- Biden – with Worst Ever Favorability & Job Approval Ratings – Leads Trump 46-37%; Only Leads By 7 Points if RFK & West Are on Ballot; 52% of Dems Want Party to Nominate Someone other than Biden in ’24 – Siena College Research Institut Siena College Research Institute
- Biden sees record-low favorability, job approval among NY voters: poll The Hill
- Nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers blame Biden for migrant crisis: poll New York Post
- Majority of New Yorkers worry migrant crisis will ‘destroy’ NYC as some sour on Biden in new Siena poll New York Daily News
Tag Archives: Nominate
Hugh Jackman Begs Oscars Not to Nominate Ryan Reynolds for Best Song – Rolling Stone
Hugh Jackman, staring down the abyss of a potentially harrowing year filming Deadpool 3, beseeched the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to not give his costar Ryan Reynolds a Best Original Song nomination for the Spirited track “Good Afternoon.”
At the tail end of last year, “Good Afternoon” — from Reynold’s recent Christmas flick with Will Ferrell and Octavia Spencer — appeared on the Academy’s shortlist for this year’s Best Original Song prize (the actual nominations won’t be announced until Jan. 24). The news, however, only just seemed to reach Jackman, who shared a video on social media expressing his concerns about this development (which are technically totally moot, but more on that in a second).
Jackman did, of course, espouse his love for Spirited, the film’s stars, “Good Afternoon” itself, and two of its songwriters Benji Pasek and Justin Paul (who wrote the music for the Jackman-starring musical biopic The Greatest Showman). But, he stressed, “Ryan Reynolds getting a nomination in the Best Song category would make the next year of my life insufferable.”
He continued, “I mean, I have to spend a year with him shooting Wolverine and Deadpool. Trust me, it would be impossible. It would be a problem. So, just to recap, love Spirited, love Will, love Octavia, love the song ‘Good Afternoon,’ love Benj and Justin. But please, please, from the bottom of my heart — do not validate Ryan Reynolds in this way. Please.”
Now, not to “well, actually” Hugh Jackman, let alone a silly, but still blatant bit of Oscar campaigning but… Well, actually, even if “Good Afternoon” did receive an Oscar nomination for Best Song, Reynolds wouldn’t be among the nominees. The prize is only handed out to songwriters and composers, not performers, and only Pasek, Paul, Khiyon Hursey, Mark Sonnenblick, and Sukari Jones are credited on “Good Afternoon.”
At best, Reynolds would probably get the chance to perform “Good Afternoon” at the Oscars. Or, as he quipped in response to Jackman’s video on Twitter, “I think the deepfakes that sung and danced for Will and I would love to perform at the Oscars.”
So, rest easy, Hugh. You’ll likely be the only top-billed Oscar nominee on the Deadpool 3 set this year (unless there’s a surprising number of Academy voters who loved Reynolds’ performances in The Adam Project or Spirited).
Hugh Jackman begs the Academy not to nominate frenemy Ryan Reynolds for Oscar
Hugh Jackman’s fake feud with his friend Ryan Reynolds got kicked up a notch on Wednesday after he campaigned to prevent his pal from getting an Oscar.
The 54-year-old Logan star shared a video to social media urging the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to not nominate the 46-year-old Deadpool star in the Best Original Song category.
Ryan inched closer to a potential Oscar nomination when he was included in the Oscars shortlist for the song category, which was announced in December.
The actor was nominated for the song Good Afternoon, which is featured in his musical Christmas comedy Spirited, which costars Will Ferrell.
Pleading: Hugh Jackman, 54, continued his fake feud with friend Ryan Reynolds on Wednesday when he urged the Academy not to nominate Ryan, 46, for Best Original Song
Hugh sounded somber and reserved at the start of his video, as if he was preparing to deliver a dose of bad news.
‘Hey everybody, it’s 2023 and I really, really wanted to send out a positive message at the beginning of the year but recent events have made that impossible. Don’t get me wrong, I love Spirited, it’s a great movie, we had a blast, the entire family watched it,’ he began. ‘I love Will [Ferrell], I love Octavia [Spencer], obviously I did The Greatest Showman with [songwriters] Benj [Pasek] and Justin [Paul], they’re incredible and I love their music.’
‘And Good Afternoon, the song, I laughed the entire way through,’ he continued. ‘It’s absolutely brilliant. However, I just heard the Academy have shortlisted Good Afternoon in the Best Song category.
‘Ryan Reynolds getting a nomination in the Best Song Category would make the next year of my life insufferable,’ he explained. ‘I have to spend a year with him shooting Wolverine and Deadpool. Trust me. It would be impossible. It would be a problem.
