice on how she might be able to help her daughter deal with an injustice she had suffered in her Capitol Hill workplace. An audio recording of that phone call has been recovered by the Media Research Center.

Two additional women — former neighbor Lynda LaCasse and former co-worker Lorraine Sanchez — have also come forward to verify the fact that Reade told them about the Biden incident in the 1990s. LaCasse describes herself as “a very strong Democrat” who is “for Biden, regardless” of what he did to Reade.

Despite the serious nature of the charges, the American news media has largely turned a blind eye to Reade’s allegations. Consider a few remarkable numbers.

• On September 15, 2018, The Washington Post published its first story about Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual-assault claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Three weeks later — on October 6, 2018 — the Senate voted to confirm Kavanaugh. During the 21 days in between, The Post produced approximately 760 news articles and opinion pieces about the Kavanaugh-Ford affair. The vast majority of those stories trashed Kavanaugh and were sympathetic to Ford.
• By contrast, Tara Reade went public with her sexual-assault charge against Joe Biden in a podcast interview on March 25, 2020, when she reported that Biden had digitally raped her when she was an employee in his Senate office. During the 21 days after Ms. Reade went public with her story, The Washington Postpublished a grand total of precisely 4 articles or op-ed pieces about the case. The 21-day ratio for Post coverage of the Kavanaugh and Biden stories was 760 to 4 — or, to put it another way, 190 to 1. In fact, the paper did not publish even a single story about Reade’s claims against Biden until April 12 — fully eighteen days after the accuser publicly announced that Biden had sexually assaulted her.

The media’s refusal to cover the Reade allegations against Biden is made even more remarkable by the fact that in 2018 — while Christine Blasey Ford was accusing Brett Kavanaugh of a past sexual assault — none other than Joe Biden himself had pronounced the following: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time. But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron.”

More from Biden’s 2020 Presidential Campaign

Misrepresenting Himself As “Middle Class”

A few days after the launch of Biden’s presidential campaign, National Review wrote: “Biden insists that he’s been ‘referred to for the last 35 years in Washington as Middle-Class Joe,’ despite no record of anyone else ever calling him that.” Added National Review: “[Biden] proclaimed that he didn’t ‘own a single stock or bond . . .  I have no savings accounts.’ His wife Jill had plenty of stock and bond investments and the couple had five savings accounts in both their names.”

Refusing to Condemn the Massive Nationwide Violence of Black Lives Matter & Antifa

Countless thousands of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa rioters spent the spring, summer, and fall of 2020 tearing apart scores of American cities and burning large swaths of those cities to the ground, purportedly in response to the May 25 death in Minneapolis of a black man named George Floyd following his physical altercation with a white police officer. Through these many months of mayhem, Biden chose not to condemn the rioters and looters for their violence. Indeed, he remained silent until August 26 — when it was becoming apparent that his silence was causing his performance in political polls to drop. But even Biden’s criticism of BLM and Antifa was tepid: “The needless violence won’t heal us,” he said.

Biden’s Silence While Catholic Churches Were Vandalized in 2020

When a large number of Catholic churches and statues in states like Massachusetts, Florida, Montana, Tennessee, California, and Connecticut were being attacked and vandalized by Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters throughout the spring and summer of 2020, Biden remained entirely silent. Said the conservative political advocacy group CatholicVote in early September 2020: “Catholic churches across America are literally burning, and Joe Biden has said nothing. Leading members of the Democratic Party have fueled a climate of hate against Catholics, and these attacks have now led to acts of vandalism and violence. These attacks on the Church raise serious questions about the commitment of Joe Biden, a self-professed Catholic, to stand up to the rising climate of anti-Catholicism across the country.”

Biden Lies About His Encounter with a Navy Captain

In an August 2019 campaign appearance in New Hampshire, Biden told a poignant story of a four-star general who allegedly had asked him, when he was vice-president, to travel to Kunar province in Afghanistan in order to award a Silver Star to a Navy captain who had rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire to retrieve the body of a slain American soldier. In his story, Biden said that when he was warned in advance about how dangerous such a trip would be, he replied, “We can lose a vice president. We can’t lose many more of these kids. Not a joke.” Biden then claimed that when he subsequently attempted to pin the medal on the Navy captain, the latter — distraught that he had not been able to save the aforementioned soldier’s life — told Biden: “Sir, I don’t want the damn thing! Do not pin it on me, Sir! Please, Sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!” “This is the God’s truth,” Biden concluded. “My word as a Biden.”

Noting that “almost every detail in the story appears to be incorrect,” The Washington Post — after interviewing more than a dozen U.S. troops, their commanders, and Biden campaign officials in an effort to verify the details of the story — explained how Biden had conflated different events in order to create his fictitious tale. Said the Post:

“Biden visited Kunar province in 2008 as a U.S. senator, not as vice president. The service member who performed the celebrated rescue that Biden described was a 20-year-old Army specialist, not a much older Navy captain. And that soldier, Kyle J. White, never had a Silver Star, or any other medal, pinned on him by Biden. At a White House ceremony six years after Biden’s visit, White stood at attention as President Barack Obama placed a Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, around his neck. The upshot: In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony.”

National Review cited a pair of additional fabricated stories which Biden had previously told regarding his interaction with the alleged Silver Star recipient:

“Biden also employed the story of the fictitious Navy captain during a World War II memorial event in Australia in 2016. In that telling, the captain ‘climbed down about 200 feet’ into a ravine in Afghanistan to rescue a comrade. Then, while stumping for Hillary Clinton that same year, Biden told the story of an Army captain who pulled a soldier out of a burning vehicle in Iraq but resisted the resulting medal. ‘He died. He died, Mr. Vice President,’ Biden recalled the officer saying. ‘I don’t want the medal.’”

Consistently Confused, Disoriented, & Incoherent

While President Trump was granting interviews on a daily basis to friendly and hostile media outlets alike, and was holding campaign rallies that drew tens of thousands of passionate supporters, Biden, for the most part, spent the entire campaign season in his home, rarely even agreeing to give brief video interviews. Biden and his campaign attributed this to their concerns about staging any large public gatherings while the coronavirus pandemic was affecting so many Americans. But on the few occasions when Biden did take part in interviews, he was typically disoriented, confused, incoherent, and seemingly exhausted. And when he held “rallies,” they were invariably awkward, uninspired events mired in pessimistic rhetoric and attended only by tiny handfuls of people. To view some examples of such occurrences, click on the following links: Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link. For a montage of numerous videos, click this Link.

Biden Mistakenly Says He Is a Candidate “for the United States Senate”

In a February 24, 2020 campaign appearance in South Carolina, Biden mistakenly described himself as a candidate for a Senate seat rather than for the presidency:  “[Y]ou’re the ones who sent Barck Obama to the presidency, and I have a simple proposition here. I’m here to ask you for your help…. My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over, if you like what you see, help out. If not, vote for the other Biden. Give me a look, though. okay?”

Biden Mistakenly Says He Negotiated the 2016 Paris Climate Accord with Chinese Leader Deng Xiaoping (Who Died in 1997)

On February 24, 2020, Biden, while citing his accomplishments in President Barack Obama’s administration, mistakenly claimed that he had worked on the 2016 Paris Climate Accord with former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping — who left office in 1992 and died in 1997. “One of the things I’m proudest of is getting passed, getting moved, getting in control of the Paris Climate Accord,” said Biden. “I’m the guy who came back after meeting with Deng Xiaoping and making the case that I believe China will join if we put pressure on them. We got almost 200 nations to join.” It was President Xi Jinping who signed China onto the 2016 agreement.

Biden Mistakenly Vows to Appoint First Black Woman to “Senate”

During a February 28, 2020 stump speech in Sumter, South Carolina, Biden pledged to “appoint” the first black woman to the “Senate,” where members are elected rather than appointed, and where two black women (Carol Moseley Braun and Kamala Harris) had already served. Biden likely meant to say “Supreme Court” rather than “Senate.”

Biden Lies About His Visit to Nelson Mandela

In February 2020, Biden suddenly began claiming that he had been arrested many years earlier in Soweto, a city in northeast South Africa, while on his way (with a congressional delegation) to visit then-anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. “This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid,” Biden said during a campaign stop in South Carolina. “I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador [Andrew Young] on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.” Later that same week in February 2020, Biden mentioned the arrest two more times, claiming that he had been arrested in between attempts to persuade Jill Stevenson, the woman who would become his second wife, to agree to marry him. That meant the arrest would have occurred in 1977, the year in which both the marriage proposal and the wedding took place.

Biden ended his story by claiming that Mandela himself had subsequently thanked him for getting arrested while trying to visit the South African activist. “After he got free and became president [in 1994], he came to Washington and came to my office,” Biden said in Las Vegas. “He threw his arms around me and said, ‘I want to say thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.’”

But Biden’s story was dubious, as The New York Times reported: “[I]f Mr. Biden, then a United States senator from Delaware, was in fact arrested while trying to visit Mr. Mandela, he did not mention it in his 2007 memoir when writing about a 1970s trip to South Africa, and he has not spoken of it prominently on the 2020 campaign trail. A check of available news accounts by The New York Times turned up no references to an arrest. South African arrest records are not readily available in the United States.”

