President Joe Biden has come to the podium.
Fox News was not offered an opportunity to ask a question. Aw.
Biden said his administration is ramping up efforts to verify family relations for children who cross the border alone, including bringing more people on who can contact families in children's home nation.
Asked about China trade, Biden noted that as VP, he spend a lot of time with Xi, saying he doesn't have a "democratic bone in his body." Biden said he had a two hour conversation with Xi upon his inauguration. Biden said he didn't look for confrontation, but knew there would be competition, which China must do fairly. Biden said that on the US front, we need to make a bigger investment in "pure science" and research, which now only takes up 0.7% of the US economy. Biden also said that he was re-establishing our alliances, including those in the region. He announced that he would be holding a "meeting of democracies" to the White House to discuss the future. He wants these countries to hold China accountable as an alliance. He also said Americans value freedom, and we will push "in an unrelenting way" to bring attention to the human rights violations in China, noting that the "last [president] walked away from holding China accountable for their actions against the Uyghurs and in Hong Kong.
Biden says he expects to run for reelection in 2024, and laughed when asked why he hasn't set up a reelection campaign yet, because his predecessor set one up one day after he was inaugurated in 2017.
Talking about bipartisanship, Biden says he has the support of Republican voters, if not the Republican elected officials.
"What I'm worried about is how un-American this initiative is," Biden said about voting limitations being advanced by Republicans. "It's sick." He added, "The Republican voters I know find this despicable." Biden said he would do everything in his power, with his friends in the House and the Senate, to stop these actions from taking effect.
Biden said North Korea would have to follow previously established limits on missile testing.
Biden committed to transparency to allow media to inspect the camps where children are being held. Biden very strongly said he "makes no apologies" for stopping the child separation policy or "treating people inhumanely" as was done by the Trump administration.
Biden said a May 1st deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, negotiated by the Trump Administration, will not likely be hit because of tactical issues.
"That's a serious question?" Biden asks incredulously when Vega asked if the condition of children packed into a border housing facility is acceptable to him. "C'mon." He stated unequivocally that it is not okay and that they're working on solutions, including using an Army base to house some children.
Asked by Cecilia Vega if his message that minors will be cared for in the United States is prompting parents to send children to the US alone, Biden said no other administration has allowed children to be left on the other side of the border alone and starving, except Trump.
Regarding the filibuster, Biden says he favors going back to an old-style filibuster that involves talking "until you collapse." He said he "has never been particularly poor at figuring out how to get things done in the United States Senate."
Addressing the issues at the border, Biden pointed out that people are not coming to the US from Central American because Biden became president; they're coming because this is the time of year when they can travel without danger from heat. Biden said that more than half of the undocumented migrants are turned away at the border. The only people who won't turned away, Biden says, are children, who are being cared for and placed with family members in the US.
Biden says he plans on making progress on his four key policy initiatives–climate change, the pandemic & recovery, racial justice and gun control–and that the success will be judged by the American people.
Biden maintains a tradition during presidential press conferences to call on an Associated Press reporter for the first question.
Nearly half of the K-Eighth grade schools are open for regular, in-person classes, making his goal of having half those schools open within the first 100 days, according to Department of Education surveys.
Biden announced that his goal for coronavirus vaccines is to have 200 million inoculations in arms within the first 100 days, double his original goal.