Getting closer: Ryan was shortlisted for Best Original Song for his Christmas comedy Spirited (pictured), which costars Will Ferrell. The list will be whittled down with the eventual nominees
Looking out for himself: ‘Ryan Reynolds getting a nomination in the Best Song Category would make the next year of my life insufferable,’ Hugh joked, before praising the rest of the cast and the songwriters
Snappy: Ryan responded and joked that deepfakes had performed his songs in Spirited
‘Just to recap: love Spirited, love Will, love Octavia, love the song… but please, please, from the bottom of my heart, do not nominate Ryan Reynolds in this way, please,’ he pleaded in a comic deadpan.
Of course, Ryan saw the video and was quick to share a snappy reply.
‘Disagree,’ he wrote. ‘I think the deepfakes that sung and danced for Will and I would love to perform at the Oscars.’
Ryan’s film is an updated modern-day adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Tale, in which Will stars as Ebenezer Scrooge, who has become the Ghost of Christmas Present, while Ryan plays his potential successor to the role.
The film received modestly positive reviews and boasts a 63 percent fresh rating from the most high-profile critics surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes.
Christmas spirit: Spirited is an updated adaptation of A Christmas Tale, in which Will Ferrell stars as Ebenezer Scrooge, who has become the Ghost of Christmas Present, while Ryan plays his potential successor to the role
Doing it for laughs: Hugh and Ryan met on the set of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and became fast friends, before launching a years-long fake feud
Hugh and Ryan have collaborated several times, and Ryan played an early version of his Marvel character Deadpool in Hugh’s spinoff X-Men Origins: Wolverine, though it was substantially different from the wisecracking character he would debut in the Deadpool solo films.
After meeting on the film shoot, the two became fast friends. They regularly make cameo appearances in each other’s films, but they also launched a fake feud which continues to this day.
Last month, Hugh posted a humorous video in which he joked that Ryan had broken into his Manhattan penthouse after he put up a cardboard cutout of the comic actor from Spirited.
‘How did he get in here? What the hell?! This is my home,’ he joked, before layering in some police sirens into his video.
Having a laugh: Last month, Hugh posted a humorous video in which he joked that Ryan had broken into his Manhattan penthouse after he put up a cardboard cutout of the comic actor from Spirited
Democrats nominate established candidates; gain new traction on abortion
Taken together, the results were a welcome sign for Democratic leaders seeking to rally the party base behind its incumbents and find ways to motivate voters to cast ballots against Republicans, who have long felt well-positioned to make big gains in November. Tuesday’s voting came on the heels of Democrats enacting sweeping legislation to fight global warming and bring down the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, among other things, boosting their hopes of averting a red wave in the fall.
In Florida, Rep. Charlie Crist, who was endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, prevailed over a more liberal female candidate in the Democratic primary for governor. In New York, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who won a last-minute endorsement from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, beat out an experienced woman and a younger candidate of color. And Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee easily triumphed over an insurgent liberal challenger.
“Tonight, mainstream won,” Maloney said in his victory speech. “Common sense won. Democrats want candidates who get results and bring home the win.”
Democratic party leaders were also encouraged by the special election in New York’s 19th Congressional District, where Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, the Democratic candidate, made abortion rights the cornerstone of his winning campaign against Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro.
“We got in this race because the foundations of our democracy were and remain under direct threat,” Ryan told supporters in Kingston, shortly before midnight. “When the Supreme Court ripped away reproductive rights, access to abortion rights, we said: This is not what America stands for.”
Tuesday’s voting in Florida, New York and Oklahoma marked the conclusion of some of the year’s final major contests before both parties fully begin the sprint to the Nov. 8 election. That pivot is already underway, with Democrats seeking to tap into anger over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as a means of overcoming voter dissatisfaction with Biden and his party’s leadership in Washington.
Republicans have run heavily on rising prices and crime on Democrats’ watch. They were also deciding intraparty contests Tuesday, many of which featured election deniers and candidates embracing Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric and false claims. Some in the party have voiced worries that the presence of the former president and his polarizing positions could complicate the GOP push to win back control of Congress.
While Democrats say they have reason for more optimism, historical trends point to a difficult November for Biden and his party. And the president’s job approval rating continues to be low in public polls, even as Democrats say they have gained traction on other fronts. Each is a potentially worrisome sign for Democratic candidates in battleground races.
