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Biden Pleads for Stricter Gun Laws in National Address

While addressing the nation on Tuesday after a shooting at a grocery store in Colorado, President Biden made a plea for stricter gun laws across the country.

Ten lives have been lost, and more families have been shattered by gun violence in the state of Colorado. And Jill and I are devastated, and the feeling, I just can’t imagine how the families are feeling. The victims, whose futures were stolen from them, from their families, from their loved ones, who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what’s happened. While we’re still waiting for more information regarding the shooter, his motive, the weapons he used, the guns, the magazines, the weapons, the modifications that apparently have taken place to those weapons that are involved here — I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps that’ll save the lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act. We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator, it passed it was the law for the longest time. And it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.

President Biden said Tuesday that he was “devastated” by the killing of 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., and called on Congress not to “wait another minute” in enacting legislation to ban assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“This is not and should not be a partisan issue — it is an American issue,” a somber Mr. Biden said in brief remarks delivered in the State Dining Room at the White House. “We have to act.”

Mr. Biden would not comment on the details of the attack on Monday but said he had spoken to Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, and would continue his consultations during a flight to Columbus, Ohio, in the afternoon.

“Jill and I are devastated. The feeling — I just can’t imagine how the families are feeling,” he said, at times struggling to find the right words.

Mr. Biden then left for a trip to promote his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, hoping to keep the focus on the benefits of the stimulus and promoting the 11th anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act. While he is in Ohio, President Biden is also scheduled to meet with Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, to discuss coronavirus vaccinations and other matters related to the pandemic.

The attack in Colorado, in which a gunman killed 10 people, including a police officer, came less than a week after another gunman murdered eight people in Atlanta. The back-to-back killings amounted to a return of mass casualty shootings that had seemed, for a time, to be suppressed by pandemic lockdowns.

Mr. Biden noted that he had to draft a proclamation on Monday to keep — not lower — the White House flags to half-staff, because they had already been lowered to honor the victims in Atlanta.

“Another American city has been scarred by gun violence and the resulting trauma,” he said.

Earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking at an event in Washington, praised the “heroism” of Eric Talley, an officer killed while responding to the shooting.

Mr. Biden also praised the officer’s efforts and offered his condolences to his “close, close family” of seven children.

“When he pinned on that badge yesterday morning he didn’t know what the day would bring. I want everybody to think about this,” Mr. Biden said.

Mr. Biden has had a long, and at times frustrating, history of pushing gun control proposals. He was tasked with coming up with a legislative package of gun control measures by President Barack Obama after the Sandy Hook killings of 2012 but the effort resulted in no significant legislative action, and Mr. Obama was forced to enact a handful of relatively modest reform through executive actions.

Mr. Biden had not made gun control a legislative priority during the first weeks of his presidency, but his tone on Wednesday seemed to signal a shift.

He called on the Senate to quickly pass two House bills, passed earlier this year and first introduced after the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school, that extend background checks to private sellers and extend the time limit to conduct checks on purchasers.

Mr. Biden said it was wrong “to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common-sense steps that will save lives in the future.”

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, later told reporters aboard Air Force One that the recent shooting did not change Mr. Biden’s position on overhauling the filibuster.

“He, of course, believes that we should work with Democrats and Republicans to get work done for the American people, including common-sense gun safety measures,” Ms. Psaki said. “He’s also open to hearing ideas. He is not going to allow for obstruction to get work done for the American people. But his preference and priority is working with members of both parties.”

Senators quickly splintered along partisan lines over gun control measures on Tuesday as Democrats demanded action in the wake of two mass shootings in the past week and Republicans denounced their calls, highlighting the political divide that has fueled a decades-long cycle of inaction on gun violence.

At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee that was scheduled before shootings in Atlanta and Boulder that left at least 18 people dead, Democrats argued that the latest carnage left Congress no choice but to enact stricter policies. They lamented the grim pattern of anguish and outrage followed by partisanship and paralysis had become the norm following mass shootings.

“In addition to a moment of silence, I would like to ask for a moment of action,” said Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and the chairman of the committee. “A moment of real caring. A moment when we don’t allow others to do what we need to do. Prayer leaders have their important place in this, but we are Senate leaders. What are we doing?”

Even before the recent shootings, Democrats had already begun advancing stricter gun control measures that face long odds in the 50-50 Senate. House Democrats passed two bills this month aimed at expanding and strengthening background checks for gun buyers, by applying them to all gun buyers and extending the time the F.B.I. has to vet those flagged by the national instant check system.

