U.S.-Russia relations colder as Biden rips Putin as 'killer' without soul

The no-soul train

For four years, Russia's Vladimir Putin never heard a bad word said about him by the president of the United States. Joe Biden is making up for lost time.

During an interview with ABC News, the president vowed Putin will "will pay a price" for the interference described in a U.S. intelligence assessment Tuesday that was aimed at steering the 2020 election to Donald Trump. Asked what the consequences would be, Biden said: "You'll see shortly." He said he gave Putin a heads-up to expect retaliation when they spoke by phone last month.

When Biden was asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos if he believes Putin is a killer, the president replied, "I do."

Contrast that to Trump's response in 2017 on Fox News when interviewer Bill O'Reilly, alluding to the tendency of the authoritarian leader's domestic foes to turn up dead, remarked that Putin is a "killer." Defending his expressions of respect for the Russian president, Trump said dismissively: "There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?"

The Biden administration earlier this month imposed sanctions on high-ranking Russian officials for the poisoning and subsequent imprisonment of Alexey Navalny, a leader of the opposition to Putin.

Biden said that when, as vice president, he met with Putin in 2011, he personally told Putin that he does not "have a soul." Biden explained, "I wasn’t being a wise guy" — the context was a previous judgment from former President George W. Bush that he had looked into Putin's eyes and seen a soul. Upon hearing Biden's contrary view, Putin "looked back and said, ‘we understand each other,'" Biden recounted.

Russia's foreign ministry said Wednesday it is recalling its ambassador to the United States for consultations. Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did not cite specific reasons but said that relations "are in a difficult state, which Washington has brought to a dead end in recent years." She added: "We are interested in preventing their irreversible degradation, if the Americans are aware of the associated risks."

Extremist threat growing, intel report says

Violent extremists motivated by a range of political grievances and racial biases pose an "elevated threat" to the United States, federal officials said Wednesday.

The unclassified version of an intelligence report said the most lethal threat is presented by racially motivated violent extremists, who officials say are most likely to conduct mass attacks against American civilians, and militia groups, who are seen as likely to target law enforcement and government officials.

The assessment comes two months after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol echoes warnings made in recent weeks by U.S. officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, that the threat from domestic violent extremism was "metastasizing" across the country. Click here for an executive summary of the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

White House: Trump stoked anti-Asian hate

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Trump's rhetoric on the coronavirus pandemic has contributed to anti-Asian prejudice and violence.

"I think there’s no question that some of the damaging rhetoric that we saw during the prior administration — calling COVID the 'Wuhan virus' or other things — led to perceptions of the Asian American community that are inaccurate, unfair," Psaki said at her daily briefing. It caused "elevated threats against Asian Americans, and we’re seeing that around the country," she said.

Her comment came a day after a gunman killed eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, in a rampage at massage parlors in and around Atlanta. It remains under investigation whether racism was a motive. The gunman told police he was set off by a sex addiction to attack sources of "temptation."

Biden said Wednesday: "Whatever the motivation here, I know Asian Americans, they are very concerned, because as you know I have been speaking about the brutality against Asian Americans, and it's troubling."

Over the past year, thousands of incidents of abuse have been reported to an anti-hate group that tracks incidents against Asian Americans, and hate crimes in general are at the highest level in more than a decade, The Associated Press reported. "While the details of the shootings are still emerging, the broader context cannot be ignored," Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta said in a statement.

Janison: Biden walks tightrope on Cuomo

Once elected, a president or governor becomes the big boss of his or her national or state party. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo now confronts outright rebellion in the Democratic tent in New York. Biden, as a Democratic president, seems to be in no position to prop him up on the homefront, writes Newsday's Dan Janison.

Biden avoided predictions, advice or words of support when asked on TV about Cuomo's hazy future during the ABC interview. He did Cuomo no favors by speculating about "a criminal prosecution."

