MARCH 25, 2021 / 7:04 AM / UPDATED AT 3:04 PM
Biden sets new goal of 200M vaccine doses administered by Day 100
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March 25 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden on Thursday revealed a new plan
of administering 200 million COVID-19 vaccine
doses by his 100th day in office, twice his previous goal.
He made the
announcement during the first full news conference of his presidency.
"By my 100th
day, we will have administered 200 million shots in people's arms," he
said from the East Room of the White House.
"I know it's
ambitious -- twice our original goal -- but no other country has come close ...
to what we're doing."
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Earlier Thursday, the
White House announced that an additional $10 billion will be
spent to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines and build
confidence in the most vulnerable U.S. communities.
Biden also told
reporters he plans to run for re-election in 2024 with Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate.
"The answer is
'yes.' My plan is to run for re-election. That's my expectation."
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The news conference
opened with several questions concerning the Biden's administration's handling
of the rising number of migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border now
that many of former President Donald Trump's immigration policies
have been rolled back.
More than 70,000 migrants were expelled at
the border during February, Biden's first full month in office, after a federal
judge blocked Biden's order to pause deportations to allow time for a review
period.
Still, thousands of
unaccompanied children are being housed in overcrowded facilities -- something
Biden called "totally unacceptable."
"We're going to
be moving a thousand of those kids out quickly. I've been working to try to
find additional access for children to be safely housed."
On Wednesday,
the Pentagon said it
approved the Department of Health and Human Services' request to transport many
of the children to dorm and housing facilities at Joint Base San Antonio and
Fort Bliss near San Antonio, Texas.
Biden said his
administration has focused on increasing the use of a program to attempt to
reach unaccompanied children's family members inside the United States as
quickly as possible. Many of the children, he said, come across the border with
U.S. phone numbers written inside their clothing and part of the effort
requires ensuring the numbers belong to genuine family and friends and not
traffickers.
Asked whether his
efforts to roll back Trump policies have led to the influx at the border, Biden
said families are taking the "desperate" action to send their
children on the journey alone because of problems in their country, not because
he's a "nice guy." He said he won't let the children stay alone on
the Mexican side of the border to starve.
"I'm not gonna
do it."
Biden said he wants
to focus on the issues that cause migrants to leave their home countries in the
first place.
Foreign policy
On foreign policy,
Biden said North Korea violated
a U.N. resolution when it launched two ballistic missiles into
the Sea of Japan on Wednesday.
"There will be
responses if they choose to escalate," Biden said, adding that he's
"prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned on the
end result of denuclearization."
On relations with
China and Russia, Biden pointed to an ongoing battle between democracy and
autocracy. He called for China to "play by international rules -- fair
practices, fair trade."
He said his plan to
deal with China is to increase investment in American workers and science, to
become more competitive in terms of medical and technological research.
Administration
officials met for the first time last week with
counterparts from Beijing in Anchorage, Alaska, during which they traded barbs
on issues like human rights, cybercrime and China's regional reach.
Voting rights
Biden said he plans
to work against Republican efforts to restrict voting rights across the country
-- making it harder for people to get to polling locations outside work hours
and limiting voting by mail.
"What I'm
worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It is sick. The
Republican voters I know find this despicable."
Gun control
Biden was expected to
address gun control after two mass shootings in less than a week in Georgia and
Boulder, Colo., killed 18 people. He sidestepped a question about the issue to
instead talk about U.S. infrastructure, saying simply "it's a matter of
timing."
With Democrats
holding a one-vote majority in the Senate, Biden will need to find Republican
support for reform -- or Democrats need to do away with the filibuster
He said Thursday he
supports returning to the talking filibuster, requiring senators to "stand
and talk and talk" before breaking down and allowing a quorum and vote.
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