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jen psaki
'Say It With Pride': Pushback After Psaki Walks Back Biden Amazon Union Remarks
Sen. Bernie Sanders and others applauded the president's statement of support for Amazon workers, but the White House quickly worked to temper Biden's comments.
Apr 06, 2022
Sen. Bernie Sanders and other progressives on Wednesday applauded President Joe Biden's words of support for Amazon workers--and rejected the White House's attempt to temper the president's statement, calling on the administration to proudly and unequivocally align itself with pro-worker efforts.
In a speech to the North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU), Biden spoke about the creation of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, which is "dedicated to mobilizing the federal government's policies, programs, and practices to empower workers to organize and successfully bargain with their employers."
"Unions are about providing dignity and respect. That's why I created the White House task force to make sure the choice belongs to workers alone," Biden said before smiling and adding. "And by the way, Amazon, here we come. Watch. Watch."
\u201c"By the way, Amazon here we come."\n\n\u2014 President Biden promotes workers' right to unionize while speaking to the North America\u2019s Building Trade Unions\u201d— The Recount (@The Recount) 1649266195
The president went on to talk about his administration's push for Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
Biden's comments came less than a week after Amazon employees at Staten Island, New York's JFK8 fulfillment center voted by a wide margin to form a labor union--without the support of an established union and after facing aggressive anti-labor tactics by the company.
The vote could make workers at the warehouse the first of Amazon's 1.1 million U.S. workers to secure a union contract; employees in Bessemer, Alabama are also attempting to form a collective bargaining unit for the second time, but that election is so far too close to call.
"President Biden is right," said Sanders (I-Vt.) after the president's speech. "Let's get every Amazon worker in a union."
The president's remarks were "exactly what working class people need to hear," said Faiz Shakir, a former campaign manager for Sanders and the founder of pro-labor media outlet More Perfect Union.
"It was a clear call of support to the multi-union campaign to unionize Amazon," he toldThe Washington Post.
The stunning victory in Staten Island last week, which was spearheaded by a worker who had been fired for the company after publicly complaining about safety practices, comes as employees at Starbucks stores across the country are also working to unionize and facing union-busting tactics, and as union membership has declined over the past year.
"This kind of rhetoric from Biden is a welcome change coming from the top of the Democratic Party," said Majority Report co-host Emma Vigeland.
Biden's comments led Post reporter Olivier Knox to muse that White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain may soon be hearing from Amazon, where the president's former director of communications, Jay Carney, now oversees public relations.
\u201cWatch your in-box, @WHCOS !\n\n(For those not in on this, senior Amazon executive Jay Carney, who was Biden's communications director for a spell in the Obama administration, has reportedly been emailing Ron Klain with complaints.)\u201d— Olivier Knox (@Olivier Knox) 1649268414
The White House worked quickly to moderate any expectation progressives might have had that the president's words signaled plans to take action to help Amazon workers who want to unionize.
"What he was not doing is sending a message that he or the U.S. government would be directly involved in any of these efforts or take any direct action," said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki shortly after Biden's speech, when she was asked by a reporter if the president was "endorsing" the efforts of workers trying to organize.
"I do not understand the negative framing here," tweeted Mike Casca, communications director for Sanders.
The Vermont senator's staff director, Warren Gunnels, also expressed exasperation with Psaki.
The "correct answer" to the reporter's question, said Gunnels, should have been "an unambiguous yes."
"The U.S. government and the administration should be actively encouraging workers to form unions at Amazon and every corporation in America," he added. "Say it with pride, not shame."
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Calls for Senate to Act Grow as Idaho Governor Signs 'Heinous' Anti-Choice Law
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that President Joe Biden "again calls on Congress to act and send a bill to his desk to shut down these radical steps."
Mar 23, 2022
Advocates on Wednesday called on the U.S. Senate to codify reproductive rights nationwide after Idaho's Republican governor signed into law a six-week abortion ban that incentivizes citizens to collect bounties on healthcare providers.
"It's clear that anti-choice lawmakers across the country are more emboldened than ever in advancing their draconian attacks on abortion rights and access."
The Idaho Statesman reports Gov. Brad Little signed into law S.B. 1309, which in addition to banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy allows potential relatives of an aborted fetus to sue medical professionals who attempt or perform the procedure. Under the law, successful litigants are entitled to a reward of $20,000, plus legal fees.
S.B. 1309--which will go into effect in 30 days unless a court intervenes--is modeled after Texas S.B. 8, although unlike that legislation, the Idaho law allows exceptions in cases of rape or incest. However, it requires survivors to file a police report with a physician before undergoing an exception-based abortion.
Idaho state Rep. Lauren Necochea (D-19A) tweeted: "I am outraged that Gov. Little just signed our reproductive rights away in the cruelest way! Cash awards for rapists' relatives? That's the extremism that has gripped the Idaho Republican Party and it's taking our state over a cliff."
\u201cGovernor Brad Little has officially signed #SB1309, making Idaho\u2019s six-week abortion ban law. Here\u2019s what you should know:\u201d— Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates - West (@Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates - West) 1648063422
NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju said in a statement that the U.S. Supreme Court's "refusal to block Texas' blatantly unconstitutional bounty-hunting scheme opened the door for anti-choice lawmakers in Idaho to adopt this cruel ban on abortion to enact in their own state."