Casting additional doubt on Biden’s story is the fact that during the time period in question, Mandela was being held in a prison on Robben Island, near the southwest part of South Africa, some 900 miles away from Soweto. Biden’s campaign did not respond to five separate attempts by the Times to have the campaign clarify the events in question.

Andrew Young, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1977-79, said he had traveled to South Africa with Biden but had never been arrested. Young was skeptical, moreover, of the notion that any members of the U.S. Congress would have been at risk of arrest in South Africa at that time. “No, I was never arrested and I don’t think he was, either,” Young told the Times. “Now, people were being arrested in Washington. I don’t think there was ever a situation where congressmen were arrested in South Africa.”

On February 25, 2020, Biden’s presidential campaign backed away from the candidate’s claim that he had been arrested while attempting to visit Nelson Mandela in the 1970s. Said Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield: “He was separated from his party at the airport. They, he was not allowed to go through the same door that the — the rest of the party he was with. Obviously, it was apartheid South Africa. There was a white door, there was a black door. He did not want to go through the white door and have the rest of the party go through the black door. He was separated. This was during a trip while they were there in Johannesburg. When making that remark, he was talking about his long record fighting apartheid; he was one of the leading voices in the United States Senate in the ’80s.”

On February 28, 2020, Biden personally walked back his claim about his alleged arrest in South Africa. He said in an interview on CNN:

“When I said arrested, I meant I was not able to, I was not able to move. Cops, Afrikaaners, were not letting me go with them, made me stay where I was. I guess I wasn’t arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go. They had me get off a plane — the Afrikaaners got on in the short pants and their guns. Led me off first and moved me in a direction totally different. I turned around and everybody, the entire black delegation, was going another way. I said, ‘I’m not going to go in that door that says ‘White only.’ I’m going with them.’ They said, ‘You’re not, you can’t move, you can’t go with them.’ And they kept me there until finally I decided that it was clear I wasn’t going to move. And so what they finally did, they said OK, they’re not going to make the congressional delegation go through the black door, they’re not going to make me go through the white door.”

Biden Botches the Words of the Declaration of Independence

During a March 2, 2020 campaign rally — one day before the so-called “Super Tuesday” presidential primaries in 14 separate states — Biden tried to recite the Declaration of Independence but bungled the words badly, saying: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women created by — go, you know the, you know the thing.” The Declaration of Independence actually reads as follows: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Biden also mistakenly referred to Super Tuesday as “Super Thursday” before correcting himself.

“You Ain’t Black”

Near the end of a May 2020 interview on The Breakfast Club, a radio program popular with black listeners and hosted by a man calling himself Charlamagne tha God, the host told Biden that he would like to ask him some additional questions before the November election. In response, Biden said: “I tell you, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Biden Visits Scene of Race Riot & Vows That “I Will Listen” As President

While a number of U.S. cities were still being overrun for by violent riots that began in the aftermath of the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd — a black Minneapolis man who had died after apparent abuse by a white police officer — Biden visited the site of a recent riot in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware. In a tweet acknowledging the visit, Biden wrote: “We are a nation in pain right now, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us. As President, I will help lead this conversation — and more importantly, I will listen, just as I did today visiting the site of last night’s protests in Wilmington.”

The 2020 Presidential Election & Voter Fraud

After two months of controversy over the results of the election, Congress convened a joint session on January 6, 2021, to count electoral votes by state and confirm the result. As president of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence presided over the proceedings. On January 7 he declared Biden the victor with 306 electoral votes.

The election was marred by a host of unconstitutional changes to the election laws of numerous states — changes that were implemented as a result of hundreds of lawsuits filed by Democrats, particularly in the key battleground states. In addition, the election was marred by a massive amount of fraud — all of which favored the Democrats — in those same battleground states.

• For details about the unconstitutional election-law changes and the rampant fraud that cast the result of the 2020 presidential race into question, click here.

President-Elect Joe Biden

Biden Does Not Know the Name of His Nominee for the Cabinet Post of HHS Secretary

On December 8, 2020, Biden, in his official announcement that he would nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra Xavier Becerra to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), badly mispronounced Becerra’s name. Biden also mistakenly referred to HHS as the Department of “Health and Education Services.” The two gaffes came just seconds apart. To see a video of these two gaffes, click here.

Biden Compares 2 Republican Senators to Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels

President-elect Biden condemned Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz for supporting a bid to block certification of Biden’s electoral victory in two states even after a mob of protesters had breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Biden went so far as to liken the two senators to the infamous Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels:

“I think the American public has a good clear look at who they are. They’re part of the Big Lie. Goebbels [said] in the Great Lie, you keep repeating the lie, repeating the lie. Well there was a print that when Dresden was firebombed, there were 2,500 people that were killed. Goebbels said 250,000 were killed, and our papers printed that. It’s the Big Lie. It’s one thing for one man to repeat it over again. By the way, Trump said that before he ran. ‘If you say it enough, I’m going to convince you. I’ll say it enough. The press is bad, the press is bad, the press is bad, the press is bad.’  If he’s the only one saying it, it’s one thing. But the acolytes that follow him are as responsible as he is. It’s not about whether or not they get impeached, it’s about whether or not they can continue to hold power because of the disgust the American people have for their actions. There are decent people out there who actually believe these lies, because they’ve heard it again and again.”

Reacting to Trump Supporters Swarming the Capitol: Biden Calls Them “Thugs,” “Domestic Terrorists,” and “White Supremacists” and Says That Police Are Racist

On January 7, 2021 — in response to a January 6 incident where several hundred Trump supporters had swarmed into the Capitol building in Washington to protest what they viewed as an illegitimate presidential election outcome — Biden made the following remarks to the nation:

“Yesterday, in my view, was one of the darkest days in the history of our nation…. They weren’t protesters — don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob of insurrectionists, domestic terrorists…. The past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of law clear in everything he has done. He unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy from the outset. And yesterday was the culmination of that unrelenting attack.

“He’s attacked the free press who dared to question his power, repeatedly calling the free press ‘the enemy of the people.’ Language at the time he first used it, I and others said, has long been used by autocrats and dictators all over the world to hold on to power …

“He’s attacked our intelligence services, who dared tell the American people the truth about the effort of a foreign power to elect him four years ago, choosing instead to believe the word of Vladimir Putin over the word of those who sworn their allegiance to this nation, many of whom had risked their lives in the service of this nation.

“He deployed the United States military, tear-gassing peaceful protesters in pursuit of a photo opportunity in the service of his reelection, even holding the Bible upside down….

“He thought he could stack the courts with friendly judges, who would support him no matter what. They were ‘Trump judges,’ his judges. He went so far as to say he needed nine justices on the Supreme Court because, because he thought the election would end up in the Supreme Court and they would hand him the election. He was stunned, truly stunned, when the judges he appointed didn’t do his bidding, instead acted with integrity, following the Constitution, upholding the rule of law — not just once or twice or three times, but over 60 times…. Looked at the allegations that Trump was making and determined they were without any merit….

“And then yesterday … Inciting a mob to attack the Capitol, to threaten elected representatives of the people of this nation, and even the vice president, to stop the Congress from ratifying the will of the American people in a just-completed free and fair election….

“A little over an hour and a half after the chaos started, I got a text from my granddaughter, Finnegan Biden, who is a senior in her last semester, the University of Pennsylvania. She sent me a photo of military people in full military gear. Scores of them lining the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Because of protests by Black Lives Matter. She said, ‘Pop. This isn’t fair.’

“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that’s true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The American people saw it in plain view. And I hope it’s sensitized them to what we have to do….

“When Justice Garland and I were talking we talked about, I think he raised it, the reason for the Justice Department was formed in the first place. Was back in 1870. We didn’t have a Justice Department before that, the Cabinet. It was formed in 1870 to enforce the civil rights amendment that grew out of the Civil War — the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. To stand up to the Klan, to stand up to racism. To take on domestic terrorism. This original spirit must again guide and animate its work.”

