Closing summary
My colleague Chris Stein will be covering Joe Biden’s State of the Union address this evening on our dedicated live blog. In the meantime, here’s a recap of today’s developments:
LaTorya Beasley, an Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children, and Kate Cox, the Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for an abortion, are among those set to attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address tonight, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.
Joe Biden will announce in the State of the Union speech that US forces will build a temporary port on the Gaza shoreline in the next few weeks to allow delivery of humanitarian aid on a large scale.
Biden welcomed Sweden into Nato in a statement after the country officially became the 32nd member of the western military alliance. The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, will be attending the State of the Union address tonight.
Katie Boyd Britt, a first-term 42-year-old Republican senator from Alabama, will deliver the GOP’s official response to Biden’s State of the Union address tonight – a move likely designed to highlight the big age gap between the two.
Byron Donalds, a Republican Florida congressman being floated as a possible vice presidential pick for Donald Trump, suggested he would be willing to decline to certify the 2028 election results if he was vice president.
No Labels, the third-party presidential movement, will reportedly to announce on Friday that it will move forward with a presidential bid in the November election.
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign described a new ad from a pro-Trump Super Pac questioning whether Biden can “even survive til 2029” as “a sick and deranged stunt”.
Larry Hogan, the Republican former governor of Maryland who is running for Senate, has said he would not vote for Donald Trump in the November election.
Daniel Rodimer, a former pro wrestler who won a prominent endorsement from Donald Trump while unsuccessfully running for Congress in Nevada, surrendered to authorities on Wednesday on an arrest warrant for murder.
Updated
Republican Florida congressman Byron Donalds became the latest vice-presidential contender to refuse to commit to certifying election results.
Donalds, at an Axios event, suggested he would be willing to decline to certify the 2028 election results if he was vice president. He also did not clarify if he would have certified the 2020 election results.
Donalds is one of the names being floated as a possible vice presidential pick for Donald Trump. When asked if he would certify the 2028 results as vice president, he replied:
If you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states ... then no, I would not.
Asked if he agreed with former vice-president Mike Pence’s move to certify the results, Donalds said: “You can only ask that question of Mike Pence.”
Updated
Republicans have chosen Katie Boyd Britt, a first-term senator from Alabama, to deliver the party’s official response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address tonight – a move likely designed to highlight the big age gap between the two.
Britt, 42, is one of nine women in the Senate Republican conference and the youngest female Republican elected to the Senate.
In a statement announcing her speech, she said it was time for the next generation of American politicians “to step up”. She added:
The Republican Party is the party of hardworking parents and families, and I’m looking forward to putting this critical perspective front and center.
The Republican Party is the party of hardworking parents and families, and I’m looking forward to bringing this critical perspective front and center on March 7.
— Katie Britt (@KatieBrittforAL) February 29, 2024
It’s time for the next generation to step up and preserve the American Dream for our children and our grandchildren. pic.twitter.com/QwImnQn21P
Senate Republicans say she will offer a split screen of sorts when she delivers the party’s rebuttal to the State of the Union address by Biden, 81.
“She’s young, female and full of energy – opposite of everything Joe Biden is,” senator Markwayne Mullin told the Hill. “The contrast between the two, it’s so different.”
No Labels to move ahead with US presidential bid – reports
The third-party presidential movement No Labels is expected to announce it will move forward with a presidential bid in the November election, according to multiple reports.
About 800 No Labels delegates are expected to meet virtually in a private meeting and vote on Friday in favor of launching a presidential campaign for this fall’s election, sources told AP and Reuters.
The group will not name its presidential and vice presidential picks on Friday, but instead it is expected to roll out a formal selection process late next week for potential candidates who would be selected in the coming weeks, the people said.
The House passed a bill that would require federal authorities to detain any migrant charged with theft or burglary, named after a Georgia nursing student police have said was killed by a man who entered the US illegally.
The measure, called the Laken Riley Act, requires immigrations and customs enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants accused by local authorities of theft, burglary, larceny or shoplifting.
The bill would also allow states and individuals to sue the federal government for crimes committed by immigrants who enter the country illegally.
The bill was named after 22-year-old Laken Riley, who was killed on the campus of the University of Georgia while on a morning run last month. Riley’s death has become a rallying point for Donald Trump, after authorities arrested a Venezuelan man who entered the US illegally and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case.
The House approved the legislation hours before Joe Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address. Republicans have seized on Riley’s death to hammer the Biden administration’s border policies.
“Republicans will not stand for the release of dangerous criminals into our communities, and that’s exactly what the Biden administration has done,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News.
