Biden signs order to expand research on women’s health
WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday signed an executive order to expand the federal government’s research into women’s health, including midlife conditions such as menopause, arthritis, and heart disease, as well as issues specifically affecting women in the military.
In what the White House described as the “most comprehensive” action by a president on women’s health research, Biden directed federal agencies to ensure that they are using federal funds to research health conditions and diseases that disproportionately affect women.
Standing alongside Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the president said improving women’s health was crucial to guaranteeing a healthy, stable economy.
“There’s not a damn thing a man can do a woman can’t do,” Joe Biden said. “To state the obvious, if you want to have the strongest economy in the world, you can’t leave half of the country behind.”
Carolyn M. Mazure, a psychologist and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine and chairperson of the White House initiative on Women’s Health Research, said Sunday night that health conditions such as heart disease, Alzheimer’s, menopause and fibroids would be a focus of the expanded research effort.
“I’m not even a betting woman,” said Maria Shriver, the former first lady of California, who also attended the event, “but I’ll bet today that this is the first time a president of the United States has ever signed an executive order that mentions the words ‘menopause’ and ‘women’s midlife health’ in it.”
After the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the Alabama Supreme
Court ruled last month that frozen embryos should be considered children, threatening in vitro fertilization, the Biden campaign has increasingly accused Republicans of undermining women’s health. During his
State of the Union address this month, Biden said such decisions would motivate women to vote in the November election, while also saying his White House would commit to investing in women’s health in the year ahead.
Biden’s executive order will require agencies to report annually their investments in women’s health research and to study ways that artificial intelligence can be used to advance such research. The National Institutes of Health will increase by 50 percent investments in small businesses focused on women’s health. The Defense Department also plans to invest $10 million to learn more about cancers and mental health issues affecting women in active military service.
NEW YORK TIMES
Trump defends prediction of a national ‘blood bath’
Former president Donald Trump on Monday sought to defend his declaration over the weekend that the country would face a “blood bath” if he lost in November, saying — as his campaign had previously — that he had been referring only to the auto industry.
“The Fake News Media, and their Democrat Partners in the destruction of our Nation, pretended to be shocked at my use of the word BLOODBATH, even though they fully understood that I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry,” he wrote on his social media platform.
He made the remarks in a speech in Ohio on Saturday, delivered on behalf of Bernie Moreno, whom he has endorsed in Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary. After vowing to impose tariffs on cars manufactured outside the United States, he then said: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”
President Biden’s reelection campaign responded in a statement that Trump was “a loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then, instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience, doubles down on his threats of political violence.”
In the same speech, Trump called migrants “animals” and “not people, in my opinion”; described people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as “hostages”; and suggested that American democracy would end if he lost.
“I don’t think you’re going to have another election, or certainly not an election that’s meaningful,” he said.
NEW YORK TIMES
St. Pat’s White House visit by Kennedys bolsters Biden
Under normal circumstances, a visit by the Kennedy family — a storied political family with Irish roots — to the White House on St. Patrick’s Day might not be particularly newsworthy.
But this year, the gathering had an undertone of family drama and political repudiation.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running an independent bid to supplant President Biden, breaking with the Democratic Party and with many members of his family, who have condemned his campaign as “dangerous.”
They have also pointedly backed Biden. On Sunday, Kerry Kennedy — one of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sisters — posted a picture of the family on X, formerly Twitter, at the White House with Biden. “President Biden, you make the world better,” she wrote.
Biden responded to the post: “From one proud Irish family to another — it was good to have you all back at the White House.”
Among the other Kennedy family members in attendance was Joseph P. Kennedy III, the US special envoy to Northern Ireland.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s presidential run has put him at odds with his family even as he repeatedly invokes their shared legacy on the campaign trail and leans on Kennedy nostalgia. Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer, gained notoriety during the pandemic when his longstanding skepticism about vaccines and embrace of political conspiracy theories came to the fore.
NEW YORK TIMES
Trump recruits Manafort, the aide he pardoned
Former president Trump is expected to enlist Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager he pardoned, as a campaign adviser later this year, according to four people familiar with the talks.
The job discussions have largely centered on the 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee in July and could include Manafort playing a role in fundraising for the presumptive GOP nominee’s campaign, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. While no formal decision has been made, the four people described the hiring as expected and said Trump was determined to bring Manafort back into the fold.
Manafort worked for Trump in 2016 before being ousted and later convicted of tax and bank fraud felonies as part of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He served time in prison before receiving a pardon in the final days of Trump’s time in office. The hiring of Manafort would probably revive discussion of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election. WASHINGTON POST