In short, Biden and the Democrats resolved to exploit the events of January 6 at the Capitol to the fullest extent possible. Following are the key assertions and passages from Biden’s speech that: (a) sought to portray Trump as an evil president whose political agenda should be permanently rejected, and (b) gave a clear indication of what the Biden administration planned to promote as a worldview and as law:

• Biden said that Trump’s supporters in the Capitol on January 6 were “thugs” and “domestic terrorists,” though he had never made any similar claim against the ountless thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters who had spent the spring, summer, and fall of 2021 tearing apart scores of American cities and burning large swaths of those cities to the ground.
• Biden said that Trump had “attacked” “the free press” and “our intelligence services.”
• Biden said that Trump had once — on June 1, 2020 — “deployed the United States military, tear-gassing peaceful protesters in pursuit of a photo opportunity [at a Washington church that had been damaged by leftwing rioters] … even holding a Bible upside-down.” (NOTE: In the speech he delivered just before walking to the church to take the photo, Trump lauded “the righteous … and peaceful protesters” and called himself “your president of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters.” And the claim that Trump held the Bible upside-down is false.)
• Biden said that Trump had “inciti[ed] a mob to attack the Capitol [and] to stop the Congress from ratifying the will of the American people in a just-completed free and fair election.” (NOTE: There is no evidence whatsoever that even remotely suggests that Trump encouraged his supporters to engage in lawlessness or violence. In fact, he explicitly said: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” For a complete transcript of Trump’s remarks, click here.)
• Biden said that Trump “thought he could stack the courts with friendly judges” and “went so far as to say he needed nine justices on the Supreme Court.” (NOTE: Here, Biden deceptively and subtly changed the long-understood meaning of “stacking the courts,” and set the stage for an effort to stack, or “pack,” the Supreme Court with additional Justices.)
• Biden said: “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol” — a clear assertion by Biden that intransigent racism continues to rest at the heart of the American character and the criminal-justice system.
• Biden implied that conservative voices of dissent and protest are indistinguishable “the Klan,” “racism,” and “domestic terrorism,” and that they must be aggressively thwarted by “the Justice Department.”

Nineteen days later, on January 26, Biden would refer to those who stormed the Capitol as “a group of thugs, insurrectionists, political extremists, and white supremacists.”

Biden Pledges to Restore Transgender “Access” in School Sports, Bathrooms, & Locker Rooms

On January 14, 2020, Biden promised that on “his first day in office” as president, he would fulfill his campaign website’s pledge to “reinstate the Obama-Biden guidance revoked by the Trump-Pence Administration, which will restore transgender students’ access to sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity.” That item on the Biden campaign website linked to the “Obama-Biden guidance” which had been issued by the Obama Justice Department and Department of Education on May 13, 2016 and said, in part:

“Gender identity refers to an individual’s internal sense of gender. A person’s gender identity may be different from or the same as the person’s sex assigned at birth…. A transgender male is someone who identifies as male but was assigned the sex of female at birth; a transgender female is someone who identifies as female but was assigned the sex of male at birth…. [A] school must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity…. A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so…. A school may not … adopt or adhere to requirements that rely on overly broad generalizations or stereotypes about the differences between transgender students and other students of the same sex (i.e., the same gender identity) or others’ discomfort with transgender students…. [T]here is no medical diagnosis or treatment requirement that students must meet as a prerequisite to being treated consistent with their gender identity.”

Inauguration Day: Biden Fails to Salute Marines

On the morning of Inauguration Day — January 20, 2021 — Biden, as is customary prior to a presidential swearing-in ceremony, attended a service at Washington’s Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. After slowly walking up the church steps with his wife, Biden turned and waved, as if waving to onlookers, but there was no one watching. The only people present were a few politicians, some media, and some marines. When Biden then entered the church, he broke custom and did not salute the Marines at the door. He spoke some words, however, as he walked past them. Biden either said: (a) “Good-looking Marines,” or (b) “Salute the Marines,” as if he might have been repeating what he heard someone speak to him through an earpiece.

President Joe Biden

Biden’s First Day in Office: 19 Executive Actions — Contradicting His Recent Assertion That Only “a Dictator” Governs by Means of Executive Orders

During an October 15, 2020 town hall, moderator George Stephanopoulos had asked Biden, in response to Biden’s emphasis on the urgent need for tax hikes: “So, there’s not going to be any delay on the tax increases?” In a grammatically awkward and incoherent reply, Biden said that governance by means of executive orders is something that only “a dictator” would do: “No, well, I’ve got to get the votes. I got to get the votes. That’s why — you know, the one thing that I — I have this strange notion. We are a democracy. Some of my Republican friends and some of my Democratic friends even occasionally say, ‘Well, if you can’t get the votes by executive order, you’re going to do something.’ Things you can’t do by executive order unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy. We need consensus.”

Notwithstanding his recent assertion that executive orders are the tools of “a dictator,” President Biden, on his first official day in office — January 20, 2021 — signed 19 executive actions. These included 10 executive orders along with 4 memoranda, 2 requests, 1 proclamation, 1 instrument signing, and 1 additional action. Below is a list of these 19 items:

(1) Requiring Mask-Wearing for Federal Workers (executive order): “[O]n-duty or on-site Federal employees, on-site Federal contractors, and other individuals in Federal buildings and on Federal lands should all wear masks, maintain physical distance, and adhere to other public health measures, as provided in CDC guidelines.”  This executive order is supplemented by a so-called “100 Days Masking Challenge” asking people to wear face masks for 100 days to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

• Biden Immediately Violates His Own Decree: On the evening of Biden’s first day in office — January 20, 2021 — Biden went maskless for a photo shoot with his family at the Lincoln Memorial, despite having issued a mask mandate for all people on federal property just a few hours earlier. On January 21, 2021, Biden again appeared on federal property without a mask, this time at the White House.

(2) Rejoin the WHO (ending a withdrawal process): Resume engagement with the World Health Organization, reversing the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the WHO.

(3) Create the Positions of COVID-19 Response Coordinator & Deputy Coordinator (executive order): These two individuals will “advise and assist the President and executive departments and agencies in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

(4) Moratorium on Evictions & Foreclosures (request): Extend the federal moratorium on evictions and foreclosures which was enacted in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

(5) Pause on Student Loan Payments (request): Extend the pause on student loans, asking the Department of Education to consider extending the pause on interest and principal payments for direct federal loans until at least September 30.

(6) Rejoin Paris Climate Agreement (signing of an instrument): Rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change, an agreement from which President Trump had withdrawn the U.S.

(7) Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis (executive order):

• “It is… the policy of my Administration to listen to the science; to improve public health and protect our environment; to ensure access to clean air and water; to limit exposure to dangerous chemicals and pesticides; to hold polluters accountable, including those who disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change; to restore and expand our national treasures and monuments; and to prioritize both environmental justice and the creation of the well-paying union jobs necessary to deliver on these goals.”
• “[P]lace a temporary moratorium on all activities of the Federal Government relating to the implementation of the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program … in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge [… pending] a new, comprehensive analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the oil and gas program.”
• “On March 29, 2019, [President Trump] granted to TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, L.P. a Presidential permit (the ‘Permit’) to construct, connect, operate, and maintain pipeline facilities at the international border of the United States and Canada (the ‘Keystone XL pipeline’) … The Permit is hereby revoked….  In 2015, following an exhaustive review, the Department of State and the President determined that approving the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would not serve the U.S. national interest. That analysis, in addition to concluding that the significance of the proposed pipeline for our energy security and economy is limited, stressed that the United States must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy, which will in turn create good jobs. The analysis further concluded that approval of the proposed pipeline would undermine U.S. climate leadership by undercutting the credibility and influence of the United States in urging other countries to take ambitious climate action…. The Keystone XL pipeline disserves the U.S. national interest. The United States and the world face a climate crisis. That crisis must be met with action on a scale and at a speed commensurate with the need to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory.”
• “There is hereby established an Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases.”
• “The heads of all agencies shall immediately review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions … adopted [during the Trump administration] that are or may be inconsistent with … the policy set forth in section 1 of this order.  For any such actions identified by the agencies, the heads of agencies shall … consider suspending, revising, or rescinding the agency actions … [in areas like] Reducing Methane Emissions in the Oil and Gas Sector,… Establishing Ambitious, Job-Creating Fuel Economy Standards,… [adopt] Job-Creating Appliance- and Building-Efficiency Standards,… [and] Protecting Our Air from Harmful Pollution.”  This could cause government agencies to reverse more than 100 environment-related actions by the Trump administration.

(8) Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities (executive order):

• “[F]or too many, the American Dream remains out of reach. Entrenched disparities in our laws and public policies, and in our public and private institutions, have often denied that equal opportunity to individuals and communities.”
• The federal government will “pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all…. The term ‘equity’ means the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
• “The Federal Government should … allocate resources to address the historic failure to invest sufficiently, justly, and equally in underserved communities, as well as individuals from those communities.”
• “Affirmatively advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our Government.”
• “Many Federal datasets are not disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, income, veteran status, or other key demographic variables.  This lack of data has cascading effects and impedes efforts to measure and advance equity.  A first step to promoting equity in Government action is to gather the data necessary to inform that effort…. There is hereby established an Interagency Working Group on Equitable Data (Data Working Group).”
• Former President Trump’s 1776 Commission — which President Biden described as “offensive,” “counter-factual,” and rooted in “ignorance and lies” — was revoked as a result of this executive order.
• The Trump administration’s “harmful ban on diversity and sensitivity training,” as Biden described it, was likewise rescinded asa result of the principles in this executive order.

