Biden news: President’s border czar resigns as White House asks private investors to stem migrant surge

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Hunter Biden shrugs off Trumps’ criticism

The White House announced its border coordinator, who was leading the Biden administration’s attempts at halting the surge of migrants, would step down at the end of the month. The announcement on late Friday came just hours after border czar Robert Jacobson outlined the president’s plans to approach US companies to invest in Mexico and Central America to reduce migration.

Joe Biden, meanwhile, announced a $1.5trn budget proposal for 2022, with a 16 per cent increase in domestic spending. The White House outlined the proposal in its “discretionary request”, which is separate from Biden’s latest $2trn spending bill, and the $1.9trn coronavirus aid bill recently passed by the Senate.

The president also ordered a 180-day study of the Supreme Court that includes the possibility of adding more justices. Increasing the number of justices, colloquially known as “packing the court”, could reverse the current conservative majority into a progressive majority, or, depending on the results of future elections, create a supermajority for one side or the other.

Newly reported emails between Trump administration officials show them bragging about persuading or pressuring the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to alter its releases on Covid-19 transmission and deaths among younger Americans.

As he continues to promote his new memoir detailing his story of grief, addiction and recovery, Hunter Biden used an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show last night to take a sideways shot at the Trump family, mocking Donald Trump Jr for accusing him of nepotism – an accusation he mocked as “wildly comical” given the source.

As he writes in his book: “Do you think if any of the Trump children ever tried to get a job outside of their father’s business that his name wouldn’t figure into the calculation? My response has always been to work harder so that my accomplishments stand on their own.”

Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has begun a lawsuit against the Biden administration to overturn a no-sailing directive that is depriving his state’s cruise industry of billions of dollars. Mr DeSantis, who has long been a critic of lockdowns and social distancing restrictions, said at a press conference yesterday that “we don’t believe the federal government has the right to mothball a major industry for over a year based on very little evidence and very little data”.

Read more:

• Hunter Biden mocks ‘wildly comical’ Don Jr in Kimmel interview
• Video shows Donald and Melania Trump meeting man accused in Matt Gaetz trafficking scandal
• Emails reveal how Trump officials celebrated getting CDC to change official language on Covid risks
• Q unmasked: Did the QAnon conspiracy founder start life as a shy kid from Washington?

Key points

• Biden’s border czar resigns hours after urging private companies to help stem migrant surge
• Biden creates commission to study adding Supreme Court justices
• Joe Biden proposes annual budget of $1.5trn
• ‘His legacy will live on’: Joe Biden sends condolences to the Queen
• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is suing Joe Biden to reopen his state’s cruise industry

[10 April 2021 00:25 · Justin Vallejo]

Matt Gaetz: Republican calls for congressman to step down as Venmo payments to women called into question

Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has become the first Republican to call for Representative Matt Gaetz's resignation amid a probe by the Justice Department into sex trafficking allegations.

In a short tweet, Mr Kinzinger wrote: "Matt Gaetz needs to resign."

The tweet included an article from The Daily Beast that reported the Florida Representative allegedly paid an accused sex trafficker $900 through Venmo in May 2018. Then the accused trafficker, identified as former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, sent that same amount to teenage girls.

Danielle Zoellner reports.

[10 April 2021 00:34 · Justin Vallejo]

‘He didn’t like bloody fools’: Grandson of Winston Churchill reflects on Prince Phillip

This doesn’t much connect with the politics of the United States, but this reflection of Prince Phillip from the grandson of Winston Churchill nonetheless merits mention on this day of passing of the Queen’s consort.

Here is Sir Nicholas Soames, who knew Prince Phillip well for 60 years, remembering him on a British podcast to say the world had lost a “tough egg” who was a symbol of a fading generation.

“The press, with their attention span for which they are famous, always talks about his ‘gaffes’ — his gaffes were that what you saw was what you got,” Sir Nicholas said.

“He was an absolutely ram rod straight former naval officer, who didn’t have much time for sycophancy or bloody fools or anyone else, and spoke as he found. But he was essentially a man of great good humour, he had tremendous wit and charm … and he held very strong views. This is not a mere figure.”

Sir Nicholas added that Prince Phillip was the epitome of the stiff upper lip and the world had lost a figure of a generation that had lived through an era of profound upheaval.

“He didn’t like bloody fools, and if he thought you were talking rubbish he told you… What you saw with Prince Philip was what you got. He was completely authentic as a human being,” he said.

[10 April 2021 00:45 · Justin Vallejo]

George Floyd brother says ‘case going great’ but ‘it’s all up to the jury’

One of George Floyd’s brothers said the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the police officer charged killing him, was going “great” but that “it’s all up to jury”, writes The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe in Minneapolis.

“As the trial entered its 10th day, a day when a respected medical expert told the jury Mr Floyd had been killed as a result of the way he was held down by Minneapolis police officers and was thus robbed of oxygen, Rodney Floyd said he was impressed by the witnesses who had spoken, and what they had said. Yet, he said all he and other relatives and supporters of the man whose death last year sparked international outcry, could do was to stick together and hope the jury delivered what they considered a just verdict.”