Laken is just one of the tragic examples of innocent American citizens who have lost their lives, been brutally and violently attacked by illegal criminals who are roaming our streets.
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has responded to a new ad from a pro-Trump Super Pac questioning Biden’s ability to serve a second term in a new TV ad and whether the president can “even survive til 2029.”
The ad, by Make America Great Again Inc, shows a clip from Biden’s press conference after the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
During the briefing, Biden spoke about comments by Donald Trump about letting Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato allies. Pausing for dramatic effect, Biden then says he should clear his mind “and not say what I’m really thinking.”
In the Maga Inc ad, a narrator says: “We can all see Joe Biden’s weakness. If Biden wins, can he even survive to 2029. The real question is, can we?”
If Biden wins, can he even survive till 2029? The real question is, can we? pic.twitter.com/2nFZGuC3l1
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) March 7, 2024
Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa told NBC News that the ad is “a sick and deranged stunt from a broke and struggling campaign”, adding:
Trump tried this strategy four years ago and got his ass kicked by Joe Biden – he should tune in tonight alongside tens of millions of Americans to see why President Biden will beat him again this November.
Updated
A former congressional candidate backed by Donald Trump has been arrested for murder.
The Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas reports:
A former pro wrestler who won a prominent endorsement from Donald Trump while unsuccessfully running for Congress in Nevada surrendered to authorities on Wednesday on an arrest warrant for murder.
Daniel Rodimer, 45, was booked in connection with the slaying of 47-year-old Christopher Tapp, who was reportedly beaten to death in Resorts World Las Vegas on 29 October.
Rodimer met Tapp – who was once charged with murder himself – “through the classic car and racing circuit”, according to the local television news station KLAS, which reviewed police documents.
Investigators allege that Rodimer fatally attacked Tapp after he offered Rodimer’s stepdaughter cocaine during a hotel room party.
Initially, authorities believed Tapp’s death stemmed from a drug overdose and a fall, after an autopsy found evidence of blunt trauma and cocaine use. But detectives later determined Tapp had been in a fight inside the hotel room where he was found injured. He died later at a hospital.
For the full story, click here:
Here is a video of Maryland’s former Republican governor Larry Hogan – who we reported about earlier – saying that he will not vote for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump:
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who’s running in his state’s U.S. Senate race, says he won’t vote for either leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election:
— The Recount (@therecount) March 7, 2024
“I’m like 70% of the rest of the people in America who do not want Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be president.” pic.twitter.com/BowMC1HnCJ
Hogan, who recently stepped down from his third-party movement No Labels, said: “I think we’ll hopefully have some ability to vote for someone that these people actually want to vote for rather than just voting against.”
In a tweet on Thursday, Joe Biden urged Americans to tune into his State of the Union address in which he plans to address “how far we’ve come in building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up …”
He went on to add that he plans to address “the work we have left to lower costs and protect our freedoms against MAGA attacks”.
I’m headed to the Capitol tonight to deliver my State of the Union address.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 7, 2024
Join us at 9pm ET to hear how far we’ve come in building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up and the work we have left to lower costs and protect our freedoms against MAGA attacks. pic.twitter.com/cpflojaeCH
Updated
State of the Union guests include Alabama mother whose IVF was canceled
An Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children will attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.
LaTorya Beasley of Birmingham, Alabama, is among the first lady’s 20 invited guests who “personify issues or themes to be addressed by the president in his speech,” the White House said in a statement.
Beasley and her husband had their first child, via IVF, in 2022. They were trying to have another child through IVF but Beasley’s embryo transfer was suddenly canceled because of the Alabama court decision.
Also on the guest list is Kate Cox, the Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for an abortion. The White House said the cases of Beasley and Cox, showed “how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to reproductive healthcare for women and families across the country”. In a statement, the White House said:
Stories like Kate’s and LaTorya’s should never happen in America. But Republican elected officials want to impose this reality on women nationwide.
Updated
Joe Biden has welcomed Sweden into Nato in a statement after the country officially became the 32nd member of the western military alliance.
Stockholm’s ratification process was finally completed in Washington on Thursday, as Sweden and Hungary – the last country to ratify Sweden’s membership – submitted the necessary documents after a drawn-out process that has taken nearly two years.
The ratification marked the end of a 20-month-long wait that started in May 2022 when it submitted its application to join alongside Finland, prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February that year.
In a statement, Biden said he was “honored” to welcome Sweden as Nato’s newest ally, and that the alliance was “stronger than ever” with its addition. He added:
Today, we once more reaffirm that our shared democratic values – and our willingness to stand up for them – is what makes Nato the greatest military alliance in the history of the world. It is what draws nations to our cause. It is what underpins our unity. And together with our newest Ally Sweden – NATO will continue to stand for freedom and democracy for generations to come.