But the twin pieces of legislation passed in the House have been deemed too expansive by most Republicans — only eight House Republicans voted to advance the universal background check legislation. The bills would almost certainly not muster the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster in the Senate.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the panel, said in his opening remarks that he was hopeful Democrats and Republicans could work together to make “bipartisan, common-sense” progress on gun control. But he said that the House-passed legislation did not fit that bill, since the measures passed almost entirely along party lines.

“That is not a good sign that all voices and all perspectives are being considered,” Mr. Grassley said.

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, went further, lashing out at Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who said that Republicans had offered “fig leaves” rather than actionable, significant solutions to gun control.

“Every time there’s a shooting, we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these murders,” Mr. Cruz said. “But what they propose — not only does it not reduce crime, it makes it worse.”

The renewed focus on gun control is expected to cast attention back on Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who opposes dismantling the legislative filibuster but has long labored — fruitlessly — to pass a bipartisan gun control proposal.

Following the 2012 shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Manchin brokered a deal with Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, to close legal loopholes that allow people who purchase firearms at gun shows or on the internet to avoid background checks, but proponents were unable to pick up enough support to pass it.

Mr. Manchin told CQ Roll Call earlier this month that he opposed the House-passed universal background check bill, citing its provision requiring checks for sales between private citizens, but said he was interested in reviving the Manchin-Toomey legislation.

As president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. finds himself in a position distressingly similar to the one he confronted eight years ago as vice president: trying to figure out a way to stop mass shootings and meeting resistance from conservative gun owners and their political allies.

In 2020, gun control was given a prominent place on Mr. Biden’s campaign website, but it had been a back-burner concern for a new administration single-mindedly determined to address the pandemic and its economic damage.

That could change following the attacks in Atlanta and Boulder, and if so, Mr. Biden’s successes and failures over the past three decades on gun control are likely to inform how he confronts the crisis as president.

President Barack Obama chose not to act immediately following the massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. in 2012, as many Democrats had hoped, by pushing for a quick vote on gun control legislation.

Instead, he delegated the task of coming up with a package of reforms to Mr. Biden, who had helped pass the landmark Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and a 10-year assault weapons ban in the 1990s when he served in the Senate.

From his earliest days in the administration. Mr. Biden pushed Mr. Obama to do more on guns, to little avail, his advisers later said. “Even before Newtown, the vice president had wanted the administration to push harder on the issue,” Bruce Reed, Mr. Biden’s chief of staff as vice president, and still a trusted adviser, told a reporter in 2015.

The decision to tap Mr. Biden irked many of Mr. Obama’s closest advisers: They thought he needed to personally push through a series of strong measures immediately, while emotions were high, to force lawmakers to cast votes of conscience.

Five weeks after the killings, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden announced 23 relatively modest executive actions, and called on Congress to pass three laws: universal background checks, a new assault weapons ban, and a prohibition on high-capacity gun clips.

Mr. Biden, consulting with his former colleagues in the Senate, decided the best course of action was to focus on only one element, the background checks, and persuaded progressives to settle for a limited but important initiative.

The strategy, and the bill, quickly failed.

“Eight years later, there have been plenty of thoughts and prayers, but we know that is not enough,” Mr. Biden said in December, marking the anniversary of Sandy Hook. “We will fight to end this scourge on our society and enact common sense reforms that are supported by a majority of Americans and that will save countless lives.”

Mr. Biden’s proposals, listed on his website, are strikingly similar to the reforms he proposed as vice president.

White House aides are considering a number of executive actions, including one that would impose background checks for buyers of homemade firearms that lack serial numbers, a proposal to close a loophole that allows a gun to be transferred from licensed gun dealers before a completed background check, and various plans to keep guns away from people suffering from mental illness.

The Senate confirmed Shalanda D. Young on Tuesday afternoon as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, which would make her the first confirmed leadership official at the agency after President Biden’s pick for director withdrew amid bipartisan opposition.

Neera Tanden, Mr. Biden’s nominee to lead the budget agency, withdrew early this month after senators in both parties objected to negative posts she had made on social media and criticized her work at the Center for American Progress. The position of O.M.B. director is one of only two top -level vacancies remaining in the Biden administration, leaving Ms. Young to help steer the agency in the absence of a director.

The Senate voted to confirm her on a 63-37 margin.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have mounted a substantial campaign to elevate Ms. Young, the first Black woman to serve as staff director on the House Appropriations Committee, to the position of director. Having worked to negotiate annual government funding and more than $3 trillion in pandemic relief, Ms. Young has earned bipartisan respect in both the House and Senate for her work.