Crist, the onetime Republican governor of Florida now vying for his old job as a Democrat, beat state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who ran to his left and criticized Crist for antiabortion positions he once held. Crist will now turn his attention to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has emerged as leading figure in his party and potential 2024 presidential aspirant. DeSantis, who has positioned himself as a culture warrior embracing fights with the media and over the way schools teach children about gender and sexual orientation, was unopposed in the GOP primary. Both sides previewed their general election strategies.
“The stakes could not be any higher for this election. Our fundamental freedoms are literally on the ballot, a woman’s right to choose, democracy is on the ballot, your rights as minorities is on this ballot,” Crist said in his victory speech Tuesday night. DeSantis “couldn’t care less about your freedoms,” Crist added.
Republican Governors Association Executive Director Dave Rexrode said in a statement that DeSantis “has been a champion for freedom,” and sought to tie Crist to President Biden, who has struggled with low approval ratings.
Also in Florida, Democratic Rep. Val Demings clinched her party’s nomination to take on Republican Sen. Marco Rubio in November. The race is expected to be among the most hotly contested Senate contests this fall. Demings, who if she wins in November would be the first Black senator from Florida and only the second woman to represent the state in the Senate, has signaled that she plans to make abortion access a central theme of her campaign.
In New York, Republicans had hoped the 19th district, which Biden won by less than two points in 2020, would be a pickup opportunity that showed they have the momentum going into the fall. But in two recent special elections in Nebraska and Minnesota, Democrats lost Trump-won districts by single digits, running hard on the Supreme Court decision to end the constitutional right to end a pregnancy. Those results encouraged Democrats to continue campaigning on abortion.
Some voters casting ballots in the district voiced strong opinions on the issue in interviews.
“I don’t believe in taking away rights that have been there as a precedent in New York state,” said Mary Louise Sharpe, 70 a retired nurse, who voted for Ryan over Molinaro. “This is how things have been for 50 years. I’m 70. I was 20 when abortion came into effect.”
But Ben Wagar, who said he supports abortion rights, voted for Molinaro, because he said other economic issues were more important to him.
“You can’t keep printing money and sending it out,” said Wagar, 71, a one time Democrat, who backed Trump.
Elsewhere in New York, Democratic incumbents were fighting in bitter primaries that exposed ideological, generational and racial divisions in the party. Many of these bruising contests were the result of newly drawn congressional districts.
In Manhattan, Nadler of the Upper West Side prevailed over Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney of the Upper East Side, two Democratic powerhouses were forced into a bitter primary after a chaotic redistricting process merged their districts into one. After serving side-by-side for 30 years, and climbing the rungs of seniority to lead two powerful committees, their relationship soured as both tried desperately to save their jobs.
In the last weeks of the campaign, Nadler sought to underscore his ties to the Jewish community in the district and highlight a slightly more liberal record, while Maloney campaigned hard on the notion that this political moment required powerful women. A third candidate, Suraj Patel, made a pitch to voters that it was time for Manhattan to be represented by someone new.
At a polling place on the Upper East Side on Manhattan, which Maloney long represented, Dorothy Lang, 100, showed up to vote for Nadler after being conflicted between the two elders. A recent newspaper endorsement sealed her decision. “I think he’s done a lot of good things,” she said, “and when the New York Times picked him, that was good enough for me.”
New York Democrats, who control all of state government, hoped this year’s redistricting would gain them a few extra seats to blunt Republican advantages elsewhere. But a state court struck down the Democratic-drawn map over procedural issues and appointed an independent special master to redraw the lines. In the Democrats’ version, they could have gained as many as three additional seats; now they are at risk of losing as many as five.
The late redrawing of the map also complicated the state’s primary schedule, bifurcating the elections so that primaries for governor and U.S. Senate were held in June and ones for the U.S. House and the state Senate were held in August. One of the greatest challenges for candidates, especially in New York City, was turning out voters in a month when many clear out for vacation.
New York’s redistricting prompted Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, the first of two openly gay, Black members of Congress, to run in a new district that comprises Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn — neither part of his previous district.
That put him in a crowded primary against attorney Dan Goldman, who won Tuesday, outpacing state Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, Jones and others. Jones hit Goldman from the left, including over his personal views on abortion. Like Nadler, Goldman was boosted by an endorsement from the New York Times.
Sean Patrick Maloney defeated state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who was backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — the young liberal icon who famously ousted a member of the Democratic Party’s leadership in a primary four years ago.
While New York Democrats’ redistricting plans were thwarted, DeSantis successfully shepherded a new map in Florida that created more conservative territory, overcoming a court challenge that argued the lines amounted to an illegal partisan gerrymander. DeSantis’s map reconfigured three Democratic-held districts into GOP-leaning seats — the 4th District around Jacksonville, the 7th District around Orlando, and the 13th District in Pinellas County, which Crist is vacating to run for governor.
