Closing summary
That’s a wrap for a particularly lively day in US politics.
Joe Biden sought to kickstart his stalled domestic agenda with a “Building a Better America” speech in North Carolina, talking up US manufacturing, jobs and technology investments before heading off to spend the Easter break at Camp David.
Thanks for joining us today, and remember you can follow developments in the Ukraine-Russia war in our 24-hour live blog here.
Here’s what else we covered today:
- Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s former top aide, reportedly testified to the 6 January House panel looking into the deadly Capitol riot and other efforts by the former president to overturn the 2020 election.
- The Republican National Committee voted to withdraw from the commission on presidential debates, which has brought voters unfiltered information from White House hopefuls for decades.
- The Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill limiting abortions in the state to 15 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
- President Joe Biden’s approval rating plunged to 33% according to a new Quinnipiac poll, equaling his lowest previous rating from January.
It’s common knowledge that the Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott is no supporter of the Biden administration’s controversial decision to end the Trump-era Title 42 immigration policy that blocked refugees at the US southern border because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But now the Democrat seeking to replace him, Beto O’Rourke, has added his voice to the wave of criticism, ripping Joe Biden for having no plan to deal with an expected influx of migrants when the policy is terminated on 23 May.
“It does not make sense to end this until there is a real plan and the capacity in place to handle those and address those that come over,” O’Rourke said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.
“Everyone is legitimately concerned about the lack of a plan. We should hold the federal government accountable for doing its job, and they’re not doing that.”
O’Rourke, who narrowly failed to unseat Republican Ted Cruz in their 2020 US senate race, trails Abbott in polls ahead of November’s gubernatorial election. Border security will be one of the biggest issues for voters in the midterms and O’Rourke will be careful not to adopt too radical an approach.
In comments to the Tribune, he indicated he wanted the Title 42 policy gone, but only when measures were in place to cope with the influx it would cause.
“What it has done is produced a situation where the same person is crossing multiple times a week, and under Title 42 that Border Patrol agent simply turns that person back around and then that person tries to cross the next day,” he said.
“They’re not arrested, not detained, there are no consequences for someone who is not following our laws when they try to come into this country, and it means that this country is not following its laws when it comes to those who are trying to make a legitimate claim for asylum.”
