Republican Governor Kim Reynolds of the midwestern U.S. state of Iowa laid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine squarely at the feet of President Joe Biden and his approach to foreign policy.
In the official Republican response to the Democratic president’s State of the Union address, Governor Reynolds offered a list of what she described as the administration’s foreign policy failures, including last year’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which she said not only “cost American lives,” but “betrayed our allies and emboldened our enemies.”
Reynolds suggested Biden allowed the Ukraine invasion to occur by waiving sanctions on Russian pipelines while eliminating domestic oil production. She concluded that Biden and congressional Democrats were too busy “focusing on political correctness rather than military readiness.”
“Weakness on the world stage has a cost,” Reynolds said. “And the president’s approach to foreign policy has consistently been too little, too late.”
Turning her attention to the U.S. economy, the first-term governor said Biden and congressional Democrats have spent the last year “either ignoring issues facing Americans or making them worse,” specifically inflation. Reynolds said the administration was warned that “spending trillions of dollars would lead to soaring inflation, and were told that anti-energy policies would send gas prices to new heights.”
She also boasted of the approach taken by her and other Republican governors in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. This included opposing coronavirus restrictions such as vaccine and mask mandates, especially those in public schools.
She said keeping schools open is just the start of a “pro-parent, pro-family revolution” that includes banning the teaching of so-called critical race theory, which conservatives contend could further divide Americans and worsen race relations.
“Americans are tired of a political class trying to remake this country into a place where an elite view tells everyone else what they can and cannot say, what they can and cannot believe,” Reynolds said. “They’re tired of people pretending the way to erase racism is by categorizing everybody by their race.”
The 62-year-old Reynolds began her political career as the elected treasurer of a rural county, serving four terms in that office before her election to the Iowa state Senate in 2008. She was elevated to the post of lieutenant governor two years later as the running mate of Governor Terry Branstad, succeeding him in 2017 when he was confirmed as then-President Donald Trump’s choice as ambassador to China.
The Associated Press is fact-checking President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union speech as he grapples with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a stalled domestic agenda and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of the claims we’ve examined:
The pandemic
BIDEN: “Severe cases are down to a level not seen since July of last year.”
THE FACTS: Biden overstated the improvement, omitting a statistic that remains a worrisome marker of the toll from COVID-19.
While hospitalizations indeed are down from last summer, deaths remain high. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID tracker shows 289 deaths on July 1, 2021. This past Monday, the CDC tracker reported 1,985 deaths.
Ohio factories
BIDEN, on Intel’s plans for new factories in central Ohio: “Up to eight state-of-the-art factories in one place. 10,000 new jobs.”
THE FACTS: His statement is premature. That many factories are not imminent and may or may not ever be built.
Earlier this year, Intel announced it would open two factories expected to employ 3,000 people. The other 7,000 positions the project is slated to create are temporary construction jobs. It is also planning a chip foundry business that makes chips designed by other firms. Construction is expected to start this year.
Intel has raised the possibility of constructing up to six more factories over the next decade, which could bring the total number of factory workers to 10,000. But that is only a prospect, years away.
Inflation
BIDEN: “The pandemic also disrupted the global supply chain. … Look at cars last year. One-third of all the inflation was because of automobile sales. There weren’t enough semiconductors to make all the cars that people wanted to buy. And guess what? Prices of automobiles went way up. … And so we have a choice. One way to fight inflation is to drag down wages and make Americans poorer. I think I have a better idea to fight inflation. Lower your costs and not your wages. Folks, that means make more cars and semiconductors in America. More infrastructure and innovation in America. More goods moving faster and cheaper in America. … Instead of relying on foreign supply chains let’s make it in America.”
THE FACTS: It’s dubious to suggest that more domestic manufacturing means less inflation.
Manufactured products made overseas, particularly in countries such as China or Mexico where wages are lower, are generally cheaper than U.S.-made goods.
Biden also places too much weight on supply chain disruptions from overseas as a factor in the worst inflation in four decades. Although those problems indeed have been a major factor in driving up costs, inflation is increasingly showing up in other areas, such as rents and restaurant meals, that reflect the rapid growth of the economy and wages in the past year and not a global supply bottleneck. Those trends are likely to keep pushing up prices even as supply chains recover.
Gun violence
BIDEN, asking Congress to pass measures he said would reduce gun violence: “Repeal the liability shield that makes gun manufacturers the only industry in America that can’t be sued, the only one.”