With little need to chase swing voters, each race has become a scramble to the right and to embrace Trump and his platform. DeSantis accused one of the losing 4th District candidates, Eric Aguilar, of “fraud” for sending out donor appeals that looked as if they were soliciting donations for the governor, or for Trump. In the 7th District, state Rep. Anthony Sabatini had pledged to impeach Biden as soon as he gets to Congress, while veteran Cory Mills, the projected winner in that primary, ran ads about the tear gas sold by his company and deployed against protesters.
Trump stayed neutral in that race, but endorsed Anna Paulina Luna, who was the projected winner in the GOP primary in the 13th District; she returned the favor by calling this month’s FBI search of Mar-a-Lago a “Soviet-style” effort to destroy the former president. The endorsement didn’t dissuade other Republicans from seeking to run as more faithful candidates in Trump’s mold.
Another Republican competition that grabbed the attention of some on the far right was in New York’s 23rd District. There, Carl Paladino, a Buffalo-area businessman who has a history of making inflammatory and racist comments, lost to Nick Langworthy, the chair of the state Republican Party, for the right to succeed former GOP congressman Tom Reed (R), who resigned in May after being accused of sexual misconduct.
Republican Joe Sempolinski won the special election in New York’s current 23rd Congressional District. Sempolinski will serve out Reed’s current term.
Florida Democrats were also deciding nominees in contested primaries. In a Democratic stronghold around Orlando, Maxwell Frost, 25, a liberal activist running to be the first Gen Z member of Congress, was projected the winner in a crowed primary that included former lawmakers Alan Grayson and Corrine Brown for the seat Demings is vacating to run for Senate.
There were also two runoffs GOP leaders were watching in Oklahoma on Tuesday, pitting conservative Republicans against one another. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who was backed by Trump and nearly won the June primary for U.S. Senate outright, prevailed over former state House speaker T.W. Shannon. The race in the conservative-leaning state was for the GOP nomination for retiring Sen. James M. Inhofe’s seat.
The other GOP primary runoff was for Mullin’s seat, which he vacated to run for the Senate. Former state Sen. Josh Brecheen defeated state Rep. Avery Frix in a Trump-friendly district.
Kristen Hartke and Jane Gottlieb in New York and Lori Rosza in Florida contributed to this report.
Biden planned to nominate antiabortion before Roe decision, emails show
But the episode has underscored the impassioned responses from Democrats in the wake of the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade. At times, Democrats have directed some of their anger at the White House.
On June 23, White House official Kate Marshall emailed Coulter Minix, the director of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s office in Washington. “To be Nominated tomorrow,” the message read, followed by the qualifications and experience of Meredith, whom the Biden administration planned to nominate to be a judge in the Eastern District of Kentucky the next day.
The email, released Wednesday, was titled “close hold,” meaning information that is not supposed to be widely distributed. Minix said he would “share the info and appreciate the heads up.”
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade the next day, jolting the country and igniting demands that Democratic elected leaders do all they could to protect access to abortions. An email that followed a few days later included what appeared to be an effort to contain potential fallout.
“Sorry for not including this in the original email,” wrote Marshall, a former lieutenant governor in Nevada who joined the White House’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in August. “But I wanted to clarify that the email I sent was pre-decisional and privileged information. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Kate.”
The governor’s office initially told news outlets the exchange between Marshall and Minix was conditional and could not be released. It was ultimately obtained Wednesday by The Washington Post and other news organizations after a public records request. The office of Beshear, a Democrat, declined to comment on Wednesday, referring reporters to statements he made in a news conference.
The revelations have ignited criticism of a president who vowed to do everything he could to protect abortion rights — and urged incensed voters to express their anger by voting for fellow Democrats in the midterms.
They have also raised tensions between the White House and Democratic elected officials in Kentucky, including Rep. John Yarmuth and Beshear, who confirmed and criticized the administration’s intent to nominate Meredith.
“If the president makes that nomination, it is indefensible,” Beshear said at a news conference last Thursday. He pointed to Meredith’s role in a series of controversial pardons at the end of the governorship of Republican Matt Bevin, including of a man convicted of raping a child. Beshear called Meredith “an individual who aided and advised on the most egregious abuse of power by a governor in my lifetime.”
Yarmuth issued a recent statement accusing Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of striking a prior agreement over Meredith.
“Given that a judicial position isn’t currently open on the Eastern District Court, it’s clear that this is part of some larger deal on judicial nominations between the President and Mitch McConnell,” Yarmuth said in a statement. “I strongly oppose this deal and Meredith being nominated for the position. That last thing we need is another extremist on the bench.”
