3 key takeaways from Biden’s Summit of the Americas
Biden had for months been averse to engaging Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who US officials fear is parroting former President Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud to Heading into the summit, White House officials were frustrated that the He assigned blame for rising costs to Russia, oil companies, shipping conglomerates and Republicans, insisting he is doing what he can to tame inflation as new numbers showed prices accelerating last month.To coincide with his trip West, Biden’s aides booked an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show, often viewed as an opportunity to show off a politician’s lighter side.Yet Biden’s appearance was a mostly serious interview on gun control and abortion rights, two other intractable issues on which the President has few options to act alone, even as his most ardent supporters demand he do so.”I don’t want to emulate Trump’s abuse of the Constitution, constitutional authority,” Biden told Kimmel on Wednesday after the late-night host asked why he couldn’t issue an executive order like Trump, who “handed them out like candy.”When Kimmel asked how you play Monopoly when one side “won’t pass go” or play by the rules, Biden said: “You got to send ’em to jail.”