Stephen Breyer to retire as Biden urged to fulfill pledge to pick Black woman for supreme court – live

At the White House coronavirus team briefing a little earlier, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned of taking a laissez-faire attitude towards the “milder” Omicron variant of Covid-19.

© Provided by The Guardian
Rochelle Walensky before a hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this month. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/REX/Shutterstock

“Milder does not mean mild,” Walensky said, of the coronavirus variant still raging in the US and many other parts of the world. She added: “Now is the time to do what we know works. Wear a mask, get vaccinated and get boosted.”

At the briefing, it was announced that the US has donated over 400 million vaccine doses to 112 countries, marking a major milestone in the White House’s goal of donating 1.2 billion vaccine doses under Joe Biden’s direction.

White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said that the total donation is four times higher than that of any other country.

Zients also revealed that the country hit another major milestone this week, with 70% of eligible seniors, who are most at risk and most vulnerable, having now received their booster shot. And half of all eligible adults are now boosted.

“This is significant progress as the doctors and data have made crystal clear. Vaccinations and boosters provide the best protection,” Zients said.

Over the past week, the daily averages of cases and hospital admissions have decreased, according to Walensky.

The current seven-day daily average of Covid-19 cases is approximately 692,400 cases per day, a 6% decrease over the previous week. The seven-day average of hospital admissions is around 19,800 per day, an 8% decrease over the previous seek.

However, the seven-day average daily deaths are around 2,200 per day, an increase of around 21% over the previous week.

“These data demonstrate that Covid-19 disease severity appears to be lower with the Omicron variant than with prior variants… Although it’s encouraging that Omicron appears to be causing less severe disease, it is important to remember that we are still facing a high overall burden of disease. Milder does not mean mild,” the director said.

Hillary Clinton just called Stephen Breyer’s decision to retire “admirable” and his decades of service on the nine-member bench “distinguished”.

Breyer was nominated by the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate’s husband, Bill Clinton, when he was president.

And Senate majority leader and New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer has voiced optimism that there won’t be any problem getting Biden’s pick to replace Breyer installed on the hallowed bench.

Joe Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit just last April and now the 51-year-old is widely considered to be a leading contender, if not the frontrunner, to succeed Stephen Breyer on the supreme court.

© Provided by The Guardian
Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on pending U.S. judicial nominations on Capitol Hill in Washington last April. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

She was confirmed shortly afterwards with unanimous Democratic support in the Senate and yea votes from three Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Jackson has served as a clerk to Breyer. She was a federal judge on the US district court for DC prior to joining the appeals circuit, and had been nominated to the district court by then-president Barack Obama in 2013.

Here are some other names suggested by Natalie James, who’s running for the senate as a Democrat in Arkansas.

Jackson attended Harvard and is married to Patrick Jackson, a surgeon who just so happens to be the twin brother of, stick with us here, the brother-in-law of Paul Ryan, Republican former House Speaker and running mate to Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election (lost to Obama-Biden, obv).

Patty Murray, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, has already released a statement urging Joe Biden to keep his promise about nominating a Black woman to the supreme court.

“The Court should reflect the diversity of our country, and it is unacceptable that we have never in our nation’s history had a Black woman sit on the Supreme Court of the United States—I want to change that,” Murray said.

“There is no shortage of exceptional nominees who would serve with the judgment, qualifications, and ethical standards each Supreme Court Justice should embody—and Black women in America should be able to look at the highest court in the land and finally see themselves represented.”

Murray added that she is “ready to move as quickly as possible to consider and confirm a highly qualified nominee who will break barriers and make history as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court of the United States”.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Supreme court justice Stephen Breyer plans to announce his retirement, according to multiple reports. Breyer’s retirement will give Biden his first supreme court seat to fill, and the president has promised to select a Black woman for the role, which would mark a historic first for the US.
• Senate Democrats are expected to move quickly to confirm Biden’s supreme court nominee. The party controls the upper chamber and should be able to advance the nomination quickly, although a confirmation would not alter conservatives’ advantage on the bench. Even with Breyer’s replacement confirmed, the six conservative supreme court justices would still outnumber their three liberal colleagues.
• Officials from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are meeting in Paris today, in the latest effort to deescalate tensions along Ukraine’s border. The talks come two days before French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the west seeks to avoid a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Senate Democrats should theoretically be able to confirm Joe Biden’s nominee to the supreme court relatively easily, even with their narrow majority in the upper chamber.

Since Senate Republicans changed chamber rules in 2017, supreme court nominations are not subject to the filibuster and thus require only a simple majority for confirmation.