Scott Sloofman, a spokesman for McConnell, denied there was any such arrangement. “Discussions about Judge Caldwell’s seat have only involved who should fill Judge Caldwell’s seat,” Sloofman said in a statement, referring to the vacancy that was ultimately revealed publicly.
Both the White House and the Kentucky governor’s office have declined to expound on the conversations and decisions involving Meredith.
The new details add to denunciations the White House has received since the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion established in Roe. Many abortion rights advocates have said Biden responded to the ruling with inadequate force, adding to concerns over his handling of other issues and widening fissures in a political party facing stiff head winds ahead of the November election.
The White House has tried to avoid questions about what, if any, desire Biden had for Meredith to serve on the federal bench. When asked about it Wednesday on Air Force One, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected.
“So we don’t — we — we make it a point here to not comment on any — on any vacancy, whether it is on the executive branch or judicial branch, especially those that have not — have not — the nomination has not been made yet,” she told reporters. “So I don’t have anything to say on that. It is something that we just don’t comment on.”
She also would not say whether the administration has a rule to not nominate judges who oppose abortion.
Critics have gone after the White House for not having a better plan to protect reproductive rights — or other privacy rights that could be affected by the decision — especially because a draft opinion leaked weeks before the official ruling.
A consortium of abortion rights groups voiced anger at the administration, pointing out that appointing conservative judges to the federal bench had paved the way for Roe v. Wade to be overturned.
“We are in a national abortion crisis,” said a statement from groups including NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “We are in this moment because antiabortion judges were intentionally nominated at every level to take away our fundamental right to abortion — and given his record, we know Chad Meredith would be no exception.”
The White House said it has convened meetings with stakeholders to form a plan to combat the results of the Supreme Court decision. Among other measures, the administration said it would seek to protect access to mifepristone, an abortion pill that can be prescribed via a telehealth visit and delivered in the mail, skirting some state restrictions. Biden said he would also protect women who travel across state lines seeking an abortion.
During five decades in political office, Biden has been openly conflicted over abortion, at times struggling to square the views shaped by his Catholic faith with those of his political party.
For most of his career, he has supported abortion rights but opposed federal funding for the procedure, including in some instances of pregnancies resulting from rape and incest. And he was among the few Democrats in 1982 to vote for a constitutional amendment that would have let states bypass Roe v. Wade and restrict abortion.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned, he said the rights taken away by the court threatened other freedoms, and sought to turn the fight for reproductive rights into a midterm campaign issue.
“This fall, we must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law once again, elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level,” he said from the White House two hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. “We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that. This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot.”
Ted Cruz calls President Biden’s promise to nominate first Black woman to Supreme Court ‘offensive’ and ‘insulting’
“The fact that he’s willing to make a promise at the outset, that it must be a Black woman, I gotta say that’s offensive. You know, you know Black women are what, 6% of the US population? He’s saying to 94% of Americans, ‘I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible’,” Cruz said on an episode of his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz” that was released on Sunday. In 2019, Black women represented 7% of the US population, according to the US Census Bureau.
The Republican continued, “And he’s also saying — it’s actually an insult to Black women. If he came and said, ‘I’m gonna put the best jurist on the court and he looked at a number of people and he ended up nominating a Black woman, he could credibly say, ‘OK I’m nominating the person who’s most qualified.’ He’s not even pretending to say that he he’s saying, ‘If you’re a White guy, tough luck. If you’re a White woman, tough luck. You don’t qualify.'”
The comments from Cruz come as other Republicans have criticized Biden’s decision and some have concluded that his nominee to the high court, who the President has promised will be a Black woman, may not be the most qualified person and will likely lean far-left in political views.
CNN has reached out to Cruz for additional comment.
Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican, said Biden’s nominee will be a “beneficiary” of affirmative action” on Friday.
It is not known who Biden will nominate to the court, but the White House has said it is considering a list of potential nominees, including Judge J. Michelle Childs.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the President’s promise to nominate and confirm a Black woman to the Supreme Court “is in line with the best traditions of both parties and our nation.”
“What’s more, when the previous president followed through on his own promise to place a woman on the Supreme Court, Senator Wicker said, ‘I have five granddaughters, the oldest one is 10. I think Justice Amy Coney Barrett will prove to be an inspiration to these five granddaughters and to my grown daughters,'” Bates said in a statement to CNN on Saturday.
“We hope Senator Wicker will give President Biden’s nominee the same consideration he gave to then-Judge Barrett,” Bates added.