THE FACTS: That’s false. While gun manufacturers do have legal protections from being held liable for injuries caused by criminal misuse of their weapons thanks to the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, they are not exempt or immune from being sued. The law includes six exceptions where manufacturers or dealers can be held liable for damages that their weapons cause, including defects or damages in the design of the gun, negligence, or breach of contract or warranty regarding the purchase of a gun.
Families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, sued gunmaker Remington, alleging “wrongful marketing” of firearms, and last month agreed to a $73 million settlement.
Infrastructure law, part one
BIDEN on the infrastructure bill: “The single biggest investment in history was a bipartisan effort.”
THE FACTS: No, it wasn’t that historic.
Biden’s infrastructure bill was big, adding $550 billion in fresh spending on roads, bridges, and broadband internet over five years. But measured as a proportion of the U.S. economy, it is slightly below the 1.36% of the nation’s gross domestic product that was spent on infrastructure, on average, during the first four years of the New Deal, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution. It is even further below the roughly 2% spent on infrastructure in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Infrastructure law, part two
BIDEN, promoting his $1 trillion infrastructure law: “We’re done talking about infrastructure weeks. We’re now talking about an infrastructure decade. … We’ll build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.”
THE FACTS: Not so fast.
The bipartisan legislation approved by Congress ended up providing just half of the $15 billion that Biden had envisioned to fulfill a campaign promise of 500,000 charging stations by 2030.
Biden’s Build Back Better proposal aimed to fill the gap by adding back billions to pay for charging stations. But Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in December declared that bill dead in its present form because of the cost.
Administration officials now say the infrastructure law will help pave the way for up to 500,000 charging outlets by 2030. That’s different than charging stations, which could have several outlets. They say private investments could help fill the gap. Currently there are more than 100,000 EV outlets in the U.S.
The Transportation Department’s plan asks states to build a nationwide network of EV charging stations that would place new or upgraded ones every 50 miles along interstate highways. The $5 billion in federal money over five years relies on cooperation from sprawling rural communities in the U.S., which are less likely to own EVs because of their typically higher price.
States are expected to start construction as early as fall.
Republican response
IOWA GOV. KIM REYNOLDS, criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of immigration and boasting about Republican governors’ attention to the issue: “We’ve actually gone to the border — something that our president and vice president have yet to do since taking office.”
THE FACTS: Not true. Vice President Kamala Harris visited the border last year. Biden hasn’t gone yet.
Harris toured a Customs and Border Protection processing center in El Paso, Texas, and met migrant children there. She also stopped by an intake center on the border and held a discussion with local community organizations.
The half-day trip in June came after months of criticism from Republicans and some in her own party over her absence and that of Biden from the border at a time when immigration officers have logged record numbers of encounters with migrants attempting to cross into the U.S.
U.S. President Joe Biden said late Tuesday Russian leader Vladimir Putin “badly miscalculated” in his invasion of neighboring Ukraine and the thought that he could make the free world “bend to his menacing ways.”
Biden used the beginning of his State of the Union address to the nation to express support for Ukraine and outline the widespread, unified response from Ukrainian allies that has included sending weapons and aid to Ukraine and imposing strong economic sanctions against Russia.
“Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he will never gain the hearts and souls of the Ukrainian people,” Biden said. “He will never extinguish their love of freedom. He will never, never weaken the resolve of the free world.”
Biden announced the closing of U.S. air space to all Russian flights and said the U.S. Justice Department is forming a special task force “to go after the crimes of Russian oligarchs.”
He reiterated that the United States will not be sending troops to fight in Ukraine, while stating that NATO allies would “defend every inch” of territory in member states.
“The Ukrainians are fighting back with pure courage, but the next few days, weeks and months will be hard on them,” Biden said. “Putin has unleashed violence and chaos, but while he may make gains on the battlefield, he will pay a continuing high price over the long run.”
Among the audience in the U.S. Capitol was Ukraine Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova. Many of the lawmakers in attendance wore forms of yellow and blue, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, to show their support.
Ukraine Ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova acknowledges applause from US First Lady Jill Biden as they attend President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, in Washington, DC, on March 1, 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with Biden by phone Tuesday about sanctions against Russia and defense aid for Ukraine.
“We must stop the aggressor as soon as possible,” Zelenskyy tweeted.
Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, faced increased Russian shelling Tuesday, including a strike at the Kharkiv Regional State Administration building in the center of the city that Zelenskyy called “undisguised terror” and a war crime.
A day after hours of talks with Russian officials yielded no resolution on Ukraine’s demands for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Russian forces, Zelenskyy again called for a halt in fighting to give negotiations a chance.
“It’s necessary to at least stop bombing people, just stop the bombing and then sit down at the negotiating table,” Zelenskyy told Reuters and CNN in a joint interview in a heavily guarded government compound in Kyiv.
A U.S. defense official told reporters that despite instances of Russian forces in some areas being slowed by logistical problems, the Russian military still has significant combat resources that have not yet been utilized in Ukraine.
One closely watched situation is the approach of a kilometers-long Russian column that has been making its way toward Kyiv.
The official said the U.S. assesses that since the invasion began last Thursday, Russia has launched more than 400 missiles, and that Ukraine’s air and missile defense systems remain viable.
International pressure on Russia continues, with Canada announcing Tuesday it will refer the situation in Ukraine to the International Criminal Court for a probe of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Ukraine.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday that Russian shelling of civilian infrastructure that took place Monday in Kharkiv “violates the laws of war.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed allegations of war crimes and told reporters that “Russian troops don’t conduct any strikes against civilian infrastructure and residential areas,” despite extensive, mounting evidence of Kremlin attacks on homes, schools and hospitals documented by reporters.
The United Nations General Assembly is also expected to vote Wednesday on a resolution calling for Russia to immediately withdraw its military forces from Ukraine and condemning Putin’s move earlier this week to “increase the readiness” of Russia’s nuclear forces.
The resolution, which is non-binding but does signal international opinion, follows a failed effort at the U.N. Security Council where Russia used its veto power to block a similar resolution.
In addition to sanctions that have directly targeted Russia’s banking system and figures close to Putin, many companies have halted their Russian operations in response to the invasion.
Exxon Mobil said it would exit Russia, joining other oil companies such as Shell and BP. Apple stopped selling iPhones and other products in Russia, while car maker Ford and airplane manufacturer Boeing announced they are suspending Russian operations.
Reuters reported late Tuesday that Russian President Putin issued a decree banning cash exports of foreign currency from the country exceeding $10,000 in value with effect from March 2, according to a Kremlin statement.
Also on Tuesday, Echo Moskvy, one of Russia’s oldest radio stations that is critical of the authorities, was taken off the airwaves. The Associated Press confirmed that the blockage, along with threats to shutter the renowned station permanently, is a result of its coverage of the invasion.
Ukraine’s parliament said a Russian missile hit the television tower in Kyiv. Local media reported the attack caused several explosions and Ukrainian channels stopped broadcasting shortly thereafter.
Ukrainian officials said five people were killed in the attack. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that it rekindles memories of the mass killing of Jews by Nazi SS troops and local collaborators during World War II.
“Kyiv TV tower, which has just been hit by a Russian missile, is situated on the territory of Babyn Yar. On September 29-30, 1941, Nazis killed over 33 thousand Jews here. 80 years later, Russian Nazis strike this same land to exterminate Ukrainians. Evil and barbaric.”
The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that more than 677,000 people, most of them women and children, had fled Ukraine to neighboring countries since Thursday. It said it expects 4 million people could eventually flee Ukraine.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters.
El senador demócrata Joe Manchin junto a legisladores republicanos durante el primer discurso sobre el Estado de la Unión de Joe Biden ante una sesión conjunta del Congreso en el Capitolio, Washington.J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE (AFP)
Joe Biden estaba preparado para que, al acabar su primer discurso del Estado de la Unión ante el Congreso de este martes por la noche, tanto republicanos como demócratas evaluaran sus compromisos. Sin embargo, la primera declaración, al menos de intenciones, fue cortesía del senador Joe Manchin, miembro del partido del mandatario. El representante del Estado de Virginia Occidental se sentó a escuchar la intervención de Biden junto a la bancada de los conservadores, rompiendo con la tradición de que cada partido atienda el mensaje junto a sus compañeros.
En un Senado partido por la mitad, Manchin ha sido la piedra de tope para que Biden saque adelante su gran programa social del Gobierno. “El senador Manchin se sentó con su colega, el senador [republicano Mitt] Romney, para recordarle al pueblo estadounidense y al mundo que el bipartidismo funciona y está vivo y coleando en el Senado de Estados Unidos”, afirmó Sam Runyon, su director de comunicación, a The New York Times.
