Biden news: Border crisis pictures show reality for migrants

In a segment of MediaBuzz on Fox News on Sunday morning, presenter Howard Kurtz introduced a segment about the media’s handling of Joe Biden first official press conference as president by playing a clip from Saturday Night Live that mocked Mr Biden for using notecards.

Fox Business anchor Liz Claman said that criticism of the president for using notes was “ridiculous”.

“We don’t want our world leaders riffing. We do not want our politicians just kind of going with the flow. Yes, you want facts and figures on a notecard. I mean, that’s ridiculous. Every CEO I interview, all good reporters, they have notes with them.”

Mr Kurtz asked Ms Claman is there bar was set low for Mr Biden by conservative media speculation about his mental faculties.

“Absolutely,” she responded, adding that they “set the bar so incredibly low”.

Fellow guest, Fox News contributor Guy Benson said that the president having notes did not bother him, but he was more concerned about “the number of untruths that he told and the demagoguery that went unchallenged”.

Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser on the Covid response, reveals 3.3 million doses of the vaccine were given to people in 24 hours in the US, bringing the seven-day rolling average to 2.7 million doses.

The Biden administration is continuing to hammer the message that the US border is closed to families and adult individuals trying to enter the country via Mexico, even as the government takes in the surge of unaccompanied children and families arriving at patrol stations.

“The border remains closed. It is not open. We are turning away the majority of adults, but what we are really talking about here is children, and how we are handling that in the safest and most humane capacity,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

But Ms Psaki’s statement — which toes the line the administration has cast on immigration amid the surge in migrants — does not square with the reality of how most families and all unaccompanied children are being processed.

Griffin Connolly reports from Washington, Dc.

Ms Trump, 38, who is the host of conservative podcast The Right View, made the comments during an appearance on pro-Trump TV network Newsmax on Friday.

During the interview, Ms Trump spoke about comments Mr Sanders made in a conversation with The New York Times on Tuesday, where the prominent progressive politician said that he felt conflicted about Mr Trump’s Twitter ban, as it was implemented when he was still president.

James Crump has the story.

Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has pushed back on his ex-boss’s attempt to whitewash the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol, saying that Mr Trump’s characterisation of the riot was “manifestly false”.

Griffin Connolly reports from Washington, DC.

California representative Ted Lieu has claimed that former White House coronavirus task force member Dr Deborah Birx enabled the former president’s wayward response to Covid-19 leading to “hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths”.

Dr Birx was a prominent figure in Trump’s task force, alongside Dr Anthony Fauci, and praised him early on in the pandemic, before publicly contradicting him and appearing visibly uncomfortable in the notorious viral clip in which he falsely speculated that bleach could work as a treatment against the virus, a defining moment of his presidency.

For many though, she could have done much more.

James Crump has this report on Lieu’s criticism.

It really would be better if you did, Ron Weiser…

Nathan Place has this report on his remarks about state governor Gretchen Whitmer, secretary of state Jocelyn Benson and attorney general Dana Nessel and why they are so harmful.

He told CNN’s Dana Bash that China was at fault for coronavirus and that the world deserves “accountabilty” but the US focus going forward must be on “building a stronger system for the future”.

While Jen Psaki was appealing for calm on Fox earlier and insisting the administration is doing all it can, the latest night shots of families attempting illegal crossings of the Rio Grande captured by AFP photographer Ed Jones bring home the reality of the ordeal being experienced by parents and their young children as they risk everything in search of a better life in the US.

Over on CNN’s State of the Union, the new Georgia senator elected in January’s runoff elections alongside fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff, told Dana Bash that the battle against Peach State Republicans’ restrictive new laws were only just getting started.

“We cannot allow politicians to silence the people,” he said.