On Monday evening, Bates also tweeted Cruz’s comments hailing Barrett as “an amazing role model for little girls” during her Senate confirmation hearing in 2020.
This story has been updated with additional information Monday.
Biden to Nominate New Justice by End of February, Setting Off a Supreme Court Fight
WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Thursday that he would name a successor for Justice Stephen G. Breyer by the end of February, calling the retiring jurist “a model public servant in a time of great division” and pledging to take what he called the overdue step of putting a Black woman on the court for the first time in its 232-year history.
Justice Breyer, who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court for nearly 28 years, formally announced his retirement in a letter to Mr. Biden that was delivered Thursday morning. He called it “a great honor” to have participated in “the effort to maintain our Constitution and the rule of law.”
Justice Breyer plans to stay on the court through the end of the current term this summer, and he said he would not leave until a successor had been confirmed by the Senate. His departure will give Mr. Biden his first opportunity as president to put an imprint on the court’s direction, setting off what may be a monthslong confirmation battle in Congress.
The president used the ceremonial moment to lament how politically polarized the country had become and to hint at the partisan rancor that he expects to erupt no matter who he chooses to replace Justice Breyer. He recalled a time in the 1970s when the justice, then a Democratic lawyer on Capitol Hill, would regularly meet with his Republican counterparts.
“In those days, we tried to do things together,” the president said.
As if on cue, lawmakers and activists quickly moved into their corners. While most senators issued statements pledging to keep an open mind, some Republicans signaled that they were likely to oppose what they predicted could be a “radical” choice by the president.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, warned Mr. Biden not to “outsource this important decision to the radical left.” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, urged the president to pick someone “committed to the Constitution and the rule of law, instead of nominating yet another unqualified, left-wing ideologue.”
Liberal groups, meanwhile, have made no secret of their demands for a progressive justice. Speaking from the Roosevelt Room with Justice Breyer by his side, Mr. Biden said he had not yet decided who he would nominate to sit on the court. But he promised a “rigorous” process in which he would consult with senators, outside lawyers, scholars and Vice President Kamala Harris, a former California attorney general and a former member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I will listen carefully to all the advice I’m given, he said.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said he would move the process along once Mr. Biden settled on someone, promising to “have a fair process that moves quickly.”
Speculation has already centered on the three Black jurists who are seen as the most likely candidates. They are Ketanji Brown Jackson, a 51-year-old judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Leondra R. Kruger, a 45-year-old justice on the California Supreme Court; and J. Michelle Childs, 55, a Federal District Court judge in South Carolina whom Mr. Biden recently nominated for a judgeship on a federal appeals court.
The president is not required to elevate someone who is already a judge, though that is by far the most common route to the Supreme Court. Some of Mr. Biden’s predecessors have nominated politicians, lawyers or law professors.
As he contemplates who he wants to pick, Mr. Biden said he would honor the promise he made as a presidential candidate in 2020. Fighting for the Democratic nomination, he pledged to be the first president to select a Black woman for a life appointment to the court.
“I’ve made no decision except one,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday. “The person I will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity. And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court.”
He called it “long overdue, in my opinion,” and noted, “I made that commitment during the campaign for president, and I will keep that commitment.”
White House officials declined to elaborate on how Mr. Biden would conduct his search for a new justice. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff and a veteran of many Supreme Court nominations, would be heavily involved along with other senior advisers.
Making a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is an opportunity that every president covets. It is one of the few truly lasting marks that the occupant of the Oval Office can leave, with implications for policy and law that can stretch for decades.
In Mr. Biden’s case, replacing Justice Breyer, a liberal on the court, with another liberal jurist is unlikely to immediately affect the ideological leaning of a nine-member court which already has six conservative justices. But Mr. Biden’s pick could remain in her role for decades, with the power to influence future courts that may look very different than the current one.
In praising Justice Breyer, Mr. Biden gave a hint about what he was looking for.
“He’s written landmark opinions on topics from reproductive rights to health care, voting rights, patent law, laws protecting our environment and the laws that protect our religious practices,” Mr. Biden said. “His opinions are practical, sensible and nuanced. They reflect his belief that the job of a judge is not to lay down a rule, but to get it right. To get it right.”
In 1986, Antonin Scalia, a fiercely conservative jurist who died in 2016, was confirmed by the Senate on a 98 to 0 vote. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an equally fierce liberal who died in 2020, was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3 in 1993. A year later, Justice Breyer was confirmed by a vote of 87 to 9.
Over the last several decades, however, the process of nominating and confirming a Supreme Court justice has become an intensely partisan exercise, often leaving the nominees, as well as political combatants on both sides, dissatisfied with the bruising process, if not the end result.
