Biden warns Russia will ‘pay a heavy price’ if Putin launches Ukraine invasion – as it happened

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Joe Biden clarified his comments about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, after the president appeared to downplay the threat of a “minor incursion” into Ukraine. “If any -- any -- assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion,” Biden said. “Let there be no doubt at all that, if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price.”
• Biden’s initial comments about Ukraine had set off a flurry of criticism and a frantic clean-up effort by White House officials. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in response to Biden’s remarks, “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.”
• The Senate failed to pass Democrats’ voting rights bill or approve a change to the filibuster, underscoring the significant challenges that Biden faces in enacting his legislative agenda. During yesterday’s Senate session, the voting rights bill failed along party lines, while Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joined their Republican colleagues in opposing a change to the filibuster.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

While emphasizing the severe consequences that Russia will suffer if Vladimir Putin launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden noted that the US and its allies are also prepared to respond to other forms of Russian aggression.

“Russia has a long history of using measures other than overt military action to carry out aggression and paramilitary tactics, so-called gray zone attacks and actions by Russian soldiers not wearing Russian uniforms,” Biden told reporters at the start of his infrastructure meeting.

The president added, “We have to be ready to respond to these as well in a decisively united way with the range of tools at our disposal.”

Biden noted that the Ukrainian foreign minister has indicated confidence in America’s commitment to protecting Ukraine, and he echoed that assessment.

The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told the Wall Street Journal, “We in Ukraine have no doubt that President Biden is committed to Ukraine … and he wants to prevent the conflict and deter Russia.”

However, Kuleba also issued a warning about the danger of downplaying any threat from Russia, saying, “We should not give Putin the slightest chance to play with quasi-aggression or small incursion operations. This aggression was there since 2014. This is the fact.”

Joe Biden sought to clarify his comments from yesterday about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, after the US president appeared to downplay the threat of a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.

Speaking at the start of a meeting on infrastructure, Biden told reporters moments ago, “I’ve been absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding. If any -- any -- assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.”

Biden said such an invasion would be met with a “severe and coordinated economic response,” which he has “discussed in detail with our allies as well as laid out very clearly for President Putin”.

He added, “But there is no doubt — let there be no doubt at all that, if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price.”

Biden’s comments come one day after he seemed to imply that Nato was at odds over how to respond to Russian aggression depending upon the type of attack that was launched against Ukraine.

“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades,” Biden said at his press conference yesterday.

“And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

That comment required a coordinated clean-up effort from Biden administration officials, with Kamala Harris and Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, seeking to clarify that the US and its allies are united in responding to Russian aggression.

The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, delivered some thinly veiled criticism of Joe Biden’s remarks yesterday about a potential Russian invasion.

“We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations,” Zelenskiy said.

“Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the President of a great power.”

That appeared to be a direct reference to Biden’s comment at his press conference yesterday, when the US president outlined the various responses that Nato is considering if Russia escalates its aggression toward Ukraine.

“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades,” Biden said. “And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

Biden and his aides later tried to clarify that he was attempting to distinguish between an actual invasion and other threats against Ukraine, such as cyberattacks.

However, Biden’s flippant remark has clearly sparked some anxiety among Ukrainian officials.

20 Jan 202210.54 EST

Lauren Aratani

Kamala Harris has joined in on the White House’s campaign to repair Joe Biden’s flub on Ukraine in his press conference on Wednesday, where he revealed Nato is divided on how to respond to a “minor incursion” from Russia.

“The president of the United States has been very clear, and we as the United States are very clear: if Putin takes aggressive action, we are prepared to levy serious and severe costs. Period,” Harris said in a Thursday morning appearance on NBC’s Today Show.

Host Savannah Guthrie countered that the White House had been “less than clear”, issuing a statement just minutes after Biden’s press conference affirming the “united response” between the US and its allies.

“Savannah, I’m being clear with you right now. If you’re interested, I’ll continue to be clear,” Harris said in response.

During his press conference yesterday, Biden said there were “differences in Nato as to what countries are willing to do, depending on what happens”.

Harris went on the defense for Biden when Guthrie asked how “damaging” it was that Biden “openly talked about division within Nato countries and Nato allies”.

“I think your audience knows Joe Biden has been working as the former head of foreign relations, and as the former vice-president and a senator in a role of leadership on foreign policy, for years,” Harris said.

“I have witnessed him continuously engage in direct and honest conversations with our partners and allies, and this is no exception.”

Joe Biden held a nearly two-hour-long press conference yesterday, taking questions from dozens of reporters as he marked one year in office.

One answer that the president gave in response to a question about Ukraine is attracting a lot of attention (and often scorn) both at home and abroad.