The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, will be attending Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as a guest of the first lady, the White House has confirmed.
Updated
Larry Hogan, the Republican former governor of Maryland who is running for Senate, has said he would not vote for Donald Trump in the November election.
Hogan, at an Axios event, said he will vote for neither Trump nor Joe Biden and would instead seek out a third-party candidate. He said:
I’m like 70% of the rest of people in America who do not want Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be president, and I’m hoping that there potentially is another alternative.
He added that he didn’t know yet who that candidate will be. Hogan, one of the most outspoken and only Trump critics in the Republican party, last year said he would support the party’s nominee for president, but at the time said he did not think Trump would be that candidate.
Updated
Biden to announce US will build port on Gaza shore for large-scale aid delivery
Joe Biden will announce in the State of the Union speech that US forces will build a temporary port on the Gaza shoreline in the next few weeks to allow delivery of humanitarian aid on a large scale.
“We are not waiting on the Israelis. This is a moment for American leadership,” a senior US official said on Thursday, reflecting growing frustration of what is seen in Washington as Israeli obstruction of road deliveries on a substantial scale.
The port will be built by US military engineers operating from ships off the Gaza coast, who will not need to step ashore, US officials said. The aid deliveries will be shipped from the port of Larnaca in Cyprus, which will become the main relief hub. The official said:
Tonight, the president will announce in his State of the Union address that he has directed the US military to undertake an emergency mission to establish a port in Gaza, working in partnership with like minded countries and humanitarian partners. This port, the main feature of which is a temporary pier, will provide the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day.
Biden will also announce the opening of a new land crossing into the occupied and devastated coastal strip. Biden has been fiercely criticised within his own party for the failure to open up Gaza to humanitarian aid, with a famine looming and 30,000 Palestinians dead already since the start of war on 7 October.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said Joe Biden’s State of the Union address tonight will highlight Democratic successes and show the chaos in the House Republican party in stark relief.
During his floor remarks reported by CNN, Schumer said Biden will make it clear that “after so much adversity, America’s economy is growing, inflation is slowing, and Democrats’ agenda is delivering.” He said:
The difference between the parties will be as clear as night and day. Democrats are focused on lowering costs, creating jobs, putting money in people’s pockets. But the hard right, which too often runs the Republican party in the House and now increasingly in the Senate, is consumed by chaos, bullying, and attacking things like women’s freedom of choice.
Meanwhile, the Republican front-runner for president, Donald Trump, has “made it abundantly clear that he’s not running to make people’s lives better, but rather on airing his personal political grievances,” Schumer added.
Biden to use State of the Union address to urge protection of rights
Joe Biden will deliver the final State of the Union address of his presidential term this evening, giving him an opportunity to tout his accomplishments and pitch his re-election campaign as he prepares for a rematch against Donald Trump in November.
Previewing Biden’s State of the Union speech, his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said his remarks would focus on the president’s vision for the nation’s future and his legislative accomplishments.
“You’re going to hear the president address how democracy is under attack, how freedoms are certainly under attack,” including women’s reproductive rights and voting rights, Jean-Pierre told MSNBC.
Biden’s speech will also highlight his agenda for a potential second term, the White House chief of staff Jeff Zients told NPR. Those include “lowering costs, continuing to make people’s lives better by investing in childcare, eldercare, paid family and medical leave, continued progress on student debt”, he said, adding:
The president is also going to call for restoring Roe v. Wade and giving women freedom over their healthcare. And he’ll talk about protecting, not taking away, freedoms in other areas, as well as voting rights.
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, reportedly pleaded with his party to show “decorum” on Thursday, when Joe Biden comes to the chamber to deliver his State of the Union address.
“Decorum is the order of the day,” Johnson said, according to an unnamed Republican who attended a closed-door event on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and was quoted by the Hill.
The same site said another unnamed member of Congress said Johnson asked his party to “carry ourselves with good decorum”. A third Republican was quoted as saying:
He said, ‘Let’s have the appropriate decorum. We don’t need to be shrill, you know, we got to avoid that. We need to base things upon policy, upon facts, upon reality of situations.
Last year’s State of the Union saw outbursts from Republicans and responses from Biden that made headlines, most awarding the president the win. Kevin McCarthy, then speaker, also asked his Republican members not to breach decorum. But in a sign of his limited authority, months before he became the first speaker ejected by his own party, such pleas fell on deaf ears.
More than a quarter of Black female voters describe abortion has their top issue in this year’s presidential election, according to a new poll.