David Axelrod, who served as a top aide to former President Barack Obama, predicted on Twitter on Thursday that Mr. Biden’s nominee would not win confirmation via a lopsided vote like her predecessors, regardless of her “character and qualifications.”“We’re looking at a near party-line vote,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Already baked. Sad reflection on the nature of our times.”
Inside the court itself, Justice Breyer’s departure produced only warm statements from his colleagues praising his tenure in one of the most elite clubs in the world.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called him a “tireless and powerful advocate for the rule of law” and noted that his “fanciful hypotheticals during oral argument have befuddled counsel and colleagues alike.”
The Chief Justice also called Justice Breyer a “dear friend” and a “reliable antidote to dead airtime at our lunches, moving seamlessly from modern architecture to French cinema, to old radio shows, to a surprisingly comprehensive collection of riddles and knock-knock jokes.”
Justice Clarence Thomas called it an “absolute joy” to have worked with Justice Breyer and thanked him and his wife, Joanna, “for being such delightful and dear friends whom we love.” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. called him “a delightful colleague — brilliant, erudite, friendly, good-natured and funny.”
In his retirement letter, Justice Breyer wrote that he appreciated the privilege of serving on the court for almost 28 years, saying, “I have found the work challenging and meaningful. My relations with each of my colleagues have been warm and friendly.”
In brief remarks after the president spoke on Thursday, Justice Breyer recalled what he often told students who asked about his job. He said he marveled at the diversity of opinions that came before the court and how the American “experiment” managed to survive and thrive.
“It’s every race, it’s every religion and it’s every point of view possible,” he said, attributing that quotation to his mother. “It’s a kind of miracle. People that are so different in what they think, and yet they’ve decided to help solve their major differences under law.”
Biden to nominate Sarah Bloom Raskin as vice chair for supervision at Fed
Sarah Bloom Raskin, in her role as Deputy Treasury Secretary at the Treasury Department in Washington, October 2, 2014.
Yuri Gripas | Reuters
President Joe Biden will nominate Sarah Bloom Raskin to be the Federal Reserve’s next vice chair for supervision, arguably the nation’s most powerful banking regulator, according to people familiar with the matter.
Biden will also nominate Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson to serve as Federal Reserve governors, according to the people, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely.
Each nominee will in the coming weeks face questioning from the Senate Banking Committee, the congressional body in charge of vetting presidential appointments to the central bank. Should the Senate confirm their nominations, Cook would be the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board while Jefferson would be the fourth Black man to do so.
That committee on Tuesday held a nomination hearing for Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom Biden chose to nominate to a second term. The committee held a similar hearing for Fed Governor Lael Brainard on Thursday, whom Biden picked to be the central bank’s next vice chair.
In choosing Raskin for the vice chair for supervision post, Biden looks to make good on Democrats’ promises to reinforce laws passed in the aftermath of the financial crisis and restore aspects of a rule named for former Fed Chair Paul Volcker that had restricted banks’ ability to trade for their own profit.
Raskin has experience at the Fed and served as a governor at the central bank from 2010 to 2014 before serving as deputy secretary of the Treasury under the Obama administration. She is married to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
Powell and Brainard are both expected to clear the Senate without fanfare and with bipartisan support, but Raskin, Cook and Jefferson could see tougher confirmation odds. Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, the ranking member of the Banking committee, was quick to pan Biden’s latest choices.
“Sarah Bloom Raskin has specifically called for the Fed to pressure banks to choke off credit to traditional energy companies and to exclude those employers from any Fed emergency lending facilities,” he said in a statement Thursday evening. “I have serious concerns that she would abuse the Fed’s narrow statutory mandates on monetary policy and banking supervision to have the central bank actively engaged in capital allocation.”
“I will closely examine whether Ms. Cook and Mr. Jefferson have the necessary experience, judgment, and policy views to serve as Fed Governors,” he added.
While Jefferson’s name had more recently come up in closed-door discussions to serve as a governor, Cook’s nomination was well telegraphed. CNBC reported in May that she was the top choice of Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Banking Committee’s chairman and an Ohio Democrat, to serve as a governor.
Cook is a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. She is also a member of the steering committee at the Center for Equitable Growth, a progressive Washington-based think tank that counts several of Biden’s top economists among its alumni. She also served as a senior economist in the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisors.
Jefferson, meanwhile, is vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Davidson College. His decadeslong career in academics has focused on labor markets and poverty.
Notable works of his include a 2005 study that evaluated the costs and benefits of monetary policy that promotes a “high-pressure economy” in which the Fed allows easier access to cash and lower interest rates to spur tighter labor markets.