(9) Count Non-Citizens for Census Apportionment in Congress (executive order): “We have long guaranteed all of the Nation’s inhabitants representation in the House of Representatives. This tradition … respects the dignity and humanity of every person. Accordingly, the executive branch has always determined the population of each State, for purposes of congressional representation, without regard to whether its residents are in lawful immigration status…. At no point since our Nation’s Founding has a person’s immigration status alone served as a basis for excluding that person from the total population count used in apportionment…. During the 2020 Census, the President [Trump] announced a policy that broke from this long tradition. It aimed to produce a different apportionment base — one that would, to the maximum extent feasible, exclude persons who are not in a lawful immigration status…. Both the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and section 2a(a) of title 2, United States Code, require that the apportionment base of each State, for the purpose of the reapportionment of Representatives following the decennial census, include all persons whose usual place of residence was in that State as of the designated census date, regardless of their immigration status…. Executive Order 13880 of July 11, 2019 (Collecting Information About Citizenship Status in Connection With the Decennial Census), and the Presidential Memorandum of July 21, 2020 (Excluding Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following the 2020 Census), are hereby revoked.”

(10) Preserve & Fortify DACA (memorandum): “In 2012, during the Obama-Biden Administration, the Secretary of Homeland Security issued a memorandum outlining how, in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the Department of Homeland Security should enforce the Nation’s immigration laws against certain young people.  This memorandum, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) guidance, deferred the removal of certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, have obeyed the law, and stayed in school or enlisted in the military. DACA and associated regulations permit eligible individuals who pass a background check to request temporary relief from removal and to apply for temporary work permits.  DACA reflects a judgment that these immigrants should not be a priority for removal based on humanitarian concerns and other considerations, and that work authorization will enable them to support themselves and their families, and to contribute to our economy, while they remain…. The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall take all actions he deems appropriate, consistent with applicable law, to preserve and fortify DACA.”

(11) End the “Muslim Ban” of President Trump (executive order): Trump’s so-called “Muslim Ban” had barred entry into the United States from primarily Muslim and African countries that were hotbeds of terrorism and extremism, and instruct the State Department to restart visa processing for those affected. But President Biden’s executive order says the following:

“The United States was built on a foundation of religious freedom and tolerance, a principle enshrined in the United States Constitution.  Nevertheless, the previous administration enacted a number of Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations that prevented certain individuals from entering the United States — first from primarily Muslim countries, and later, from largely African countries.  Those actions are a stain on our national conscience and are inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.

“Beyond contravening our values, these Executive Orders and Proclamations have undermined our national security.  They have jeopardized our global network of alliances and partnerships and are a moral blight that has dulled the power of our example the world over.  And they have separated loved ones, inflicting pain that will ripple for years to come. They are just plain wrong. […] Our national security will be enhanced by revoking the Executive Order and Proclamations.”

This executive order also seeks “to ensure that individuals whose immigrant visa applications were denied on the basis of the suspension and restriction on entry imposed by [the Trump policies] may have their applications reconsidered.”

(12) Revision of Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities (executive order): “We must … adhere to due process of law as we safeguard the dignity and well-being of all families and communities. My Administration will reset the policies and practices for enforcing civil immigration laws to align enforcement with these values and priorities. [Thus,] Executive Order 13768 of January 25, 2017 (Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States), is hereby revoked.”

• Executive Order 13768, signed by former President Trump, had prioritized aliens for removal who:
  • “Have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense”;
  • “Have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency” (e.g., placing fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers on I-9 forms and falsely claiming to be legally authorized to work in the United States); or
  • “Have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits” (e.g., welfare and food stamps)

(13) Extend the Deferred Enforced Departure Designation for Liberians in the U.S. (memorandum): “Since 1991, the United States has provided safe haven for Liberians who were forced to flee their country as a result of armed conflict and widespread civil strife, in part through the grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The armed conflict ended in 2003, and TPS for affected Liberian nationals ended effective October 1, 2007.  President Bush then deferred the enforced departure of those Liberians originally granted TPS.  President Obama, in successive memoranda, extended that grant of Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) to March 31, 2018.  President Trump then determined that conditions in Liberia did not warrant a further extension of DED, but that the foreign policy interests of the United States warranted affording an orderly transition period for Liberian DED beneficiaries.  President Trump later extended that DED transition period through March 30, 2020…. I have determined that it is in the foreign policy interests of the United States to defer through June 30, 2022, the removal of any Liberian national, or person without nationality who last habitually resided in Liberia, who is present in the United States and who was under a grant of DED as of January 10, 2021.  I have also determined that any Liberian national, or person without nationality who last habitually resided in Liberia, who is present in the United States and who was under a grant of DED as of January 10, 2021, should have continued employment authorization through June 30, 2022.”

(14) Prohibit Workplace Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity (executive order): “Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love. Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access healthcare and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination.”

• Biden’s mention of the ability to “access healthcare” access was a veiled, deceptive reference to a Trump policy that simply sought to protect religiously affiliated employers, organizations, and medical groups from being forced to pay the enormous costs associated with transgender surgery – a procedure that is morally unacceptable to them.
• Biden’s reference to people being able to “secure a roof over their heads” was an allusion to a Trump policy that allowed federally funded homeless shelters to turn away transgender people. But as Tyler O’Neil explains in PJ Media: “[M]any homeless shelters and adoption agencies are run as religious charities. Mandating that homeless shelters must house biological men who claim to identify as female with vulnerable women is a recipe for disaster, and it violates the religious freedom of faith-based shelters that do not accept transgender ideology.” Requiring such entities to violate their moral and religious values would force many of them to shut down their operations rather than continue to violate their own dearly held principles, and this, in turn, would cause vital services for the needy to be in far shorter supply.

(15) Require Ethics Pledge from All Executive Branch Personnel (executive order): This executive order requires employees appointed to jobs in the Executive Branch to sign an ethics pledge with the goal of restoring and maintaining public trust in government. Signatories must agree to abide by such restrictions as a “Lobbyist Gift Ban,” a “Revolving Door Ban,” and a “Golden Parachute Ban.”

(16) End the Trump Administration’s Regulatory Approval Process (memorandum): This executive order directs the Office of Management & Budget to develop “recommendations for improving and modernizing regulatory review” and, by extension, terminating the Trump administration’s regulatory approval process. It also calls on government agencies to evaluate whether Trump-era regulations were in any way harmful to “public health and safety, economic growth, social welfare, racial justice, environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations.”

• This executive order seeks to undo the Trump administration’s unprecedented measures to cut the size and power of government. In January 2017, for example, Trump signed an executive order that called for the cutting of two regulations for every new regulation proposed.

(17) Freeze any New or Pending Regulations (memorandum): “This memorandum places a freeze on all new regulations that were either drawn up or put into motion by the Trump administration: “With respect to rules that have been sent to the OFR [Office of the Federal Register] but not published in the Federal Register, immediately withdraw them from the OFR for review and approval…. With respect to rules that have been published in the Federal Register, or rules that have been issued in any manner, but have not taken effect, consider postponing the rules’ effective dates for 60 days from the date of this memorandum,… for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy the rules may raise.”

(18) Revoke Certain Executive Orders Regarding Federal Regulation (executive order):

“It is the policy of my Administration to use available tools to confront the urgent challenges facing the Nation, including the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, economic recovery, racial justice, and climate change. To tackle these challenges effectively, executive departments and agencies … must be equipped with the flexibility to use robust regulatory action to address national priorities. This order revokes harmful policies and directives that threaten to frustrate the Federal Government’s ability to confront these problems, and empowers agencies to use appropriate regulatory tools to achieve these goals….

“Executive Order 13771 of January 30, 2017 (Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs), Executive Order 13777 of February 24, 2017 (Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda), Executive Order 13875 of June 14, 2019 (Evaluating and Improving the Utility of Federal Advisory Committees), Executive Order 13891 of October 9, 2019 (Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency Guidance Documents), Executive Order 13892 of October 9, 2019 (Promoting the Rule of Law Through Transparency and Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and Adjudication), and Executive Order 13893 of October 10, 2019 (Increasing Government Accountability for Administrative Actions by Reinvigorating Administrative PAYGO), are hereby revoked….

“In addition, any personnel positions, committees, task forces, or other entities established pursuant to the Executive Orders identified in section 2 of this order … shall be abolished.”

(19) Terminate Border Wall Construction (proclamation): In this proclamation, President Biden states that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border [between the U.S. and Mexico] is not a serious policy solution,” but rather, “is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.” Adds Biden: “I have determined that the declaration of a national emergency at our southern border in [President Trump’s] Proclamation 9844 of February 15, 2019 (Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States), was unwarranted.  It shall be the policy of my Administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall.”

• Biden Had Previously Supported a Border Barrier: Biden’s call for an end to the construction of a border wall was a stark contrast to the position he had articulated on this matter in November 2006, when, in a speech to a South Carolina rotary club, he had touted his own support for the Secure Fence Act – a bill that authorized $1 billion to fund the installation of 700 miles of double-layered fence along the border. Said Biden in 2006: “Folks, I voted for a fence, I voted, unlike most Democrats – and some of you won’t like it – I voted for 700 miles of fence…. And the reason why … I believe the fence is needed does not have anything to do with immigration as much as drugs. And let me tell you something folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons, hear me, tons of everything from byproducts for methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin and it’s all coming up through corrupt Mexico.”