The findings by health policy research firm KFF reveal a significant shift from previous election years, when white, conservative evangelicals were more likely to put abortion as their biggest priority when voting, AP reported. Those voters were highly motivated in recent presidential elections to cast ballots for Donald Trump.
Overall, 12% of voters surveyed said abortion was the most important issue in this year’s election. Twenty eight percent of Black women identified the issue as top of mind, as well as 19% of women living in states where abortion is banned, and 17% of women who are under age 50.
Of voters who said that abortion was their most important issue, two-thirds said they believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“It’s a complete shift,” pollster Ashley Kirzinger told AP.
Abortion voters are young, Black women – and not white evangelicals.
Women – and Black women, in particular – were crucial to Joe Biden’s win over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. More than half of Black Americans live in southern states, most of which have introduced strict abortion laws since the supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Updated
Joe Biden won the Hawaii’s Democratic presidential contest on Wednesday with 66% of the vote, according to the Hawaii Democratic Party.
Of the 1,563 votes cast, 29% of voters chose “uncommitted”, the highest percentage total in any statewide contest this cycle.
Some Democrats have pushed for voters to cast an uncommitted ballot in states that permit it, as a protest vote against Biden’s position on the war between Israel and Hamas.
"Uncommitted" got 29% against Biden in Hawaii's caucuses pic.twitter.com/IVr7yhvQf3
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) March 7, 2024
Kate Cox, the Texas woman who had to flee her state for an abortion, has described the “terrifying” toll that politicizing health decisions takes on women and families.
Cox, who is expected to attend this evening’s State of the Union address as a guest of first lady Jill Biden, sued Texas after the state supreme court ruled to block her from receiving an abortion after her foetus was diagnosed with a fatal chromosomal condition.
Cox did not qualify for an abortion because her doctor did not establish her symptoms were life-threatening, the court ruled, prompting her to travel to New Mexico to undergo an abortion.
Having to seek the procedure out of state “added a lot of pain and suffering to what was already the most devastating time of our lives,” she said in an interview with CNN aired last night. “I’m just one,” she said, adding:
There’s a lot of women and families that are suffering because of the laws in Texas today.
Powerful interview from @danabashcnn with Kate Cox. pic.twitter.com/8Nb5MPVczc
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 7, 2024
The health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said while his agency would continue to enforce federal laws in Alabama, including laws that provide medical patients a right to privacy and the right to stabilizing emergency care, including emergency abortions, it is ultimately the courts in and politicians of Alabama who need to fix the upheaval their policies caused.
“The supreme court in Alabama is the one that has to undo its wrongful decision,” Becerra told the Guardian.
The state legislature in Alabama should move to provide protections to families that rely on IVF – and serious comprehensive protections, not short-term, piecemeal protections that threaten anyone going through the process or any provider who wishes to provide quality IVF services.
Although Alabama politicians have passed a bill to give IVF providers immunity from civil and criminal suits, national associations of fertility doctors have said the law does not go far enough to address the core problem – the supreme court “conflating fertilized eggs with children”.
“Clearly, this goes way beyond abortion,” said Becerra.
It would not surprise me if we also begin to see actions which undermine the ability of women to get basic family planning services.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which represents IVF providers nationwide, has said the new law is insufficient because it does not correct the fundamental problem – the court ruling that considers fertilized eggs to be children.
The bill “falls far short of what Alabamans want and need to access fertility care in their state without fear,” NBC cited Karla Torres, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, as saying, adding that the legislation amounted to “backpedaling in the face of state and nationwide public outcry to allow politicians to save face.”
Although some of the clinics that paused IVF services after the state court’s decision are planning to resume treatments, the fertility clinic at the center of that case, the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Mobile Infirmary, said it will not yet be resuming IVF treatments, CNN reported. A statement said:
At this time, we believe the law falls short of addressing the fertilized eggs currently stored across the state and leaves challenges for physicians and fertility clinics trying to help deserving families have children of their own.
Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, acknowledged the new law was a quick fix after the court ruling and noted “there will be more work to come” on IVF protections.
State of the Union guest list puts reproductive rights in spotlight
Becerra’s comments come ahead of Joe Biden addressing the nation in the State of the Union on Thursday night. Although the White House has not released the speech, a large number of Democratic guests suggest reproductive rights may feature heavily.
Among the guests of high-ranking Democrats are Elizabeth Carr, the first person in the US to be born via IVF; Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who nearly died of septic shock when she was denied a medically necessary abortion; and Kate Cox, who had to flee Texas for an abortion after she learned her fetus had a fatal chromosomal condition.
More guests include reproductive endocrinologists, an Indiana doctor who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim, and leaders of reproductive rights groups.