She is expected to play a key role in working with other cabinet officials to structure Mr. Biden’s first budget as president, as well as an infrastructure package.

The only other cabinet-level role yet to be filled in the Biden administration is that of the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Mr. Biden has nominated Eric S. Lander, the director of the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, to serve in that role, and also intends to appoint him to serve as presidential science adviser. It is the first time that the position will be elevated to the cabinet level.

On Politics

The Biden administration has a culture war on its hands, and it has left many of the president’s political allies scratching their heads.

On Friday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, confirmed that five staff members had lost their jobs because they had used marijuana in the past — even though the administration previously told incoming staffers that prior use of cannabis wouldn’t immediately disqualify them. Some other staff members remain employed on a work-from-home basis while their history of marijuana use is evaluated.

This came as a surprise to many proponents of marijuana legalization, which is now more popular than ever before. President Biden has long been relatively conservative when it comes to drug policy, and he has never endorsed full legalization, but his plans for criminal justice reform include the decriminalization of marijuana and a number of other policies to de-escalate the war on drugs, which is in its 50th year.

Recreational marijuana use is now legal in 14 states, as well as the nation’s capital. Some states and municipalities have even made it illegal for employers to consider past marijuana use in pre-employment screenings, as the Biden administration has done.

Udi Ofer, the director of the justice division at the American Civil Liberties Union, said that punishing White House staff members for past pot use sent a confusing signal. “Americans overwhelmingly support marijuana legalization, yet these types of punitive practices by employers — let alone the White House — perpetuate a failed war on marijuana,” he said in an interview. “Marijuana possession continues to be the No. 1 arrest in America, year after year, and it’s these types of wrongheaded employer policies that perpetuate this.”

Last year, Gallup found that Americans backed marijuana legalization more than two to one, the highest level of support on record. Sixty-eight percent of the country favored legalization, while just 32 percent were against it.

The level of support was about even between white and nonwhite respondents. Republicans were roughly evenly divided — with 48 percent in favor and 52 percent against — while sentiment among Democrats was overwhelming: More than four in five supported it.

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Powell and Yellen Testify on Economic Recovery

The Federal Reserve chair and Treasury secretary testified before the House Financial Services Committee Tuesday on the economic recovery and the impact of Covid-19 on the economy.

“There are 22 million people who say they don’t have enough food to eat, one in 10 adults are hungry in America. I looked at data like these, and I worried that the Covid economy was going to keep hurting millions of people now, and haunt them long after the health emergency was over. We know that when the foundations of someone’s life fall apart, when they lose the roof over their head with the ability to eat dinner every night, the pain can weigh on them for years. Their earnings potential is permanently lowered, and I worried about this happening on a mass scale. That’s why I advocated very hard for the American Rescue Plan, and why it’s my first and my most enthusiastic message today.” “Today, the situation is much improved. While the economic fallout has been real and widespread, the worst was avoided by swift and vigorous action from Congress and the Federal Reserve, from across government and cities and towns, and from individual communities in the private sector. Indicators of economic activity and employment have turned up recently. Household spending on goods has risen notably so far this year, although spending on services remains low, especially in sectors that typically require in-person gatherings. The housing sector has more than fully recovered from the downturn, while business investment in manufacturing production have also picked up.”

The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, told lawmakers that the economy was healing from the pandemic downturn and continued to play down inflation concerns at a hearing before House lawmakers on Tuesday.

In response to a question about whether the $1.9 trillion spending package to combat the virus could cause prices to shoot higher — especially if combined with President Biden’s plan to spend as much as $3 trillion on an infrastructure package — Mr. Powell said the Fed did not expect a lasting surge in inflation.

“We do expect that inflation will move up over the course of this year,” Mr. Powell told the House Financial Services committee, adding that some of the rise would be mechanical as low readings from March and April of last year dropped out of the data, and part of it might be driven by a bounce-back in demand.

“Our best view is that the effect on inflation will be neither particularly large nor persistent,” he said. And if it does pick up in a more concerning way, “we have the tools to deal with that.”

Mr. Powell testified along with Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, before the House Financial Services committee on the economic recovery from the pandemic.

The testimony is the first time Ms. Yellen and Mr. Powell have appeared side by side in their current roles. President Donald J. Trump chose to replace Ms. Yellen with Mr. Powell at the Fed, but the two economic officials spent several years working together at the Fed and have a good rapport.