Biden Administration Announces It Will Permanently Codify Roe v. Wade Abortion Rights

On January 22, 2021, the Biden Administration announced that it would seek to codify the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision as permanent law, a move that would allow for legal abortions even if the Court were to someday reverse its ’73 ruling. In a press statement emphasizing its commitment to “codifying Roe v. Wade and appointing judges that respect foundational precedents like Roe,” the Administration said: “In the past four years, reproductive health, including the right to choose, has been under relentless and extreme attack. We are deeply committed to making sure everyone has access to care—including reproductive health care—regardless of income, race, zip code, health insurance status, or immigration status.”

Biden Sends Immigration/Amnesty Bill to Congress on His First Day in Office

On January 20, 2021 — his first day in office as U.S. President — Joe Biden sent to Congress a comprehensive immigration bill — the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 –proposing major overhauls to America’s immigration system. The changes included proposals to:

• create a path to citizenship for the many millions of illegal aliens residing in the United States, allowing them to first apply for temporary legal status, and to then apply for green cards after five years if they pass criminal and national-security background checks and pay their taxes
• allow “Dreamers,” Temporary Protected Status holders, and immigrant farmworkers who are physically present in the United States as of January 1, 2021, to be eligible for green cards immediately, and to apply for citizenship after three years if they pass additional background checks and demonstrate knowledge of English and U.S. civics
• empower the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to waive the presence requirement for anyone who was deported during the Trump administration, if they had been physically present in the U.S. for at least three years prior to removal
• reduce the length of time that family members of legal resident aliens must wait outside the U.S. for green cards.
• eliminate the per-country cap on the issuance of visas and employment-based green cards
• increase access to green cards for workers in lower-wage sectors
• change the word “alien” to “noncitizen” in the immigration laws.

Biden’s Second Day in Office: 11 Executive Actions Related to Coronavirus, Including One That Depicts America As a Racist Nation

On his second day in office, President Biden issued 11 executive actions related to the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. This included 8 executive orders, 2 directives, and 1 memorandum. These items dealt with such matters as preventing shortages of supplies necessary for fighting COVID; making the National Guard available to assist states’ efforts to battle the pandemic; expanding testing, clinical care, and vaccinations related to COVID; improving COVID-related data collection; providing guidance on safely reopening schools; providing guidance for keeping workers safe from COVID; requiring face masks at airports and for other modes of transportation; and supporting international efforts to fight the pandemic.

Particularly noteworthy was an order calling for the creation of a Covid-19 Health Equity Task Force (HETF) to “ensure an equitable pandemic response.” This executive order was founded on the premises that: “people of color experience systemic and structural racism in many facets of our society and are more likely to become sick and die from COVID-19”; “other communities … are also disproportionately affected by COVID-19, including sexual and gender minority groups, those living with disabilities, and those living at the margins of our economy”; and “COVID-19’s disparate impact on communities of color and other underserved populations remains unrelenting.”

To address these concerns, the HETF would be tasked with making: (a) “recommendations for how agencies and State, local, Tribal, and territorial officials can best allocate COVID-19 resources, in light of disproportionately high rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality in certain communities and disparities in COVID-19 outcomes by race, ethnicity, and other factors”; (b) “recommendations for agencies with responsibility for disbursing COVID-19 relief funding regarding how to disburse funds in a manner that advances equity”; and (c) “recommendations for agencies regarding effective, culturally aligned communication, messaging, and outreach to communities of color and other underserved populations.”

All Deportations of Illegal Aliens Are Stopped, Regardless of Their Criminal Record

In accordance with President Biden’s stated policy on immigration — which suspended all land and air deportations of illegal aliens, regardless of their criminal record, for at least 100 days — an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo dated January 21, 2021, instructed ICE agents to “stop all removals.” The memo also informed ICE agents that in “all cases” — even where the detainees had no one in the U.S. who could serve as their sponsor — the agents should assume that there would be “no significant likelihood of removal in [the] foreseeable future” and thus should “[r]elease them all, immediately.” At the time the memo was written, ICE had 14,195 detainees in its custody at approximately 138 detention facilities across the United States. More than 71 percent of those detainees were convicted criminals or had criminal charges pending against them.

Regarding a Texas federal judge’s January 26 ruling against the Biden administration’s 100-day moratorium on deportations, former ICE Acting Director Tom Homan said on February 10, 2021, that the administration was “circumventing the judge’s order” by instructing ICE officers to stop arresting illegals, and by releasing those illegals into local communities. “What kind of message does that send to the rest of the world?” Homan asked. “If you come to the country illegally, if you can get past the border patrol, don’t commit an aggravated felony, and you’re home free. You get to stay because ICE is not looking for you. It’s no longer illegal to be here illegally.” Describing the Biden policy as “the most anti-law enforcement, pro-criminal policy that I could ever imagine in my worst nightmare,” Homan said it “is sending a message to the rest of the world” and, as a result, “the border is surging.” “Be clear what’s happening here,” Homan added. “President Biden has declared the entire country a sanctuary jurisdiction, which means more tragedy is going to come. Mark my words. People will die. People will be raped. People will be victimized by criminals that shouldn’t even be here. This is — it’s coming.”

Biden Suddenly Admits That He Cannot Change the Trajectory of the Coronavirus Pandemic

On October 30, 2020 — a few days before Election Day — Biden had tweeted: “I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.” On his third day in office as President, he stated: “There’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.”

Biden’s Third Day in Office: 2 More Executive Actions

On January 22, 2021, President Biden signed two more executive orders.

• Increased Funding for Food Stamps: This order: (a) asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow states to increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits — i.e., food stamps — by 15%; (b) called for approximately a 15% increase in the Pandemic-EBT, an electronic debit card program for students who qualified for free or reduced-price meals at school; and (c) called for a reassessment of the Thrifty Food Plan, the basis for quantifying SNAP benefits, on grounds that the plan was “out of date with the economic realities most struggling households face when trying to buy and prepare healthy food.”
• Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce: This order called for increased unionization and collecting bargaining power for federal workers, and directed the Office of Personnel Management to develop recommendations for increasing the minimum wage for federal employees to $15 per hour.

(1) Addressing the Causes of Migration & Processing Asylum Seekers at the U.S. Border (executive order): Some key excerpts:

• “We cannot solve the humanitarian crisis at our border without addressing the violence, instability, and lack of opportunity that compel so many people to flee their homes.  Nor is the United States safer when resources that should be invested in policies targeting actual threats, such as drug cartels and human traffickers, are squandered on efforts to stymie legitimate asylum seekers.” (NOTE: For details about America’s asylum laws during the Trump administration, click here.)
• “[T]he United States will enhance lawful pathways for migration to this country and will restore and strengthen our own asylum system, which has been badly damaged by policies enacted over the last 4 years that contravened our values and caused needless human suffering.” (NOTE: For details about America’s asylum laws during the Trump administration, click here.)
• “The Root Causes Strategy shall … include proposals to … coordinate place-based efforts in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (the ‘Northern Triangle’) to address the root causes of migration, including by:  (A) combating corruption, strengthening democratic governance, and advancing the rule of law; (B) promoting respect for human rights, labor rights, and a free press; (C) countering and preventing violence, extortion, and other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, trafficking networks, and other organized criminal organizations; (D) combating sexual, gender-based, and domestic violence; and (E) addressing economic insecurity and inequality.”
• “The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall promptly review mechanisms for better identifying and processing individuals from the Northern Triangle who are eligible for refugee resettlement to the United States.”
• The Secretary of Homeland Security shall “consider taking all appropriate actions to reverse the 2017 decision rescinding the Central American Minors (CAM) parole policy and terminating the CAM Parole Program.” (NOTE: The CAM Program was an immigration policy established by the Obama administration in November 2014, allowing lawfully present parents in the United States the opportunity to request a refugee or parole status for their children residing in the Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In January 2017, President Trump issued his Executive Order 13769, which placed a 120-day moratorium on the entry of refugees, including CAM Program participants. The Trump administration formally terminated the parole portion of the CAM Program in August 2017, and new applications for the refugee portion of the program were no longer accepted as of November 9, 2017.)
• The Secretary of Homeland Security shall “consider promoting family unity by exercising the Secretary’s discretionary parole authority to permit certain nationals of the Northern Triangle who are the beneficiaries of approved family-sponsored immigrant visa petitions to join their family members in the United States, on a case-by-case basis.”
• “The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall promptly evaluate and implement measures to enhance access for individuals from the Northern Triangle to visa programs.”
• “The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Director of CDC, shall promptly begin taking steps to reinstate the safe and orderly reception and processing of arriving asylum seekers.”
• “The Secretary of HHS and the Director of CDC, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall promptly review and determine whether termination, rescission, or modification of the following actions is necessary and appropriate:  ‘Order Suspending the Right To Introduce Certain Persons From Countries Where a Quarantinable Communicable Disease Exists‘ [and] Foreign Quarantine: Suspension of the Right to Introduce and Prohibition of Introduction of Persons into United States from Designated Foreign Countries or Places for Public Health Purposes‘.”
• “The Secretary of Homeland Security shall promptly review and determine whether to terminate or modify the program known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), including by considering whether to rescind the Memorandum of the Secretary of Homeland Security titled ‘Policy Guidance for Implementation of the Migrant Protection Protocols’ (January 25, 2019), and any implementing guidance.  In coordination with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Director of CDC, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall promptly consider a phased strategy for the safe and orderly entry into the United States, consistent with public health and safety and capacity constraints, of those individuals who have been subjected to MPP for further processing of their asylum claims.” (NOTE: The Center for Immigration Studies explains that under MPP, which was implemented by the Trump administration in January 2019 and was known colloquially as the “Remain in Mexico” policy: “DHS could return certain foreign individuals who were caught by [Customs and Border Patrol] entering illegally or without proper documentation back to Mexico to await their removal hearings, if they were not Mexican nationals. The Mexican government agreed to provide those foreign nationals with protection for the duration of their stays.”)
• “The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall promptly review and determine whether to rescind the interim final rule titled ‘Aliens Subject to a Bar on Entry Under Certain Presidential Proclamations; Procedures for Protection Claims,’ 83 Fed. Reg. 55,934 (November 9, 2018), and the final rule titled ‘Asylum Eligibility and Procedural Modifications,’ 85 Fed. Reg. 82,260 (December 17, 2020), as well as any agency memoranda or guidance that were issued in reliance on those rules.”
• “The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall promptly review and determine whether to rescind the interim final rule titled ‘Implementing Bilateral and Multilateral Asylum Cooperative Agreements Under the Immigration and Nationality Act,’ 84 Fed. Reg. 63,994 (November 19, 2019).”
• “[T]he Secretary of State shall promptly consider whether to notify the governments of the Northern Triangle that, as efforts to establish a cooperative, mutually respectful approach to managing migration across the region begin, the United States intends to suspend and terminate the following agreements: (1) ‘Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Guatemala on Cooperation Regarding the Examination of Protection Claims,’ 84 Fed. Reg. 64,095 (July 26, 2019); (2) ‘Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of El Salvador for Cooperation in the Examination of Protection Claims,’ 85 Fed. Reg. 83,597 (September 20, 2019); (3) ‘Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Honduras for Cooperation in the Examination of Protection Claims,’ 85 Fed. Reg. 25,462 (September 25, 2019).”
• “The following Presidential documents are revoked: (1) Executive Order 13767 of January 25, 2017 (Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements); (2) Proclamation 9880 of May 8, 2019 (Addressing Mass Migration Through the Southern Border of the United States); (3) Presidential Memorandum of April 29, 2019 (Additional Measures to Enhance Border Security and Restore Integrity to Our Immigration System); (4) Presidential Memorandum of April 6, 2018 (Ending ‘Catch and Release’ at the Border of the United States and Directing Other Enhancements to Immigration Enforcement); (5) Presidential Memorandum of April 4, 2018 (Securing the Southern Border of the United States).”
• “The Secretary of Homeland Security, with support from the United States Digital Service within the Office of Management and Budget, shall promptly begin a review of procedures for individuals placed in expedited removal proceedings at the United States border.”
• “The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, within 180 days of the date of this order, conduct a comprehensive examination of current rules, regulations, precedential decisions, and internal guidelines governing the adjudication of asylum claims and determinations of refugee status to evaluate whether the United States provides protection for those fleeing domestic or gang violence in a manner consistent with international standards.”
• “The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, within 270 days of the date of this order, promulgate joint regulations … addressing the circumstances in which a person should be considered a member of a ‘particular social group’ … relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.”

(2) Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans (executive order): Some key excerpts:

• “[T]he DPC [Domestic Policy Council] shall convene a Task Force on New Americans, which shall include members of agencies that implement policies that impact immigrant communities.”
• “The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall … identify barriers that impede access to immigration benefits and fair, efficient adjudications of these benefits and make recommendations on how to remove these barriers, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law; and identify any agency actions that fail to promote access to the legal immigration system — such as the final rule entitled, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit Request Requirements,” 85 Fed. Reg. 46788 (Aug. 3, 2020) … — and recommend steps …. to revise or rescind those agency actions.”
• “The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the heads of other relevant agencies, as appropriate, shall review all agency actions related to implementation of the public charge ground of inadmissibility … and the related ground of deportability.”
• “The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, within 60 days of the date of this order, develop a plan describing any agency actions, in furtherance of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, that they will take to: (i) eliminate barriers in and otherwise improve the existing naturalization process, including by conducting a comprehensive review of that process with particular emphasis on the N-400 application, fingerprinting, background and security checks, interviews, civics and English language tests, and the oath of allegiance; (ii) substantially reduce current naturalization processing times; (iii) make the naturalization process more accessible to all eligible individuals, including through a potential reduction of the naturalization fee and restoration of the fee waiver process; […] (v) review policies and practices regarding denaturalization and passport revocation to ensure that these authorities are not used excessively or inappropriately.”

(3) Establishment of Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families (executive order): Key excerpts:

• “My Administration condemns the human tragedy that occurred when our immigration laws were used to intentionally separate children from their parents or legal guardians (families), including through the use of the Zero-Tolerance Policy. My Administration will protect family unity and ensure that children entering the United States are not separated from their families, except in the most extreme circumstances where a separation is clearly necessary for the safety and well-being of the child or is required by law.”
• “There is hereby established an Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families […] There is hereby established an Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families … [which] shall, consistent with applicable law, perform the following functions: (a) Identifying all children who were separated from their families at the United States-Mexico border between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021, in connection with the operation of the Zero-Tolerance Policy; [and] (b) To the greatest extent possible, facilitating and enabling the reunification of each of the identified children with their families.”

(4) Maximizing Assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (memorandum): Key excerpt:

• “[I]t is the policy of my Administration to combat and respond to COVID-19 with the full capacity and capability of the Federal Government to protect and support our families, schools, and businesses, and to assist State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments to do the same, including through emergency and disaster assistance available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).”

Biden Ends Support for Saudi-Led Military Operations in Yemen, and Removes “Foreign Terrorist Organization” Designation from Iranian-Backed Houthi Rebels

In its final days, the Trump administration formally designated the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO). As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put it: “The Houthi forces are terrorists, underwritten by the theocracy, the kleptocracy that runs the Islamic Republic of Iran. That regime is funding a missile program, funding capabilities inside of Yemen that put Europe at risk, put the Middle East at risk.” A January 2021 United Nations report concurred that a “growing body” of evidence showed that Iran was sending weapons and weapon components — including anti-tank guided missiles, sniper rifles, and RPB launchers — to the Houthis. Those Iranian arms shipments were intended to affect a protracted conflict that had begun in 2014 when the Houthis seized territory in Yemen, including the capital city of Sana’a, and thereby prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene militarily in 2015. By January 2021, Yemen had suffered approximately 112,000 deaths and the collapse of its infrastructure.

On February 4, 2021, President Biden announced that the U.S. would end its support for Saudi-led offensive operations in Yemen against the Houthi rebels. “This war has to end, and to underscore our commitment we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales,” he said.

The next day — February 5, 2021 — the Biden administration, further signaling a desire to warm U.S. relations with Iran, announced that it was removing FTO designation from the Houthis.

Releasing Illegal Aliens without Testing Them for COVID

On February 8, 2021, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson reported:

“Last month, the CDC issued the following statement: ‘The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding the requirement for a negative COVID-19 test to all air passengers entering the United States. Testing before and after travel is a critical layer to slow the introduction and spread of COVID-19. This strategy is consistent with the current phase of the pandemic and more efficiently protects the health of Americans.”

“In layman’s terms, every human being who enters this country by air must first present a negative test for the coronavirus. That includes American citizens, no exceptions. Corona infection, in fact, is the one universal reality of the human condition. We are all potential incubators of this deadly virus.

“But it doesn’t end there. Travelers who test negative for COVID must still wear masks at all times, including while on board the airplane or walking through the airport. If you don’t have a mask on, you had better be actively chewing. Otherwise, prepare for a steep fine and the possibility of never flying again. […]

[However,] Tucker Carlson Tonight has learned that the Biden administration is releasing thousands of foreign nationals living here illegally into American neighborhoods without bothering to test them for the coronavirus. People from countries with high infection rates, living in crowded conditions, have been sent forth into the American population like COVID isn’t real. That’s happening. It is the official policy of the U.S. government. […]

“‘We do not test the illegal aliens we release,’ Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Tucker Carlson Tonight. “So, we’re releasing people without knowing, which obviously puts the public at risk.’

“Yuma County, Ariz. Sheriff Leon Wilmot wrote a letter last week to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., in which he called the Biden administration’s new policy ‘a particularly dangerous approach.’

“‘[T]here is currently no protocol for testing any of these people for the Covid-19 [sic] virus,’ Wilmot wrote. ‘Nor is there any support being offered by the federal government to house, feed, medically treat or transport these immigrants.'”

Criminal Illegal Aliens Will No Longer Be Prioritized for Deportation

On February 8, 2021, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki: “There’s new reporting that ICE is gonna get some new guidance to no longer focus on deporting illegal immigrants who have been convicted of DUIs, simple assaults, solicitation, drug-based crimes, among other things. And, I’m curious how that is in the interest of public safety?”