As long as Biden’s nominee can secure the support of every Democratic senator, she should be able to get confirmed.

And even Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who have presented problems for Biden’s legislative agenda, have generally deferred to the president when it comes to judicial nominees.

Joe Biden has previously promised that he will select a Black woman to fill the first supreme court vacancy of his presidency.

With that in mind, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed to the DC circuit court last year, has been named as a likely contender for the nomination.

Elie Mystal of the Nation noted that Leondra Kruger of the California supreme court Michelle Childs of the South Carolina district court are also likely to be considered for the job.

Although Stephen Breyer’s retirement would give Joe Biden his first supreme court seat to fill, it would not alter the ideological split among justices.

As of now, there are six conservative justices and three liberal justices, including Breyer, sitting on the bench.

If Breyer retires, conservatives will maintain their significant advantage on the supreme court, although his departure will give Biden the opportunity to fill the seat with a younger liberal who may serve in the role for decades.

If Stephen Breyer does indeed announce his retirement, the decision will have massive repercussions for the midterm elections in November.

Senate Democrats will attempt to approve Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee before November, in case the party loses control of the upper chamber after the elections.

If Republicans take control of the chamber, they could block Biden’s nominee from getting confirmed or even receiving a hearing, as Mitch McConnell did when Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the court in 2016.

The high stakes of a supreme court confirmation may also reenergize voters on both ends of the political spectrum, as it underscores the importance of Senate control.

According to NBC News’ Pete Williams, who broke the news of Stephen Breyer’s planned retirement, the decision is not related to the supreme court justice’s health.

Breyer will turn 84 later this year, and he has served on the court since 1994, so he may have simply decided that it’s time to step down, Williams said.

The White House would not provide any additional information after reports emerged that liberal supreme court Justice Stephen Breyer intends to announce his retirement.

“It has always been the decision of any Supreme Court Justice if and when they decide to retire, and how they want to announce it, and that remains the case today,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Twitter. “We have no additional details or information to share from @WhiteHouse.”

Joe Biden promised during the 2020 presidential campaign that he would nominate a Black woman to the supreme court, which would be a historic first for the US.

In response to reports of Justice Stephen Breyer’s planned retirement, progressives celebrated the prospect of Biden securing another historic achievement before the midterm elections in November.

Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive group Demand Justice, said in a tweet, “Biden will get a chance to make history by putting the first Black woman on SCOTUS, and he will have many highly qualified candidates to choose from. One of those candidates, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, was supported by all 50 Dems and three Republicans for DC Circuit last year.”

More major breaking news out of Washington: NBC News is reporting that liberal supreme court justice Stephen Breyer plans to retire.

Breyer’s retirement would give Joe Biden his first seat to fill on the supreme court, which is tilted six to three in favor of conservatives.

Breyer, who is 83, had faced calls from progressives to step down from the bench in order to allow Biden to select a new justice for the lifetime appointment.

Joe Biden will meet with several CEOs this afternoon to discuss Democrats’ Build Back Better Act, the $1.75tn spending package that includes massive investments in healthcare, childcare and climate initiatives.

“This afternoon, I’m meeting with CEOs who support passing my Build Back Better Agenda to discuss how it’ll invest in American workers, grow our economy, and lower inflation in the long-term,” Biden said on Twitter.

Mary Barra of GM, Marc Benioff of Salesforce and Jim Farley of Ford are among those expected to be in attendance for the White House meeting, according to Punchbowl News.

The meeting comes one month after Joe Manchin blocked the bill in the Senate because of his opposition to the cost of the proposal, although there have been recent signs that the negotiations are restarting.

The White House has deflected questions about the talks, saying the president wants to remain private about the negotiations.

“We’re just not going to speak to or confirm any conversations the president has with members of the Senate moving forward,” press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.

The US deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, repeated a US warning that a Russian assault could start in the next few weeks but said Vladimir Putin might wait until after his attendance at the Winter Olympics in China.

“I have no idea whether he’s made the ultimate decision but we certainly see every indication that he is going to use military force some time [between] now and middle of February,” Sherman said in an online discussion with the former Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid.

“We all are aware that the Beijing Olympics are beginning on February 4th, the opening ceremony, and President Putin expects to be there. I think that probably President Xi Jinping would not be ecstatic if Putin chose that moment to invade Ukraine. So that may affect his timing and his thinking.”

The state department has just announced that secretary of state Antony Blinken will hold a press briefing this afternoon, amid escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Blinken will speak to reporters at 12pm ET, so journalists will have a chance to ask the cabinet secretary questions in about an hour.