Becerra’s comments emphasizing the importance of reproductive rights, Democrats’ guest list for the State of the Union and a recent administration officials’ trips to states with abortion restrictions are the most recent evidence of Democrat’s election bet: that when Republicans married the motivated minority of voters who support the anti-abortion movement, they also divorced themselves from the broader American public, broad margins of whom support IVF, contraception and legal abortion.
‘Pandora’s box was opened’ after fall of Roe, says health secretary
The health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if Americans hope to avoid further restrictions on in vitro fertilization, contraception and abortion in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
Becerra’s comments come in the wake of an Alabama supreme court decision that gave embryos the rights of “extrauterine children” and forced three of the state’s largest fertility clinics to stop services for fear of litigation and prosecution.
He said the events in Alabama were linked directly to the “take-down” of Roe v Wade, a decision that provided a constitutional right to abortion grounded in privacy and was overturned by conservative US supreme court justices in 2022. Becerra said:
It wasn’t until this new court came in” – that is, that three new supreme court justices were confirmed by former President Trump – “that we saw the attacks on Roe v Wade take hold, and today without Roe v Wade there are women who are trying to have babies in Alabama who are facing the consequences.
He continued:
None of this would be happening in Alabama on IVF if Roe v Wade was still the law of the land, and no one should try to deny that.
Updated
Some Alabama fertility clinics that paused IVF services last month have said they will resume services after state lawmakers approved new legislation to protect IVF providers from potential civil and criminal liability.
The bill “provides the protections that we need to start care – or resume care, really,” Dr Janet Bouknight, an IVF provider at Alabama Fertility, told NBC News. The clinic is planning to resume services this week.
The state’s largest health care system, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, also said it would restart IVF services. In a video statement, Dr Warner Huh, chair of the UAB department of obstetrics and gynaecology, said:
While UAB is moving to promptly resume IVF treatments, we’ll continue to assess developments and advocate for protections for IVF patients and our providers.
Republicans in the state legislature proposed the immunity bill as a way to get clinics reopened, but have refused to take up a bill that would address the legal status of embryos. For that reason, some legal experts and reproductive rights advocates have warned the bill does not go far enough.
Barbara Collura, president of Resolve: The National Infertility Association, said in a statement on Wednesday evening:
While we are grateful for the actions of Alabama legislators, this legislation does not address the underlying issue of the status of embryos as part of the IVF process – threatening the long-term standard of care for IVF patients. There is more work to be done.
Alabama governor signs IVF protection bill into law
Alabama lawmakers moved quickly to approve new legislation that to protect IVF providers from the fallout of a court ruling that found frozen embryos have the rights of children under the state’s wrongful death law.
Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, signed the bill into law on Wednesday night. The law protects providers from lawsuits and criminal prosecution in the event of “damage or death of an embryo” during IVF services. In a statement after signing, Ivey, a Republican, said:
IVF is a complex issue, no doubt, and I anticipate there will be more work to come, but right now, I am confident that this legislation will provide the assurances our IVF clinics need and will lead them to resume services immediately.
The bill gives legal protection for fertility clinics, at least three of which paused IVF treatments after the state’s supreme court ruled last month that three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a storage facility could pursue wrongful death lawsuits.
Republicans in the state legislature proposed the immunity bill as a way to get clinics reopened, but have refused to take up a bill that would address the legal status of embryos.
Updated
Alabama fertility services set to resume after governor signs IVF protection bill
Alabama fertility clinics that paused in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments following a controversial state supreme court ruling last month that equated frozen embryos to children are considering their next moves after Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, signed a bill into law aimed at protecting IVF providers from potential legal liability on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is preparing to deliver the final State of the Union address of his presidential term, where Democrats plan to put reproductive freedom literally front and center this evening. Among the guests invited to the SoTU are guests involved in the reproductive rights movement in some way, including Kate Cox, who made headlines in December when she fled Texas to receive abortion care after she was denied access to the procedure in her home state. Elizabeth Carr, the first person born via in vitro fertilization in the US, is also expected to attend.
The stakes for Biden tonight are astronomical, as the president will aim to tout his accomplishments and pitch his re-election campaign as he faces intensifying worries about his age and ability at a time when the US faces numerous challenges at home and abroad.
Here’s what is happening today:
9am ET: Biden will receive his intelligence briefing
9.40am: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will testify to the Senate Banking committee
10am: The House will convene. The Senate will meet.
10am: Treasury secretary Janet Yellen will hold a bilateral meeting with Germany’s minister for economic affairs and climate action Robert Habeck.
8.25pm: Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will depart the White House en route to the Capitol.
9pm: Biden will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress.
Updated