Psaki replied: “Well, uh, first, it’s guidelines that would be put out by the Department of Homeland Security…. But, uh, the priority for the enforcement of immigration laws will be on those who are posing a national security threat, of course, a public safety threat, and on recent arrivals. Nobody is saying that DUI’s or assault are acceptable behavior, and those arrested for such activities should be tried and sentenced as appropriate by local law enforcement. But we’re talking about the prioritization of who is going to be deported from the country.”

Biden Puts U.S. Back on UN Human Rights Council

On February 8, 2021, the Biden administration announced that it would soon be rejoining the U.N. Human Rights Council. Former President Trump had withdrawn the U.S. from the Council in 2018 because of: (a) its disproportionately harsh treatment of Israel; (b) the fact that a number of its members were authoritarian countries infamous for their human-rights abuses (e.g., China, Cuba, Eritrea, Russia and Venezuela); and (c) the Council’s failure to implement an extensive list of reforms demanded by Nikki Haley, America’s then-Ambassador to the United Nations.

A senior U.S. official said that the Biden administration saw the Council as a potentially “important forum for those fighting tyranny and injustice around the world.”

Biden Is Open to Changing Trump Position on Recognizing the Golan Heights As Part of Israel

During a CNN interview on February 8, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken chose not to endorse President Trump’s 2019 decision to recognize Israel’s claims of sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the territory Israel had seized from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967. Asserting that Israel’s control of the territory was “of real importance, to [its] security,” Blinken said: “Legal questions are something else….. And over time, if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we would look at.”

Biden Supports Athletes Who Protest the National Anthem at Sporting Events

On February 10, 2021, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that President Biden supported players who chose to protest the national anthem at sporting events, characterizing Biden’s position as follows: “[P]art of the pride in our country means recognizing moments where we as a country haven’t lived up to our highest ideals. It means respecting the right of people granted to them in the constitution to peacefully protest. That’s why he ran for president in the first place and that’s what he’s focused on doing every day.”

Biden State Dept. Schedules Event on “Racism As a National Security Threat”

On February 10, 2021, the Biden State Department scheduled an online video conference to discuss ”Racism Being a Threat to National Security and Democracy” with representatives of several leftist organizations. Among the scheduled speakers were Tom Perriello, executive director for George Soros‘ Open Society Foundations; Eric Ward, executive director of the Western States Center; and attorney Diala Shamas of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Biden’s Executive Order Regarding Myanmar

On February 11, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order on “Blocking Property with Respect to the Situation in Burma.” Key excerpt:

• “I, Joseph R. Biden … find that the situation in, and in relation to, Burma, and in particular the February 1, 2021, coup, in which the military overthrew the democratically elected civilian government of Burma and unjustly arrested and detained government leaders, politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, and religious leaders, thereby rejecting the will of the people of Burma as expressed in elections held in November 2020 and undermining the country’s democratic transition and rule of law, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”

To address the situation, Biden imposed new sanctions on those responsible for the coup in Myanmar — specifically, on 10 influential Burmese individuals and 3 businesses.

Biden Is First U.S. President in 40 Years to Not Contact Israeli Leaders Early in His Term

On February 12, 2021, the Washington Free Beacon reported: “President Joe Biden is the first American leader in 40 years not to contact Israel’s leaders as one of his first actions in the White House, setting up what could be four years of chilly relations between America and its top Middle East ally. Biden has already phoned multiple world leaders, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping, but during his 23 days in office has yet to speak with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu—making Biden the first president in modern history to punt on bolstering U.S.-Israel relations during his initial days in office. Every president going back to at least Ronald Reagan in 1981 made contact with their Israeli counterpart within a week of assuming office.”

Biden Begins Dismantling Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” Asylum Policy

On February 12, 2021, the Biden administration announced that asylum seekers who, under the Trump administration’s 2019 “Remain in Mexico” program, had been forced to wait in Mexico for their cases to be resolved in the United States, would begin being admitted into the U.S. within the next few days. According to Newsmax.com, the Trump program “saw tens of thousands [at least 70,000] of non-Mexican asylum seekers — mostly from Central America — sent back over the border pending the outcome of their asylum applications.”

Biden Urges Congress to Restrict Gun Ownership & to Make Gun Manufacturers Vulnerable to Lawsuits

On February 14, 2021 — the third anniversary of a mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school — Biden exhorted Congress to strengthen existing laws restricting gun ownership. Said Biden: “This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call. We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”

Biden’s Executive Order on Faith-Based Partnerships

On February 14, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order on the Establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Some key excerpts:

• “Faith-based and other community-serving organizations are vital to our Nation’s ability to address the needs of, and lift up, low-income and other underserved persons and communities, notably including persons of color…. It is important that the Federal Government strengthen the ability of such organizations and other nonprofit providers in our communities to deliver services effectively in partnership with Federal, State, and local governments and with other private organizations.”

Biden Says That Former Military & Police Are Fueling the “Growth of White Supremacy” Organizations

During a February 16, 2021 town hall televised by CNN, Biden said:

“I got involved in politics, to begin with, because of civil rights and opposition to white supremacist, the Ku Klux Klan and the most dangerous people in America continue to exist. That is the greatest threat to [sic] terror in America, domestic terror. And so, I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks. And I would make sure we in fact focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what’s happening, the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well, about the impact of former military, former police officers, on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups.”

Biden Falsely Says That There Were No COVID Vaccines Available When He First Took Office

During a CNN town hall on February 16, 2021, Biden — who received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine on December 21, 2020, and the second dose on January 11, 2021 — initially said that there were “only 50 million doses” of vaccine available when he first assumed office. But he also said, during the same event, that “we got into office and found out…there was nothing in the refrigerator, figuratively and literally speaking.” “It’s one thing to have the vaccine, which we didn’t have when we came into office,” said Biden.

Biden’s Executive Order Revoking a Trump Executive Order That Expanded Apprenticeships

On February 17, 2021, Biden issued an executive order revoking former President Trump’s Executive Order 13801 of June 15, 2017 (Expanding Apprenticeships in America).

Congressional Democrats Introduce Immigration Bill Backed by Biden

On February 18, 2021, Democrats Robert Menendez and Linda Sanchez introduced — in the Senate and House, respectively — the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 , a sweeping immigration-reform bill supported by President Biden. The legislation sought to:

• establish an 8-year path to citizenship for illegal aliens in the United States
• provide an expedited path to citizenship for farm workers and young illegals who had arrived in the U.S. as minors protected by DACA
• replace the word “alien” with “non-citizen” in immigration law documents
• raise the per-country caps on family and employment-based legal immigration numbers
• repeal the penalty that barred illegals from returning to the U.S. for between 3 and 10 years

Biden Announces the End of “America First” Policies in G-7 Speech

On February 19, 2021, the New York Post reported:

“President Biden made his international debut Friday with a speech at the G-7 summit declaring the end of former President Donald Trump’s “America first” era. Administration officials previewed Biden’s virtual speech, which was closed to the press, saying he would touch on the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis, and unveil his plans to dramatically reshape the US foreign policy agenda. ‘Now he will get the opportunity as president of the United States early in his term to declare that America is back and the trans-Atlantic alliance is back,’ one official said [on February 18]. ‘He will look forward to driving home the core proposition that the trans-Atlantic alliance is a cornerstone for American engagement in the world in the 21st century, just as it was in the 20th.’

“Biden has swiftly dismantled Trump’s foreign policy agenda, which saw the US withdraw from the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump believed were against the nation’s interests.”

Biden Administration Works with U.N. to Bring Back Previously Deported Asylum-Seekers

In response to the Biden administration’s termination of the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (i.e., the “Remain in Mexico” policy), the United Nations sought to help the administration: (a) track down the many asylum-seeking migrants who, under the Trump policy, had been removed to Mexico or Central America to await asylum processing, and (b) bring them back to the United States so they could await their asylum processing there. On February 19, 2021, Reuters reported that “hundreds of migrants signed up [that day] within hours of the launch of a U.N. website that allows migrants with active [asylum] cases to register remotely to be processed at the U.S.-Mexico border.” “The United States and the United Nations are evaluating the locations of migrants and costs associated with possible flights and land transportation within Mexico,” added Reuters.

Biden Cancels Program Aimed at Deporting Convicted Illegal-Alien Sex Offenders

In February 2021, the Biden administration cancelled Operation Talon, a Trump administration program designed to deport convicted sex offenders residing illegally in the United States. Objecting to Biden’s decision, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined a coalition of 18 state attorneys general in composing a letter that exhorted the president — as well as DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson — to reverse the cancellation. Said the letter:

“The United States’ population of illegal immigrants includes disturbingly large numbers of criminals with prior convictions for sexual crimes. According to data collected by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, during the period from October 2014 to May 2018 ICE arrested 19,572 illegal aliens with criminal convictions for whom the most serious prior conviction was a conviction for a sex-related offense.