He and other economists, including Brainard, have argued – in general and barring extraordinary economic conditions – that the added benefits of lower rates on maximum employment is worth the potential for warmer inflation.
Raskin and regulation
Since leaving the government, Raskin has pressed the Fed and other financial regulators to take a more proactive role to address the financial risks posed by climate change.
“While none of its regulatory agencies was specifically designed to mitigate the risks of climate-related events, each has a mandate broad enough to encompass these risks within the scope of the instruments already given to it by Congress,” Raskin wrote in September.
“In light of the changing climate’s unpredictable – but clearly intensifying – effects on the economy, U.S. regulators will need to leave their comfort zone and act early before the problem worsens and becomes even more expensive to address,” she added.
Former Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles, who recently left the Fed, played a major role in reducing capital requirements for U.S. banks with less than $700 billion in assets and relaxing the Volcker Rule’s audit rules for trades made by JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and other investment banks.
Fed officials in favor of an easier regulatory stance argue the industry is well-capitalized and not in need of some of the more restrictive measures enacted in the wake of the crisis.
Many Democrats, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have pushed back and said rollbacks leave the banking sector more vulnerable to shocks and liable to excess risk taking.
Inflation battle
The nominations come at a precarious time for the Fed, which has in recent weeks has started to wind down its easy-money policies in the face of recovering employment and the highest level of year-over-year inflation since 1982.
In times of normal economic activity, the Fed adjusts short-term interest rates to maximize employment and stabilize prices.
When the Fed wants the economy to heat up, it can cut borrowing costs to spur the housing market and broader economic activity as well as employment. But if it is concerned about an overheating economy or unruly inflation, it can raise interest rates to make borrowing more expensive.
In times of economic emergency, the central bank can also tap broader powers and purchase vast quantities of bonds to keep borrowing costs low and boost financial markets with easy access to cash. It did so in 2020 with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, a move that worked to pacify traders and soothe companies concerned about liquidity.
Bond yields fall as their prices rise, meaning that those purchases forced rates lower. But ending those types of emergency-era liquidity measures — and the prospect of higher rates — can have the opposite effect on markets.
The release of the Fed’s latest meeting minutes earlier in January, which showed several officials in favor of cutting the balance sheet and raising rates soon, sparked a sell-off on Wall Street.
Golden Globes Finally Nominate Female Directors
Back in 2018, Natalie Portman made headlines for calling out the lack of female directing nominees at the Golden Globes. While on stage to present the award for best director, she quipped: “Here are the all-male nominees.”
Well, for the first time in a long time, the Golden Globes made good on that omission and recognized female filmmakers.
After receiving bad press for shutting women out of the best director category for the last six years, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — the voting body behind the annual awards show — nominated not one, not two, but three women: Chloe Zhao for “Nomadland,” Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman” and Regina King for “One Night in Miami.”
They will compete against David Fincher for “Mank” and Aaron Sorkin for “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”
It’s the first time in history that more than one woman has
been recognized in the best director category at the Golden Globes. Prior to this year, a woman had only been nominated seven times since the first ceremony was held in 1944 — Barbra Streisand (in 1984 for “Yentl” and in 1991 for “The Prince of Tides”), Jane Campion (in 1994 for “The Piano”), Sofia Coppola (in 2004 for “Lost in Translation”), Kathryn Bigelow (in 2010 for “The Hurt Locker” and 2013 for “Zero Dark Thirty”); and Ava DuVernay (in 2015 for “Selma”).
Generally speaking, award shows don’t have a stellar track record when it comes to honoring women behind the camera. The Academy Awards have only nominated five women in the span of 92 years: Lina Wertmüller (in 1976 for “Seven Beauties”), Jane Campion (in 1993 for “The Piano”), Sofia Coppola (in 2003 for “Lost in Translation”), Kathryn Bigelow (in 2009 for “The Hurt Locker”) and Greta Gerwig (2017’s “Lady Bird”).
In Hollywood, female filmmakers are still vastly underrepresented. Women accounted for 16% of directors working on the 100 highest-grossing films in 2020, an improvement from the 12% in 2019 and the 4% in 2018. Yet it’s a sign that the entertainment industry is still behind on gender parity.
Zhao’s nomination for “Nomandland,” a sweeping Western starring Frances McDormand, makes her the first woman of Asian descent to be nominated for best director. King’s nod for “One Night in Miami,” which follows a fictionalized meeting of four legends, makes her the second Black woman (following DuVernay) to nominated.
Streisand is the only women to ever win the Golden Globe for best director. But that could change on Feb. 28 when the show airs.