The harassment allegations, combined with the Cuomo administration's gambits to downplay deaths in state nursing homes, are just the most recent scrapes of Cuomo's three terms. Doubts and suspicions about the true impact of his highhanded leadership style that disappeared at the height of the COVID-19 crisis have roared back.

Cuomo's alienations mount day by day inside the party he heads, the party that aligns with "Me Too."

COVID testing for schools expanding

To try to meet its goal of reopening schools this spring, the Biden administration is committing $10 billion to expand coronavirus testing for teachers, staff and students as well as convening a summit for educators to share "best practices" for returning kids to the classroom.

"The time is now, and schools must act immediately to get students safely back into school buildings," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Wednesday. The goal is "to help get schools open in the remaining months of this school year," according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

In another part of the effort, states will share $122 billion from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act for K-12 schools. The money can be used to reduce class sizes and modify classrooms to enhance social distancing, install ventilation systems and purchase personal protective equipment. It also can pay for more nurses, counselors and janitors, and summer school.

Major dad is pup-lick defender

Biden said his 3-year-old German shepherd Major, who was sent back to Delaware after his teeth had a too-close encounter with a Secret Service agent at the White House, is a "sweet dog" who is "being trained now." He hasn't been banished, the president told ABC, but there's no word when Major or the Bidens' senior dog, Champ, will return to Washington.

"Major did not bite someone and penetrate the skin," Biden said of the incident last week. He explained the aggressiveness by saying that the dog had "turned a corner, there’s two people he doesn’t know at all, you know, and they move and he moves to protect."

The president said Major has a high approval rating among White House personnel. "Eighty-five percent of the people there love him. All he does is lick them and wag his tail," Biden said.

Tax deadline pushed back

The Internal Revenue Service says it’s delaying the traditional tax filing deadline from April 15 until May 17 "to help taxpayers navigate the unusual circumstances related to the pandemic, while also working on important tax administration responsibilities."

The decision postpones when individual taxpayers must file their return and when their payment is due. Taxpayers who owe money would not face any further penalties or interest if they pay by May 17.

The IRS has been swamped by pandemic-related duties such as doling out three rounds of government relief payments. Last year, the deadline was delayed until July 15.

More coronavirus news

See a roundup of the latest regional pandemic developments on Long Island and beyond by Newsday's reporting staff, written by Bart Jones. For a full list of Newsday's coronavirus stories, click here.

What else is happening:

• The Federal Reserve on Wednesday projected the U.S. economy will grow 6.5% this year, the fastest pace in four decades, basing its optimism on the pace of coronavirus vaccination rates and almost $2 trillion in new federal spending.
• Trump’s net worth is down to $2.3 billion from $3 billion when he became president, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The pandemic battered revenue and the Capitol insurrection tarred his brand.
• Trump's son Eric is touting the family's Doral golf resort near Miami as a potential gambling destination as Florida Republicans push proposals for more casinos in the state, The Washington Post reports. Florida currently limits gambling mostly to tribal casinos and horse racing properties. The elder Trump built an Atlantic City casino empire that ended in bankruptcies in the early 1990s
• The Senate confirmed Katherine Tai as the top U.S. trade envoy in an overwhelming bipartisan 98-0 vote on Wednesday . She will be the first Asian American and first woman of color to hold the position. A daughter of immigrants from Taiwan and fluent in Mandarin, Tai served several years as head of China enforcement at the trade representative’s office.
• Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas sparred Wednesday with members of Congress over the surge of migrants at the Southwest border, refusing to concede the situation was a crisis or even much different from what the two previous administrations faced, The Associated Press wrote. "I don’t think the difficulty of that challenge can be overstated," Mayorkas said. "We also have a plan to address it. We are executing on our plan and we will succeed."
• Dozens of Senate Republicans on Wednesday accused Biden of violating federal spending law when he froze funding for border wall construction, an action they say gave rise to an uptick in illegal border crossings, Roll Call reports.