Biden news: President assesses storm damage in California as classified documents scandal hurts polls

Eric Garcia reports on why high inflation, a hallmark of President Biden’s second year in the White House, is such a tricky issue to overcome — and what might come next.

After an aerial tour of the region’s storm damage, President Joe Biden visited business owners whose properties had been devastated by the atmospheric river that slammed into California for much of January.

The language the White House uses to describe the special counsel investigation into the handling of classified documents that ended up in a farage and a former office of President Joe Biden’s after his time as vice president is very carefully chosen.

Any White House or campaign tends to choose its words carefully, but never moreso than when under a prosecutor’s scrutiny. It’s a rhetorical dance where political figures weigh demands for full disclosure against the political imperative to cast investigations in the least ominous light — not to mention the desire to avoid potential criminal charges.

Read on:

Nearly two-thirds of American adults support Congress investigating classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home and post-vice presidential office, according to a new poll.

The survey from Yahoo News/YouGov found that 39 per cent of Democrats per cent of Democratic-leaning independents want to see another person be the Democratic nominee for president in 2024, while 38 per cent said they wanted Mr Biden. In December, 46 per cent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wanted Mr Biden to be the nominee and 37 per cent said “someone else”, marking a drop in support for the incumbent president.

In addition, the number of people who said they were “not sure” about who they wanted as the Democratic nomineee climbed seven points in the past month.

Eric Garcia has the details.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen:

This letter serves to notify you, of the extraordinary measures Treasury began using today ... I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the US.

Ways & Means Committee Chair Jason Smith:

Instead of attacking his political opponents, President Biden should be spending this time working with House Republicans to address the debt ceiling in a way that imposes some fiscal sanity. Otherwise, the president is simply scheduling America’s next debt crisis.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:

If the MAGA GOP stops paying our nation’s bills, Americans will be the ones to pay the price. Political brinkmanship with the debt limit would be a massive hit to local economies and American families and would be nothing less than an economic crisis at the hands of the Republicans.

President Biden underscored the link between the climate crisis and the recent extreme weather in California during a visit to hard-hit areas along the state’s Central Coast region.

“If anybody doubts the climate is changing, then they must’ve been asleep for the last couple years,” the president said, joined by California governor Gavin Newsom and a group of first responders.

“Extreme weather caused by climate change means stronger and more frequent storms, more intense drought, longer wildfire seasons, all of which threatens communities across California, so we have to invest in stronger infrastructure,” he added.

You can watch Mr Biden’s full remarks here.

Read more about the president’s climate legacy so far in this report from Louise Boyle.

The president’s remarks today from California shined a light on the extent of storm damage in the state, and on the immense federal effort to begin the rebuilding process.

Mr Biden, speaking from a beach on the Central Coast, detailed how at the worst parts of the recent round of storms, over 200,000 lost power and 150,000 faced evacuation orders.

All together, 21 people died in the storms, the president added.

The president, however, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the worst was over and the rebuilding process could begin soon.

Over 500 employees of the FEMA disaster agency are on the ground in the state, and have supplies for 100,000 meals and 10,000 shelter cots.

“We’ll be with you every step of the way,” Mr Biden said to conclude his speech.

President Joe Biden on Thursday pledged to put the full force of the federal government behind efforts to help Northern California communities rebuild from a series of devastating floods left by a massive series of storms over the last few weeks.

“The country is here for you and with you. We are not leaving until things are built back, and built back better than they were before,” he said. “As you recover ... we’ll be with you every step of the way”.

Mr Biden, who had travelled to California to survey the wide-scale destruction left in the wake of massive rainfall brought by a phenomenon meteorologists call an atmospheric river, said the infrastructure law he signed last year will help Californians “build back stronger” after this and other disasters. He also noted that his administration has dispensed over $9bn in aid to the Golden State after other disasters, which he attributed to climate change.

Louise Boyle and Andrew Feinberg have the full story.

The United States hit the debt limit on Thursday, which triggered the US Treasury Department to take “extraordinary measures” to ensure that the country could fulfill its debt obligations.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday warning that her department would begin taking “extraordinary measures.” She told Mr McCarthy in her letter that she will be “unable” to fully invest the portion of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund that is not immediately required to pay beneficiaries.

She also told him that she would begin a “debt suspension period” starting on Sunday and continuing into 5 June 2023.

Eric Garcia has the latest from Washington, DC.