Mr. Powell told lawmakers on Tuesday that the economy was healing and that although many workers and businesses continued to suffer, the aggressive response from the central bank, Congress and the White House helped to avoid the most devastating economic scenarios.

“While the economic fallout has been real and widespread, the worst was avoided by swift and vigorous action,” Mr. Powell said.

Ms. Yellen faced questions on executing Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief legislation. The Treasury Department has been racing to distribute $1,400 checks to millions of Americans, posing a test for Ms. Yellen’s team, which is not yet fully in place.

Ms. Yellen pushed hard for a robust fiscal relief package, and she has suggested that the next bill needs to be focused on addressing longer-term structural issues facing the economy that have led to vast income inequality.

In her opening statement, Ms. Yellen described the rescue legislation as precisely what the economy needed.

“With the passage of the rescue plan, I am confident that people will reach the other side of this pandemic with the foundations of their lives intact,” Ms. Yellen said. “And I believe they will be met there by a growing economy. In fact, I think we may see a return to full employment next year.”

Ms. Yellen also defended the Biden administration’s plans to propose an infrastructure and jobs legislative package that could cost more than $3 trillion and said she did not think higher taxes on companies would hurt consumers.

“I think a package that consists of investments in people, investments in infrastructure, will help to create good jobs in the American economy, and changes in the tax structure will help to pay for those programs,” Ms. Yellen said.

Mr. Powell and Ms. Yellen both took questions on how financial regulators should deal with the threat posed by climate change. Republicans have grown concerned that the Fed’s growing attention to climate risks in its role as a bank overseer could end up putting carbon-heavy companies at a disadvantage when it comes to loan access.

“It’s really very early days in trying to understand what all of this means,” Mr. Powell said, adding that many large banks and large industrial companies were already thinking about and beginning to disclose how climate might effect them over time. “We have a job, which is to ensure that the institutions we regulate are resilient to the risks that they’re running.”

A pair of hard-right politicians announced Senate bids in Missouri and Alabama on Monday night, igniting what are expected to be contentious primary races for open seats in two conservative states.

In Missouri, Eric Greitens, the former governor who resigned after a scandal involving allegations of sexual misconduct and blackmail, said he would run for the seat being vacated by Senator Roy Blunt, who surprised Republicans this month when he announced plans to retire after next year. And in Alabama, Representative Mo Brooks, a staunch backer of former President Donald J. Trump, joined the race to succeed Senator Richard Shelby, who has also said he will not seek re-election in 2022.

The announcements, along with a new conservative challenge to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who withstood Mr. Trump’s pressure to overturn the state’s election results last year, offer the clearest signal yet that Republicans may face the kind of combative primary season some party leaders had hoped to avoid. Since Mr. Trump lost the election, Republicans have struggled to unify around a consistent message against the new administration, spending far more time fighting among themselves over loyalty to the former president and the culture war issues that animate his base.

Mr. Brooks cast himself as one of the former president’s strongest supporters as he announced his Senate bid at a Huntsville gun range, where he was introduced by Stephen Miller, a former adviser to Mr. Trump.

“I have stood by his side during two impeachment hoaxes, during the Russian collusion hoax, and in the fight for honest and accurate elections,” Mr. Brooks said in an interview with Fox News. “The president knows that. The voters of Alabama know that, and they appreciate it.”

A six-term congressman, Mr. Brooks, 66, was one of the first members of Congress to publicly declare that he would object to certifying President Biden’s election victory. He faced calls for censure from Democrats after remarking at the rally that preceded the Capitol riot that it was time to “start taking down names and kicking ass.” Mr. Brooks has said the phrase was misconstrued as advocating for the violence that followed.

Mr. Greitens, 46, is also running under the Trump banner, though it remains unclear whether the former president will endorse his bid. He faced months of allegations, criminal charges and court proceedings after explosive allegations emerged of an affair, sexual misconduct and blackmail involving his former hairstylist. He resigned as Missouri’s governor in 2018, less than two years into his term; he was never convicted of a crime.

Renounced by his biggest donors and former strategists, Mr. Greitens has been championed by some in Mr. Trump’s orbit and is a frequent guest on a podcast hosted by the former Trump chief adviser Steve Bannon.

As Lt. Gen. Karen Gibson watched the violence and horror of the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol, her mind flashed back to the war zones where she had led military intelligence operations.

“I was aghast,” the retired Army general recalled on Monday, standing on a balcony on the west side of the Capitol, not far from where rioters had smashed widows and assaulted police officers. “I thought, ‘I am witnessing the kind of activities that I have seen happen in nations I deployed to.’ I never expected to see that in the United States. It was shocking.”

