Biden news: Trump ally subpoenaed, as president pledges ‘once-in-a-generation’ infrastructure plan

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene just dropped a new bill she hopes will remove “Dr Always Wrong”, aka Dr Anthony Fauci, by reducing his salary to $0 until he is replaced, while also proposing the

We Will Not Comply Act” to ban vaccine passports.

The Fire Fauci Act, she says, would remind the American public that he is the highest-paid federal employee at $434,312. That’s more than the president and, in unrelated tidbits, has him in the president’s bracket for a tax hike.

The We Will Not Comply act, she says, would prevent business, government, airlines, colleges from discriminating against non-vaccinated.

Neither, it would be safe to imagine, would get the votes to pass the Democrat-controlled House.

Fox News has said it has “no interest” in hiring congressman Matt Gaetz, who is under fire following a reported investigation for sex trafficking.

Mr Gaetz indicated in an interview with the Daily Beast on Wednesday that he had spoken to a number of outlets about his future, including Fox and a number of others.

Clarifying that he has not “received nor solicited offers from any of them”, the congressman continued by saying that he had spoken “to either executives, producers or hosts at Newsmax, OAN, Fox, Fox Business” and others.

A spokesperson for Fox said: “No one with any level of authority has had conversations with Matt Gaetz for any of our platforms and we have no interest in hiring him.”

Now sitting at the head of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, Bernie Sanders is effectively steering the entire federal budget process through his decades-long progressive vision, writes The Independent’s Alex Woodward.

“Within the last few weeks, the Vermont senator has held congressional hearings on wealth inequality and corporate bailouts, forced a vote on the Senate floor to raise the federal hourly minimum wage to $15, introduced several pieces of legislation aimed at raising taxes on the nation’s ultra-rich, and critically, ushered into Congress a definitive piece of legislation that encompassed Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, one of the largest-ever measures in US history to combat poverty.

“Meanwhile, he has rallied organisers and Amazon workers in Alabama – frustrating one of the world’s wealthiest men in the process – during a high-stakes union vote that could chart a new era for labour organising in the US. And, to quote the senator’s campaign, the revolution is just getting started.”

Press secretary Jen Psaki is expected to kick off her regular programming at any moment.

Stay locked for updates and follow live with The Independent.

The president scheduled his first full meeting of his Cabinet to begin a few minutes before his press secretary’s daily briefing.

Astute observers might question if the timing was deliberate.

“Now we’ve got a lot of business to do, to get done, and I thank the press for being here, but talk to you all later,” Biden said.

Here are some images from the White House press corp. before they’ll be ushered out and into the briefing room for Jen Psaki’s daily briefing.

He was tested as he is every two weeks, says Jen Psaki.

The president has previously taken the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, which has 90+ per cent efficacy.

Press secretary Jen Psaki said Joe Biden has been aware of mix up at a Baltimore manufacturing plant since last week, but that they didn't expect it to impact the country’s supply.

“These are doses that the US government has purchased but we also have plenty of doses from Pfizer and Moderna regardless,” she said.

“For US supply, the supply we are anticipating through the course of May, we have been assured that they expect to meet those deadlines.”

Here is The Independent’s report on the 15 million lost doses.

Asked if the White House had an obligation to reveal the 15 million lost doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine given its promises of transparency, Jen Psaki said that the delay was, in fact, an example of the transparency process working.

“I think it’s important for people to remember this plant has not been FDA approved, it’s still going through a rigorous review,” she said.

“In-fact this is probably the process working as it should,” she added.

“It wasn’t going to impact our supply, it wasn’t going to impact the supply of the American people.”

Press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House would continue to send its message that “now is not the time to come” to the US after two young children were thrown over a 14-foot wall by smugglers at the Mexico border.

She said Joe Biden agrees that the smugglers were “morally reprehensible”, but didn’t outline any steps beyond what the administration is already doing to dissuade illegal immigration when asked during today’s briefing.

“I’ve seen the video and I think any of us who saw the video were incredibly alarmed by the steps of smugglers,” she said.

Smugglers who were filmed dropping sisters aged 3 and 5 over the border wall have been dubbed ‘morally reprehensible’ by White House.

Authorities were able to find and rescue the girls, who are originally from Ecuador, after being directed in to the remote area by the camera operator.

Both girls were described by officials as alert but were taken to a hospital for health checks.

Graeme Massie has the report.