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Biden: ‘We Need a New Congress’ if This One Refuses to Act on Gun Violence
A fiery and determined President Joe Biden declared if the Republican-majority House and Democratic-majority Senate cannot pass legislation to combat gun violence they should be replaced with lawmakers who will.
“Congress needs to act. Let me be clear about something: If this Congress refuses to act we need a new Congress,” President Biden told cheering attendees at the National Safer Communities Summit in West Hartford, Connecticut on Friday, where he spoke passionately for 30 minutes before spending time with audience members.
Biden: If Congress refuses to act, we need a new Congress pic.twitter.com/PO2t39xShf
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 16, 2023
“And we need states to act as well. Not every state has a governor as competent as Governor Lamont, and I mean that,” the President continued, praising the Connecticut Democrat who has signed numerous bills to strengthen gun violence prevention efforts into law, the latest just ten days ago.
READ MORE: Ron DeSantis: I Would Have Loved to Hang Out With Jesus and His Disciples – America Needs More God
President Biden said governors across the country “can do a lot more,” and pointed to Gov. Ned Lamont’s “bipartisan legislation with more than a dozen measures to improve gun safety.”
The President was determined but also optimistic and even jovial.
He acknowledged many of the “people here who have been impacted by gun violence lost someone they loved, fought so hard for so many years. A lot of you are tired, tired, I get it. Try being 110 and doing it again,” Biden joked, while mocking those who have tried to make his age a campaign issue.
Biden: A lot of you are tired. I get it. Try being 110.. pic.twitter.com/t4IcjxBhpi
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 16, 2023
“All kidding aside, a lot of people are frustrated. My mother, God love her, all five-foot-one,” he said, “looked at me said ‘Joey, never bow. Never bend, never yield. Never kneel.’ We never will on this issue. Never, never, never, never never.”
READ MORE: Trump Accuses US Government of Waging ‘Psychological Warfare Campaigns’ Against Americans
“Folks are we ever gonna make progress we need to make? I’m here to tell you we cannot give up.”
“I still remember the people I’ve met with in Newtown, in Orlando, and Las Vegas. In Pittsburgh, in Charleston. Parkland, El Paso, Uvalde Buffalo, Monterey Park and so many other places that never make the headlines. I’ve never forgotten them and I never will forget them. And I’ll never stop fighting for them, I promise you and I believe this is true that everyone in this room, you will never stop fighting for them as well.”
“We will ban assault weapons in this country. We will ban multi-round magazines. We will hold gun makers liable. We will beat the gun industry. We will beat big money that sits behind them. And the politicians who refuse to stand up and act. It won’t be easy. I have no illusions how fiercely they’ll fight back but I also have no illusions about the people in this room. Look at what you’ve already done here in Connecticut and around the country. Look at the movement that you built. Look at the people you’ve helped elect. Look at the progress you’ve made in state houses. Look at all the mothers organizing all across the country. Listen to the young people who’ve spoken out here today. They’re speaking for a whole generation.”
Watch clips of President Biden’s speech above or at this link, or his full speech at C-SPAN.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