Now it is up to General Gibson, 56, of Bozeman, Mont., to try to ensure that such an assault never reaches the halls of Congress again.

On Monday, she was sworn in as the Senate’s new sergeant-at-arms, its top security official. She is just the second woman to hold the position in the chamber’s 232-year history. General Gibson’s leadership team is groundbreaking: It includes Kelly Fado as deputy sergeant-at-arms and Jennifer Hemingway as chief of staff — the first time all three of the Senate’s top security posts have been held by women.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, called the team the “three most qualified people you could find.”

During her 33-year career, General Gibson rose to be a deputy director of national intelligence. She worked on operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, East Africa, Korea and the Pacific, and across the Middle East. As the director of intelligence for U.S. Central Command, she was involved with clandestine ground operatives and technical intelligence collection from space.

General Gibson is starting her new post at a demanding time for Capitol security. Nearly 140 police officers were injured during the January attack by Trump supporters, and five people died. In the aftermath, all three top Capitol security officials resigned under pressure.

Following the attack, General Gibson volunteered to join a security review led by Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, a retired Army officer who had been appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That task force recommended hiring more than 800 Capitol Police officers, building mobile fencing around the complex and changing Capitol Police Board procedures to allow the chief of the agency to quickly summon the National Guard during an emergency.

As part of the task force, General Gibson studied the ins and outs of the use of intelligence by security personnel and found some major deficiencies. The task force’s report noted that “only a handful of people” in the Capitol Police “have significant intelligence training.”

In her new role, General Gibson is faced with striking a delicate balance between securing the Capitol and maintaining public access to a symbol of American democracy. She said she hoped to restore the “faith” and “confidence” in the office.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, said on Tuesday that she would refuse to vote for any of President Biden’s nominees “other than diversity nominees” until the White House addressed what she called an unacceptable dearth of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders serving in top administration posts.

Her ultimatum came as Mr. Biden faces mounting pressure on the issue amid a growing tide of racism toward Asian-Americans during the pandemic, culminating in last week’s deadly shootings in Atlanta.

Ms. Duckworth and Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, said they used a private video meeting on Monday night with other Senate Democrats to tell Mr. Biden’s top advisers, including the deputy chief of staff, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, that the scarcity of Asian-American cabinet-level officials was “not acceptable” and needed to be promptly addressed. The pair are the only two Asian-American members of the Senate.

Ms. Duckworth said she followed up Tuesday morning to inform the White House she was “a no on everything other than the diversity candidates” who came before the Senate until she felt Mr. Biden’s team was taking the right steps, beginning with the president’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy. With the Senate divided evenly between the two parties, her opposition could create considerable pressure to find an agreement.

“I’ve been talking to them for months,” Ms. Duckworth said in an interview. “They are still not aggressive, so I am not going to be voting for any nominee from the White House other than diversity nominees. I’ll be a ‘no’ on everyone until they figure that out.”

Open disputes between Mr. Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill have been relatively rare in his first months on the job. But prominent Asian-American lawmakers who have been quietly agitating around nominations and appointments for months, signaled they were done giving the White House the benefit of the doubt.

During the meeting Monday night, Ms. Duckworth said that Ms. O’Malley Dillon pointed out that Vice President Kamala Harris, whose mother was from India, and Katherine Tai, the top American trade envoy who is of Chinese descent, were Asian-American. The White House considers both women to be part of the Cabinet, though they do not lead executive departments.

Ms. Duckworth, who is Thai American, called the invocation of Ms. Harris to placate her concerns “insulting.”

“That is not something you would say to the Black Caucus — ‘Well you have Kamala, we’re not going to put any more African Americans in the Cabinet because you have Kamala,’” she said to reporters on Tuesday.

“Why would you say it to AAPI?” she added, referring to Asian-American and Pacific Islander.

Ms. Duckworth added that for months she had given the White House names of possible Asian-American nominees “who never even got a phone call.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Axios first reported details of the Monday exchange.

Ms. Hirono was less pointed in her criticism, but said on Tuesday that she shared Ms. Duckworth’s “frustration.” They are two of only eight Asian-Americans ever to serve in the Senate, including Ms. Harris.

“I realize that we have Katherine Tai, but I don’t think trade representative is what the community understands as a cabinet-level,” she said.

Ms. Hirono, who is Japanese American, said she had also pressed the White House to more regularly poll Asian-American and Pacific Islanders as a group when gauging support for policy proposals, like they would Black Americans, women and other groups.