“Meanwhile, an increasing number of illegal aliens are entering the United States after having been previously convicted of sexual offenses. The cancellation of [Operation Talon] effectively broadcasts to the world that the United States is now a sanctuary jurisdiction for sexual predators. This message creates a perverse incentive for foreign sexual predators to seek to enter the United States illegally and assault more victims, both in the process of unlawful migration and after they arrive. It will also broadcast the message to other criminal aliens who have committed other offenses that any kind of robust enforcement against them is unlikely…. If the United States will not remove even convicted sex offenders, whom will it remove?”

“We’re working hard to fight human trafficking and sex crimes in South Carolina and allowing convicted sex offenders who are here illegally to remain in our country makes absolutely no sense,” said Wilson. “These trafficking and sex crimes are repugnant to human decency generally and to children specifically.”

Massive Surge of Illegal Border Crossers

On February 24, 2021, the Washington Post reported that during the four calendar months since Biden’s presidential election victory, the U.S. Border Patrol had taken into custody more than 70,000 illegal border-crossers per month—the largest number for the November-to-February period in a decade. This included many young people, as the number of minors in federal custody had tripled to 7,000 after the Biden administration’s announcement that it would no longer expel unaccompanied minors and teenagers apprehended at the border. As one Department of Health and Human Services official put it, “We’re seeing the highest February numbers than we’ve ever seen in the history of the [Unaccompanied Alien Child] program.” This sudden influx of illegals was due to: (a) the Biden administration’s very public pledge to revoke Trump-era immigration restrictions; (b) President Biden’s signing of numerous executive orders promoting amnesty and open borders; and (c) the Democrats’ introduction of an amnesty bill which conveyed the message that anyone who could make their way across the border would be permitted to stay in the U.S.  According to The Federalist: “To cope with the surge, the administration has had to re-open an emergency shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas, that was last used during the 2019 border crisis. Back then, the Trump administration was condemned by Democrats and the corporate press for keeping ‘kids in cages.’”

Airstrike Against Syria

On February 25, 2021 — just weeks after President Biden had promised that “diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy” — he ordered, on the recommendation of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a U.S.-led airstrike targeting a Syrian building that had been used by Iranian-backed militant groups. Defense officials stated that the strike was intended to: (a) serve as a response to recent attacks against American assets in Iraq, and (b) incapacitate the Iran-supported militias and render them less capable of carrying out out future attacks.

Biden and his officials had been highly critical of former President Trump whenever he took military action against any target. For example, in 2017 Jen Psaki, President Biden’s White House press secretary, had condemned Trump’s airstrike response to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons — claiming that Trump lacked the “legal authority” to carry out such measures. Similarly, Joe Biden himself had criticized Trump numerous times for killing the terrorist Quds force Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani. “Let’s be clear,” Biden tweeted after Soleimani’s death in January 2020, “Donald Trump does not have the authority to take us into war with Iran without Congressional approval. A president should never take this nation to war without the informed consent of the American people.” Biden also called Trump’s action against Soleimani “a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region” and warned: “We could be on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East.”

Biden Issues 3 More Executive Actions, with a Focus on Revoking Trump Executive Orders & Proclamations

On February 24, 2021, Biden issued 3 more executive actions — including 2 executive orders and a proclamation — bring his total number of executive actions to 57.

(1) Review America’s supply chains for semiconductors and other “critical goods” (executive order).

(2) Revoke Trump proclamations that aimed to suspend the entry of immigrants during the coronavirus crisis (proclamation): “The suspension of entry imposed in Proclamation 10014 of April 22, 2020 (Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Present a Risk to the United States Labor Market During the Economic Recovery Following the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak) [which was subsequently extended by additional Trump proclamations on June 22 and December 31, 2020] … does not advance the interests of the United States.  To the contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here.  It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world.  And it harms individuals who were selected to receive the opportunity to apply for, and those who have likewise received, immigrant visas through the Fiscal Year 2020 Diversity Visa Lottery…. I therefore hereby proclaim the following: […] Proclamation 10014 [and its two aforementioned extensions] … are revoked.”

(3) Revoke a range of Trump orders, such as one targeting “anarchist” cities (executive order): This executive order revokes, among others, the following presidential actions by former President Trump:

(a) Executive Order 13772 of February 3, 2017 (Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System): This Trump executive order aimed to:

• “empower Americans to make independent financial decisions and informed choices in the marketplace, save for retirement, and build individual wealth”;
• “prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts”;
• “foster economic growth and vibrant financial markets through more rigorous regulatory impact analysis that addresses systemic risk and market failures, such as moral hazard and information asymmetry”;
• “enable American companies to be competitive with foreign firms in domestic and foreign markets”;
• “advance American interests in international financial regulatory negotiations and meetings”;
• “make regulation efficient, effective, and appropriately tailored”; and
• “restore public accountability within Federal financial regulatory agencies and rationalize the Federal financial regulatory framework.”

(b) Executive Order 13828 of April 10, 2018 (Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility): This Trump executive order contained the following statements and provisions:

• “Unfortunately, many of the programs designed to help families have instead delayed economic independence, perpetuated poverty, and weakened family bonds. While bipartisan welfare reform enacted in 1996 was a step toward eliminating the economic stagnation and social harm that can result from long-term Government dependence, the welfare system still traps many recipients, especially children, in poverty …”
• “In 2017, the Federal Government spent more than $700 billion on low-income assistance. Since its inception, the welfare system has grown into a large bureaucracy that might be susceptible to measuring success by how many people are enrolled in a program rather than by how many have moved from poverty into financial independence. This is not the type of system that was envisioned when welfare programs were instituted in this country. The Federal Government’s role is to clear paths to self-sufficiency, reserving public assistance programs for those who are truly in need.”
• “It shall be the policy of the Federal Government to … [i]mprove employment outcomes and economic independence (including by strengthening existing work requirements for work-capable people and introducing new work requirements when legally permissible).”
• “Promote strong social networks as a way of sustainably escaping poverty (including through work and marriage).”
• “Address the challenges of populations that may particularly struggle to find and maintain employment (including single parents, formerly incarcerated individuals, the homeless, substance abusers, individuals with disabilities, and disconnected youth.”
• “Reduce the size of bureaucracy and streamline services to promote the effective use of resources.”
• “Reserve benefits for people with low incomes and limited assets.”
• “Reduce wasteful spending by consolidating or eliminating Federal programs that are duplicative or ineffective.”
• “Empower the private sector, as well as local communities, to develop and apply locally based solutions to poverty.”
• “[T]he Federal Government must first enforce work requirements that are required by law. It must also strengthen requirements that promote obtaining and maintaining employment in order to move people to independence.”
• “The Federal Government owes it to Americans to use taxpayer dollars for their intended purposes. Relevant agencies should establish clear metrics that measure outcomes so that agencies administering public assistance programs can be held accountable. These metrics should include assessments of whether programs help individuals and families find employment, increase earnings, escape poverty, and avoid long-term dependence.”
• “Technology and innovation should drive initiatives that increase program integrity and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse in the current system.”

(c) Executive Order 13924 of May 19, 2020 (Regulatory Relief To Support Economic Recovery): This Trump executive order “calls on agencies to address the economic emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic by rescinding, modifying, waiving, or providing exemptions from regulations and other requirements that may inhibit economic recovery, consistent with applicable law and with protection of the public health and safety, with national and homeland security, and with budgetary priorities and operational feasibility.” It also explains how a loosening of regulations was vital to the production of vaccines and therapeutics related to COVID-19:

• “In February 2020, [HHS] Secretary Azar declared that circumstances justified the authorization [by the FDA] of emergency use for tests to detect and diagnose COVID-19.”
• “Operation Warp Speed is a partnership among components of HHS, the Department of Defense, and industry and academic partners with a goal to produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines, with the initial doses available by January 2021, as part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.”

(d) Memorandum of September 2, 2020 (Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients of Federal Funds That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities): This Trump memorandum, regarding the violent Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that had ravaged scores of American cities throughout the spring and summer of 2020, contained the following key statements and provisions:

• “Without law and order, democracy cannot function. Americans cannot exercise their rights, including their rights to peaceful expression, assembly, and protest. Property is destroyed, and innocent citizens are injured or killed. Unfortunately, anarchy has recently beset some of our States and cities. For the past few months, several State and local governments have contributed to the violence and destruction in their jurisdictions by failing to enforce the law, disempowering and significantly defunding their police departments, and refusing to accept offers of Federal law enforcement assistance. As a result of these State and local government policies, persistent and outrageous acts of violence and destruction have continued unabated in many of America’s cities, such as Portland, Seattle, and New York.
• “The Federal Government provides States and localities with hundreds of billions of dollars every year, which fund a wide array of programs, such as housing, public transportation, job training, and social services. These funds have been collected from American taxpayers who entrusted their money to the Federal Government to serve our communities and our citizens. My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones. To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities.”
• “Within 30 days of the date of this memorandum, the Director of OMB shall issue guidance to the heads of agencies on restricting eligibility of or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of Federal grants that the agency has sufficient lawful discretion to restrict or otherwise disfavor anarchist jurisdictions from receiving.”