Today in US Politics
That’s all from me today. Here’s how the day unfolded in Washington, as Russian attacks on Kyiv intensified and Joe Biden made a historic announcement about the supreme court:
-
The White House said it will impose direct sanctions on Vladimir Putin and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in response to the invasion of Ukraine, mirroring the sanctions announced by the EU earlier today. “Following a telephone conversation President Biden held with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and in alignment with the decision by our European allies, the United States will join them in sanctioning President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov and members of the Russian national security team,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters this afternoon.
- Psaki said the US sanctions on Putin would likely include a travel ban. The White House is expected to release more details on the sanctions later this afternoon. Asked about calls for Russia to also be banned from the Swift international payment system, Psaki said, “We’ve never taken that off the table, of course, and I’m certainly not taking it off the table today.”
- Biden announced that he would nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the supreme court. If confirmed by the Senate, Brown would replace Justice Stephen Breyer and become the first Black woman to ever serve on the US supreme court. “If I’m fortunate enough to be confirmed as the next associate justice of the supreme court of the United States, I can only hope that my life and career, my love of this country and the Constitution and my commitment to upholding the rule of law and the sacred principles upon which this great nation was founded will inspire future generations of Americans,” Jackson said at the White House.
- Biden praised Jackson as “one of the nation’s brightest legal minds”. Formally announcing Jackson as his nominee, Biden said, “It’s my honor to introduce to the country a daughter of former public school teachers, a proven consensus-builder, an accomplished lawyer, a distinguished jurist on one of the nation’s most prestigious courts. My nominee for the United States supreme court is Judge Ketanji Jackson.”
- Senate Democrats said they would move quickly to confirm Jackson. “Judge Jackson’s achievements are well known to the Senate Judiciary Committee as we approved her to the D.C. Circuit less than a year ago with bipartisan support,” said Dick Durbin, the chairman of the panel. “We will begin immediately to move forward on her nomination with the careful, fair, and professional approach she and America are entitled to.”
For more updates on the situation in Ukraine, make sure to follow the Guardian’s other live blog, which is still going:
Jen Psaki was asked how the US would respond if Vladimir Putin successfully overtakes Kyiv, as Russian forces escalate their attacks against the Ukrainian capital.
“I would just reiterate, as we’ve been warning for months, that Kyiv falling is a real possibility,” the White House press secretary told reporters.
“Russia’s military continues to advance toward Kyiv, so there is that real possibility. I’m just not going to get into, at this point, hypotheticals of what that will look like or what our response would be.”
Psaki’s briefing has now concluded, after the press secretary took questions from reporters for about 50 minutes.