Blinken has previously warned that any movement of Russian forces into Ukraine would be met with a severe response from the US and its allies.

“If a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way, as I said, that would trigger a swift, a severe and a united response from us and from Europe,” Blinken said Sunday.

Related: Blinken says Nato united on Ukraine as EU ministers prepare to meet

The US and its Nato partners are considering sending thousands more troops to allied countries in eastern Europe, due to escalating fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

CNN reports:

The deployments — numbering approximately 1,000 personnel from each — would be similar to the forward battle groups currently stationed in the Baltic States and Poland, two defense officials said. Among the countries considering accepting the deployments are Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, all three officials said. No final decisions have been made.

The US and UK are among those considering the new, pre-invasion deployments, but not all 30 NATO members are willing, according to a European diplomat. Therefore, the US is in discussions to send the additional forces on a bilateral basis or, as one official described it, as a ‘coalition of the willing.’

Asked yesterday about potential troop deployments to Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration was focused on working in conjunction with Nato in all military efforts.

“We’re working through Nato to plus-up support in our eastern flank countries. That is what Nato is there for, and we are committed to the sanctity of that alliance,” Psaki said.

“Just to be clear, there is no intention or interest or desire by the president to send troops to Ukraine. Nato is a forum to support our eastern flank partners and countries, and that’s what the focus has been on.”

Before the meeting in Paris, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow was willing to take unspecified “appropriate measures” if its security demands were not met. The US is due to give a written answer later this week.

Russia wants assurances that Ukraine and Georgia will never be allowed to join Nato and has called for a pullout of Nato forces from eastern Europe, including Romania and Bulgaria, and a return to 1997 levels of deployment.

Joe Biden’s US administration has dismissed the demands, which amount to a cold war-style zone of influence for Russia, as a non-starter. The White House has placed 8,500 troops on heightened alert to deploy to Nato countries in eastern Europe if necessary.

On Tuesday President Biden said he would consider personal sanctions against Vladimir Putin if Russia further invaded Ukraine, as well as “enormous consequences” that would damage the Russian economy.

Related: Ukraine and Russia to hold Paris talks in latest effort to ease tensions

Senior officials from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are meeting in Paris today, in the latest effort to deescalate tensions along Ukraine’s border.

The talks come two days before French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation in Ukraine.

However, Russia’s outrage over allied countries’ shipments of weapons to Ukraine make any kind of deescalation seem unlikely at this moment.

Another US shipment of equipment of munitions and equipment arrived in Ukraine yesterday, as part of allied countries’ security assistance to Kyiv.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the West of supplying Ukraine with “lethal weapons” and told members of his country’s parliament that Russia “would not sit idly by in this situation”.

Russia does not currently have enough troops on the border with Ukraine to carry out a full-scale military invasion and occupation of the country, according to western experts and senior officials in Kyiv.

They believe a Russian attack to capture most or all of Ukraine in the near future is unlikely, despite an unprecedented buildup of about 125,000 Russian soldiers, and military exercises due to take place next month in Belarus, within striking distance of the capital.

In an article published on Monday, Ukraine’s former defence minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk said the Kremlin has not yet amassed the several hundred thousand troops necessary for a large-scale operation, on the border and in Russian territory behind the frontline.

“If Russia was conducting preparations for a large-scale invasion, it would have been much more noticeable,” Zagorodnyuk said, in a paper written with colleagues from his Kyiv thinktank, the Centre for Defence Strategies.

Read the Guardian’s full report:

Related: Focused Russian attack on Ukraine seen as more likely than full-scale invasion

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Tensions continue to escalate over Ukraine, as the US and its allies prepare for the possibility of a Russian invasion that would have massive reverberations around the world.

Joe Biden said yesterday that Vladimir Putin continues to build up his forces along Ukraine’s border, adding that a Russian attack “would be the largest invasion since” the second world war.

Meanwhile, another US shipment of equipment and munitions arrived in Ukraine yesterday, as the country’s allies offer them assistance in the face of Russian aggression.

Biden’s efforts to keep the alliance together are the latest test of his leadership. The AP reports:

Biden is trying to pull off the kind of alliance on the international front that has eluded him on his domestic agenda as he faces defeats on voting rights and his signature $2.2tn domestic and climate spending bill.

Now, he faces a complicated and globally more dangerous task: keeping the West unified as it faces what White House officials say is an increasingly likely further invasion of Ukrainian territory ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The pileup of difficult moments is providing a major test of the twin pillars of Biden’s 2020 candidacy: that he could get things done competently at home and restore America’s standing in the world after Donald Trump’s volatile four years in the White House.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.