El senador de Virginia Occidental ha votado más leyes con los republicanos que con sus compañeros de partido. El lunes, por ejemplo, fue el único demócrata que rechazó un proyecto de ley para consagrar el derecho al aborto en la ley federal. Los demócratas necesitaban de 60 votos para sacar adelante la propuesta, pero la decisión de Manchin resultó otra muestra de que su postura pone en jaque la agenda partidista, que goza de una limitada mayoría en la Cámara de Representantes y de la mínima en el Senado (en caso de empate, el voto decisivo lo tiene la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris).
La jugada de Manchin no fue la única muestra de rebeldía del lado demócrata. Otra tradición arraigada desde la década del sesenta es que un líder del partido contrario al Gobierno haga una réplica al presidente tras su discurso. Sin embargo, este año una de las respuestas vino de la congresista demócrata Rashida Tlaib, miembro del ala más progresista del partido, quien habló en representación del Partido de las Familias Trabajadoras.
“No podemos buscar la paz si seguimos gastando tres cuartos de billones de dólares cada año en armas de guerra, enriqueciendo a las empresas de defensa y los contratistas. Debemos anteponer los derechos humanos y la dignidad y priorizar la cooperación y la diplomacia”, sostuvo la representante de Michigan tras el discurso del presidente estadounidense marcado por el apoyo a Ucrania ante la invasión rusa.
Incluso antes de que Tlaib pronunciara su réplica, miembros de su partido la criticaron por considerar que una respuesta a Biden desde sus filas era “contraproducente”. “Es como conducir tu propio auto y pinchar tus propios neumáticos”, afirmó a Axios el congresista demócrata Josh Gottheimer. “Esto solo resalta la tensión real entre la extrema izquierda socialista y el ala moderada de sentido común”, agregó el representante de Nueva Jersey.
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La gobernadora de Iowa, Kim Reynolds, se encargó de la réplica oficial del Partido Republicano y enfocó su discurso en la libertad de individuo, particularmente en la de los padres para decidir qué se le enseña a sus hijos en la escuela. El tema ha estado candente desde que consejos escolares conservadores han vetado libros que abordan el racismo y la sexualidad. “Nunca ha sido más importante que ahora decir en voz alta: los padres importan”, afirmó Reynolds. “Tienen derecho a saber y opinar sobre lo que se les enseña a sus hijos”, agregó sobre uno de los debates que marcarán la campaña para las elecciones legislativas, donde los republicanos se juegan el control del Congreso y el Senado.
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Republican Governor Kim Reynolds of the midwestern U.S. state of Iowa laid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine squarely at the feet of President Joe Biden and his approach to foreign policy.
In the official Republican response to the Democratic president’s State of the Union address, Governor Reynolds offered a list of what she described as the administration’s foreign policy failures, including last year’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which she said not only “cost American lives,” but “betrayed our allies and emboldened our enemies.”
Reynolds suggested Biden allowed the Ukraine invasion to occur by waiving sanctions on Russian pipelines while eliminating domestic oil production. She concluded that Biden and congressional Democrats were too busy “focusing on political correctness rather than military readiness.”
“Weakness on the world stage has a cost,” Reynolds said. “And the president’s approach to foreign policy has consistently been too little, too late.”
Turning her attention to the U.S. economy, the first-term governor said Biden and congressional Democrats have spent the last year “either ignoring issues facing Americans or making them worse,” specifically inflation. Reynolds said the administration was warned that “spending trillions of dollars would lead to soaring inflation, and were told that anti-energy policies would send gas prices to new heights.”
She also boasted of the approach taken by her and other Republican governors in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. This included opposing coronavirus restrictions such as vaccine and mask mandates, especially those in public schools.
She said keeping schools open is just the start of a “pro-parent, pro-family revolution” that includes banning the teaching of so-called critical race theory, which conservatives contend could further divide Americans and worsen race relations.
“Americans are tired of a political class trying to remake this country into a place where an elite view tells everyone else what they can and cannot say, what they can and cannot believe,” Reynolds said. “They’re tired of people pretending the way to erase racism is by categorizing everybody by their race.”
