Shock after Biden suggests Putin’s nuclear threats could mean ‘Armageddon’ – live | US politics

As he often does with a healthy jobs report, Biden cheered the latest data as a sign that the economy is performing well under his watch:

If you read between the lines, the “stable, steady growth” Biden is referring to is more aspiration than reality at the moment. Inflation remains high in the United States, although it is believed to be poised to decline in the months ahead. Meanwhile, government data showed negative growth in the previous two quarters, raising fears of a recession. But that dynamic may also reverse in the final quarters of the year – creating the type of economic conditions Biden hopes to revive his sagging popularity among American voters.

Biden’s plan to cancel some student debt has survived in court – again.

The Associated Press reports that a federal judge in Wisconsin has dismissed a lawsuit from a taxpayer group trying to stop the measure that would cancel as much as $20,000 in student loans for millions of borrowers.

Here’s more from the AP:

The Brown County Taxpayers Association argued that Biden’s order illegally circumvented Congress’ power over spending. They also argued that the plan was discriminatory by seeking to give particular help to borrowers of color.

US District Judge William Griesbach, an appointee of President George W. Bush, tossed the case Thursday, writing that the group does not have standing to challenge the plan simply because they are taxpayers.

Biden enacted the debt relief plan under the HEROES Act, which was passed after Sept. 11 attacks sparked an American-led military campaign aimed at terrorism. The act gave the executive branch authority to forgive student loan debt in association with military operations or national emergencies.

The president cited COVID-19 as the reason to invoke the act. The lawsuit, filed by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of the taxpayers group, had argued that it was an overextension of executive power that improperly sidestepped Congress.

A libertarian group last month sued over the plan in Indiana, but the AP reports a judge declined to block the White House proposal and told the plaintiffs to resubmit their argument.

Government data released this morning confirmed that the US labor market remains strong – but perhaps not that strong. Dominic Rushe dove into the numbers and tells us what he found:

US employers added 263,000 new jobs in September as the unemployment rate dipped to 3.5%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.

The jobs market has shown signs of slowing recently after regaining all the jobs that were lost during the pandemic. September’s gain was down from the 315,000 jobs added in August and far lower than the 420,000 average monthly gain so far in 2022. But growth has remained robust despite rising interest rates and growing fears of a recession.

How long the job market can maintain its current trajectory is unknown. The Federal Reserve blames the current cost of living crisis in part on a tight labor market and rising wages and has signaled it would like to see hiring fall, and unemployment rise, as it seeks to tamp down inflation.

Even after the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago resort in August, The New York Times reports that investigators are skeptical that Donald Trump has turned over all the government documents in his possession. Here’s the latest on the saga from The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:

The US Department of Justice has told lawyers for Donald Trump that he thinks he has not handed back all the documents he took from the White House, the New York Times reported.

The paper said Jay Bratt, the DoJ head of counterintelligence operations, communicated with lawyers for Trump “in recent weeks”.

The news, the Times said, is “the most concrete indication yet that investigators remain skeptical that Mr. Trump has been fully cooperative in their efforts to recover documents … supposed to have [been] turned over to the National Archives at the end of his term”.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, said the news “looks like a major step towards an indictment of Trump by DoJ for obstruction of justice”.

What’s shocking about Biden’s remark isn’t that Vladimir Putin is considering using nuclear weapons.

The Russian president has personally threatened to do so as his military faces setbacks in its bloody invasion of Ukraine. But when the US president – who has access to information from America’s spy agencies that few others do – warns that Putin is indeed serious, and compares the current moment to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, then it’s something else. The question is: what?

One possibility is that the utterance was part of the public rhetoric campaign the White House has been waging to warn it against using a nuclear weapon. Last month, national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned doing so would bring “catastrophic consequences”.

Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser last night, Biden acknowledged a level of uncertainty about Russia’s goals, and how far Putin was willing to go to achieve them. “We are trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?” Biden said.

Shock as Biden suggests Putin’s nuclear threats could mean ‘Armageddon’