Today so far
Here’s a quick summary of everything that’s happened so far today
- The White House coronavirus response team announced its plan for the next phase of the pandemic, which will include a “test to treat” model where people infected with Covid-19 can easily get treatment for the virus.
- The date for Ketanji Brown Jackson’s supreme court confirmation hearing in front of the Senate has been set to start on 21 March.
- Fed chair Jerome Powell told Congress that the central bank still plans to raise interest rates and will likely do so at the end of the month, despite the uncertainty around Russia and Ukraine. The Dow rose at the end of the day, signaling relief from investors over the Fed’s cautiousness with the crisis in Ukraine.
- Results from Texas’ primary yesterday is a preview of what’s to come in this year’s midterms. A progressive House candidate in Texas will go into a run-off against a Congressman who has had his seat for 17 years. It’s the first test of progressive-versus-conservative Democrats in the 2022 midterm election season. Meanwhile, Texas’ Trump-backed attorney general has been forced into a runoff with the Bush family’s latest scion.
Stay tuned for more live updates.
Updated
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has said France would not put up a fight if Russia invaded, as it did in Ukraine.
“A lot of other places around the world, they just fold the minute there’s any type of adversity,” DeSantis told reporters at a press event at South Florida University in Tampa on Wednesday.
“I mean can you imagine if he [Vladimir Putin] went into France? Would they do anything to put up a fight? Probably not.”
The governor also began the event by angrily attacking students present on the stage with him for wearing masks against Covid-19. “You do not have to wear those masks,” DeSantis said, pointing a finger.
“I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this Covid theatre. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”
Federal authorities have relaxed mask guidance in much of the US but the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 950,000 – and more than 70,000 in Florida alone.
Anyone French who saw DeSantis’s remark might remember the bad jokes (“cheese-eating surrender monkeys”) and Orwellian doublespeak (french fries renamed “freedom fries”) that followed Jacques Chirac’s refusal to back the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Amid much online mockery of DeSantis’s remarks, Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter, tweeted: “He went to Yale.”
DeSantis also went to Harvard, to study law. Before entering politics, he was a Jag or US navy lawyer in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay. He regularly polls second in surveys of likely contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, behind Donald Trump.