The 62-year-old Reynolds began her political career as the elected treasurer of a rural county, serving four terms in that office before her election to the Iowa state Senate in 2008. She was elevated to the post of lieutenant governor two years later as the running mate of Governor Terry Branstad, succeeding him in 2017 when he was confirmed as then-President Donald Trump’s choice as ambassador to China.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, delivering the Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, painted the picture of a country hardly emerging from a crisis and instead in the grips of several as she hammered the president’s leadership notably on the world stage.
Reynolds depicted Biden’s year in office as having “sent us back” to fraught times more than 40 years ago as she made the case for the “alternative” approach of Republicans hoping to capture control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections.
“Instead of moving America forward, it feels like President Biden and his party have sent us back in time to the late ’70s and early ’80s, when runaway inflation was hammering families, a violent crime wave was crashing on our cities, and the Soviet army was trying to redraw the world map,” Reynolds said.
Republicans have hinted for months at two prongs of the three-sided broadside. But Reynolds’ critique of Biden for the Russian invasion of Ukraine signaled the party’s commitment to casting Biden and Democrats as weak world leaders, compounding their withering criticism of the administration’s handling of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last fall.
“Even before taking the oath of office, the President told us that he wanted to ‘make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home.’ He’s failed on both fronts,” Reynolds said, speaking from the rooftop terrace of Iowa Historical Building with the gold-domed Capitol in Des Moines in the background.
Reynolds, whose foreign affairs experience is limited to overseas economic development missions, said “weakness on the world stage has a cost. And the President’s approach to foreign policy has consistently been too little, too late.”
“And now Russia has launched an unprovoked full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, an attack on democracy, freedom, and the rule of law,” she said.
The swipe goes right at what had been a perceived strength of Biden, who brought to the White House eight years as vice president and decades of service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reynolds’ defense of democracy, however, also comes as a select congressional committee has spent more than a year investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by activists loyal to former President Donald Trump who believed the Republicans falsehoods — roundly rejected by state officials and the courts — that the 2020 election was stolen.
While Democrats have portrayed the deadly Capitol siege as an attack on democracy, the Republican National Committee last month labeled the event “legitimate political discourse.”
Reynolds used her 14-minute address to portray the United States as on the “wrong track” — mired in inflation, crime and moral decay, not emerging from the two years of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Instead, she blamed inflation and rising energy prices on spending by Biden and Democrats, who control Congress. “They plowed ahead anyway, raising the price at the pump by 50% and pushing inflation to a 40-year high,” she said.
She also took her moment to introduce herself as a Midwestern mother and grandmother — once a small-town grocery clerk — more in touch with everyday Americans than leaders in Washington, whom she painted as out of touch with heartland cultural concerns.
It’s those leaders in Washington, she argued, who are part of “a political class trying to remake this country into a place where an elite few tell everyone else what they can and cannot say, what they can and cannot believe.”
Last year, Reynolds signed legislation banning from schools controversial books and teachings, including lessons about systemic racism and white privilege.
Parents are “tired of politicians who tell parents they should sit down, be silent, and let government control their kids’ education and future,” she said.
“It seems like everything is backwards,” she said, describing Americans as “waiting for the insanity to stop.”
Reynolds, a former lieutenant governor, has been governor since 2017, when then-Gov. Terry Branstad was confirmed as the Trump administration’s ambassador to China. She was elected to her own term in 2018 and is expected to seek a second this year.
Reynolds, 62, has been a devout Trump advocate in Iowa, campaigning with him before the 2020 election, when he carried Iowa for a second time. She also stood with Trump during a Des Moines rally in October, after he had left office, when he repeated the falsehoods that rampant voter fraud cost him a second term.
Though Reynolds has not echoed the falsehoods, she has stood by Trump.
“This is not the same country it was a year ago,” said Tuesday. “The president tried to paint a different picture tonight, but his actions over the last twelve months don’t match the rhetoric. It’s not what he promised when he took office.”
Reynolds had endeared herself to Iowa’s increasingly GOP-leaning electorate in no small part by opposing much of the Biden administration’s pandemic policy.
She resisted mask requirements and joined other states in lawsuits to fight the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates. She also was the first governor to require schools to resume in-person classes and fought with some districts that tried to continue online learning recommended by public health officials to slow virus spread.
“I was attacked by the left. I was attacked by the media. But it wasn’t a hard choice. It was the right choice,” she said.