A reporter asked the president about whether he believed the threatened economic sanctions against Russia would be enough to deter Vladimir Putin from approving an invasion of Ukraine.

“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades,” Biden said.

He then added, “And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

Biden later clarified that he was distinguishing between Russia actually moving troops across Ukraine’s border and the Kremlin continuing to launch cyberattacks on its neighbor.

But the comment sparked fears that Biden was essentially giving Putin permission to launch an invasion, prompting White House press secretary Jen Psaki to release a statement further clarifying his position last night.

“President Biden has been clear with the Russian President: If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that’s a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our Allies,” Psaki said.

“President Biden also knows from long experience that the Russians have an extensive playbook of aggression short of military action, including cyberattacks and paramilitary tactics. And he affirmed today that those acts of Russian aggression will be met with a decisive, reciprocal, and united response.”

Nancy Pelosi sharply criticized Senate Republicans for blocking Democrats’ voting rights bill, which passed the House in a party-line vote last week.

“On Monday, our nation celebrated the birthday of civil rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for his courage, leadership and sacrifice for our democracy,” the House speaker said.

“Today, Senate Republicans have dishonored his leadership and legacy by blocking passage of urgently needed legislation to protect voting rights and our democracy.”

Pelosi described the voting restrictions that have been enacted in 19 states over the past year, combined with Donald Trump’s “big lie” of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, as “the most severe and sinister threat to our democracy since the era of Jim Crow”.

“Yet, an arcane Senate Rule – one that clearly conflicts with the intentions of our Founders and has long been used to block progress on civil rights – continues to stand in the way of enacting this vital legislation,” Pelosi said.

“In the fight for voting rights, nothing less than our democracy is at stake. Democrats will never relent in our mission to safeguard the sacred right to vote.”

20 Jan 202209.45 EST

Sam Levine

Democrats’ voting rights proposals have failed in the Senate before, but Wednesday marks the first time senators have taken a formal vote on changing the filibuster. Its likely failure marks a profound setback for Joe Biden’s presidential agenda.

The president spent an enormous amount of political capital in recent weeks pressuring Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to support rule changes to the filibuster, giving a speech in Atlanta and traveling to Capitol Hill to try to get support.

In stirring remarks just before the vote on the voting rights bill, Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, said senators could not praise the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr while voting against voting rights.

“You cannot remember MLK and dismember his legacy at the same time,” Warnock said. “I will not sit quietly while some make Dr King a victim of identity theft.”

The bill that failed on Wednesday, Freedom to Vote: John R Lewis Act, combined two major voting rights bills into a single mega bill.

It would have set a national baseline for election access, guaranteeing 15 days of early voting as well as online voter registration. It protected local election officials from harassment and partisan interference in their jobs and curbed gerrymandering, the severe distortion of partisan district lines.

It also restored a key piece of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required places with a history of voting discrimination to get their changes approved by either the justice department or a federal court in Washington before they go into effect.

Joe Biden expressed severe disappointment in the Senate’s failure to pass Democrats’ voting rights bill or amend the filibuster for the legislation.

In a statement released after the votes, the president condemned the “unprecedented effort to suppress the sacred right to vote” unfolding in state legislatures across the country.

“In the face of those threats, I am profoundly disappointed that the United States Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy. I am disappointed — but I am not deterred,” Biden said.

The president pledged that his administration would continue its efforts to protect voting rights and strengthen election systems, even in the face of the demoralizing defeat.

“My Administration will never stop fighting to ensure that the heart and soul of our democracy — the right to vote — is protected at all costs,” Biden said.

“As dangerous new Republican laws plainly designed to suppress and subvert voting rights proliferate in states across the country, we will explore every measure and use every tool at our disposal to stand up for democracy.”

Greetings, live blog readers.

Senate Democrats suffered painful failures on two fronts last night – first on voting rights and then on filibuster reform.

Democrats’ voting rights bill failed to advance because of a Republican filibuster, which requires 60 votes for legislation to move forward.

The final vote on the voting rights bill was 49-51, with every Republican voting against the proposal. (Majority leader Chuck Schumer changed his vote from “yes” to “no” because that will allow him to bring up the matter again later.)

The Senate then voted on a rule change that would have allowed the voting rights legislation to circumvent the traditional legislative filibuster.

That measure was defeated in a vote of 48 to 52, with Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joining their Republican colleagues in opposing the proposal.

The results of the votes demonstrate that challenges that Joe Biden faces in enacting his agenda, as he marks one year since he took office.

With a 50-50 Senate, it will be extremely difficult to pass another other major bills before the midterm elections. And if Democrats cannot enact their agenda, they will likely face some angry voters in November.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.