Closing summary
That’s a wrap for Thursday’s US politics blog, but our global live blog of the Ukraine conflict continues here.
Here’s what we followed today:
- The US Senate has (finally) passed a $40bn package of military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
- Joe Biden says he’s “proud” to support applications by Finland and Sweden to join Nato, after meeting the countries’ leaders at the White House, saying their addition will strengthen the defense alliance. But Turkey says it can’t support the move.
- Oklahoma has passed the nation’s most restrictive abortion law, a total ban beginning at conception which allows citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” a woman in terminating a pregnancy.
- The 6 January House panel wants to hear from Republican congressman Barry Loudermilk about a “tour” he allegedly hosted at the Capitol building the day before it was overrun by a mob of Donald Trump supporters.
- The homeland security department has suspended the government’s troubled new disinformation board after the resignation of its director and a wave of Republican criticism.
- Biden is on his way to Alaska, the staging post for his onward journey on Air Force One to Seoul and Tokyo and meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan in the coming days.
- The alleged white supremacist behind Saturday’s grocery store massacre in Buffalo, New York, made a brief court appearance this morning. House lawmakers sent the domestic terrorism bill to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan has been giving a preview of Joe Biden’s trip to South Korea aboard Air Force One as the president and his entourage travel on the first leg towards their staging post in Alaska.
The audio feed from 38,000 feet is, how shall we say, patchy. But it seems Sullivan was asked about the likelihood of North Korea launching some kind of deliberate action or challenge to the US while Biden is in Asia to meet the leaders of South Korea and Japan:
Our analysis [is] that there is a genuine possibility, a real risk of some kind of provocation while we’re in the region, whether in South Korea or in Japan, that could take the form of a nuclear test, the seventh nuclear test that North Korea has conducted.
It could take the form of a missile test. There have been a number of missile tests this year. And of course, North Korea has a long history going back decades of missile tests, both to advance their capabilities and to cause provocations.
We are prepared for those eventualities, we are coordinated closely with both the ROK [Republic of South Korea] and Japan, we know what we will do to respond to that.
One of the main messages we are sending on this trip is that the United States is here for our allies and partners. We are here to help provide deterrence and defense for the ROK and Japan. Our cooperation will only strengthen in the face of any further provocations by North Korea.