"It's no surprise that anti-choice lawmakers are moving to take advantage of what they see as a loophole to bypass the constitutional right to abortion for as long as it stands," she continued.
"There's no doubt that this dystopian ban could shut off access to abortion care in Idaho, and its consequences will reverberate throughout the rest of the nation," Timmaraju--who called the law "heinous" on Twitter--added. "It's clear that anti-choice lawmakers across the country are more emboldened than ever in advancing their draconian attacks on abortion rights and access--no matter the costs to our freedoms and families."
\u201cIdaho just became the second state to pass a law deputizing private citizens to enforce an abortion ban as early as 6 weeks.\n\nIt's unconscionable that Idaho politicians witnessed the devastation of Texas' abortion ban \u2014 and decided to inflict the same harm on their constituents.\u201d— ACLU (@ACLU) 1648067086
NARAL Pro-Choice America warned that "the fight for reproductive freedom faces a pivotal moment as the anti-choice supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hand down a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization--a case regarding Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban that directly challenges Roe v. Wade."
"We cannot allow these unconstitutional and dangerous laws to stand. Abortion is healthcare, not a crime."
"If Roe fell tomorrow, 28 states are likely to take action to prohibit abortion outright," the group added. "Of those, 13 states--including Idaho--already have 'trigger bans' in place which would ban abortion automatically."
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) noted that "Republican state legislatures across the nation are criminalizing the constitutional right to abortion and now Idaho has signed the latest Texas-inspired bill into law. We cannot allow these unconstitutional and dangerous laws to stand. Abortion is healthcare, not a crime."
Reproductive rights advocates renewed calls for the U.S. Senate to pass the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would codify abortion rights nationwide. The House of Representatives approved the WHPA last September, but the measure failed to pass in the upper chamber after right-wing West Virgina Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin voted with Republicans to filibuster it.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Wednesday that the Idaho law is "devastating for women," while noting that President Joe Biden "again calls on Congress to act and send a bill to his desk to shut down these radical steps."
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Psaki Says Biden Has No Intention of 'No-Fly Zone' for Ukraine
"A no-fly zone is not a magical umbrella that prevents planes flying in a given area," said one expert. "To put in a no-fly zone is to go to war."
Feb 28, 2022
Emphasizing U.S. President Joe Biden's desire to avoid a war with Russia, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki repeatedly made clear Monday that the administration does not plan to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Following Russian President Vladimir Putin's long-awaited invasion of Ukraine last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Biden and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to take such action.
Psaki told reporters during a Monday press briefing that "the president has been very clear that he is not intending to send U.S. troops to fight a war with Russia, and I think what's important to note here is that is essentially what this would be a step toward, because a no-fly zone would require implementation."
Implementation "would require deploying U.S. military to enforce" the no-fly zone (NFZ), she said. That could lead to a direct conflict and "potentially a war with Russia, which is something we are not planning to be a part of."
\u201cWhite House press sec. Jen Psaki tells @marykbruce any potential no-fly-zone would "essentially...be a step toward" a direct conflict, and "potentially a war with Russia, which is something we are not planning to be a part of."\n\nLIVE UPDATES: https://t.co/r3JDLsDZpQ\u201d— ABC News (@ABC News) 1646081737
Psaki made similar remarks in an interview with MSNBC on Monday, highlighting that an NFZ "would essentially mean the U.S. military would be shooting down planes, Russian planes."
"That is definitely escalatory. That would potentially put us into a place where we're in a military conflict with Russia. That is not something the president wants to do," she said. "Those are all the reasons why that's not a good idea."
"We are not going to have a military war with Russia with U.S. troops," and Biden believes it is "vitally important" to be direct with the American public about that, the press secretary added.
\u201c"We are not going to have a military war with Russia with U.S. troops," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says.\u201d— MSNBC (@MSNBC) 1646069423
Psaki's explanations Monday echoed recent statements from other members of the administration.
Asked about a potential NFZ on Sunday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield toldCNN's Dana Bash that "the president has made clear that we're not going to put boots on the ground. We're not going to put American troops in danger. So that means we're not going to put American troops in the air as well."
Warning that "a Ukraine no-fly zone would put the world on the brink of nuclear war," Vox's Zack Beauchamp reported Sunday:
The U.S. and its allies have used no-fly zones three times in the recent past: Iraq after the Gulf War, Bosnia during the mid-90s conflict, and Libya during the 2011 intervention. In each of those cases, the U.S. and its partners were facing vastly inferior military forces. There was no real question about their ability to take control over the skies.
Russia is an entirely different story. Its air force dwarfs Ukraine's; it is second in size only to the U.S. Air Force. An attempt to impose an NFZ in Ukraine would be nothing like these previous engagements, and it's not even clear that it would be possible.
...[The] risks of a direct U.S.-Russia shooting war are apocalyptic. In his speech this week declaring war on Ukraine, Putin all but openly vowed that any international intervention in the conflict would trigger nuclear retaliation.
"To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history," the Russian president said. "I hope you hear me."
Experts have issued similar warnings of the dangers of an NFZ in recent days.
"Don't know who all needs to hear this, but a no-fly zone is not a magical umbrella that prevents planes flying in a given area," tweeted Olga Oliker, the International Crisis Group's program director for Europe and Central Asia.
"It's a decision to shoot at planes that fly in a given area, including with one's own planes," Oliker added. "To put in a no-fly zone is to go to war."
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