Politics

By Daina Beth Solomon and Julio-Cesar Chavez

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico/EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) -The Biden administration began implementing a sweeping policy shift at the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday as a COVID-era order that had allowed the swift expulsion of many migrants expired and new asylum restrictions took effect amid confusion and uncertainty.

Several last-minute court actions added to questions about how President Joe Biden’s reworked border strategy will play out, with advocates filing a legal challenge to the new asylum regulation as it was enacted.

Facing concerns that the end of a three-year-old order – known as Title 42 – could further strain U.S. border facilities, cities and towns, U.S. officials were keeping a close eye on the movements of migrants that had already reached record numbers in recent days.

“We continue to encounter high levels of non-citizens at the border, but we did not see a substantial increase overnight or an influx at midnight,” when Title 42 expired, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Blas Nunez-Neto told reporters on Friday.

Seeking to discourage migrants from traveling to the border, the Mexican government said its national migration institute has ordered its offices not to issue immigration documents or other permits enabling travel within the country, creating another obstacle for migrants.

Though a chaotic race to U.S. border ports of entry on Thursday appeared to have given way to relative calm on Friday, there was a sense of confusion among some migrants.

At the U.S. border fence dividing El Paso, Texas, from Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, hundreds of migrants who had slept there overnight formed a single file line to be brought into the U.S. by authorities and put on buses. Texas National Guard, state troopers and border agents patrolled the area.

Immigration advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a legal challenge against the new asylum bars, claiming they violate U.S. and international laws.

Advocates argue the new regulation, put in place by Biden’s Democratic administration to curb illegal crossings, resembles restrictions imposed by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, that they had successfully blocked in court.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended the Biden regulation, saying it aims to encourage migrants to enter using legal pathways. “It’s going to be a tough transition,” he told MSNBC.

U.S. asylum officers hurried to figure out the logistics of applying the new asylum regulation.

Further complicating the new U.S. policy, a federal judge in Florida ordered the U.S. Border Patrol not to release any migrants without first issuing them formal notices to appear in immigration court. The Texas attorney general later asked a federal judge to do the same.

SCRAMBLE AHEAD OF THE CHANGES

In chaotic scenes on Thursday, migrants scrambled to enter the country before the new rule went into effect. The regulation presumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum if they passed through other countries without first seeking protection elsewhere, or if they failed to use legal pathways for U.S. entry, which Biden has expanded.

Tens of thousands of migrants this week waded through rivers, climbed walls and embankments onto U.S. territory.

In San Diego, a Colombian man, who was among asylum seekers taken to a hotel for processing, said he and his wife crossed on foot and spent four nights outside. He was granted an asylum hearing in 60 days and paroled.

“We didn’t have anywhere else to go,” said the man, who described himself as a former Colombian air force member who had been threatened by armed groups in his homeland.

Lindsay Toczylowski, director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, one of the groups suing the Biden administration, said the new asylum policy was “extremely disappointing when people’s lives are in the balance.”

Around 25,000 migrants were being held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities near the border on Friday, down slightly from record highs earlier in the week, according to the National Border Patrol Council, a union for agents. About 10,000 migrants per day were reported crossing illegally this week.

A 17-year-old Honduran boy died after being found unconscious in a Florida shelter on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unaccompanied children are exempt from the new regulation, and advocates have warned that parents might send children across the border alone.

COVID EMERGENCY ENDS, ASYLUM BAN BEGINS

Trump first implemented Title 42 in March 2020 as COVID swept the globe. The order allowed American authorities to quickly expel migrants to Mexico or other countries without a chance to request asylum.

Some Democrats and immigration advocates say Biden’s new regulation is too harsh.

The measure also counters previous statements Biden made in 2020 on the campaign trail, when he said it was “wrong” for people not to be able to seek asylum on U.S. soil.

Biden, who campaigned on reversing Trump’s policies and is now running for re-election in 2024, kept the order in place.

Migrants have been expelled more than 2.7 million times under Title 42, although the total includes repeat crossers.

Mexico has generally only accepted certain nationalities – its own citizens, migrants from northern Central America and more recently migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua. So, during the same period, around 2.8 million migrants ineligible for expulsion were allowed into the U.S. under a process known as Title 8 to pursue immigration claims.

Republicans fault Biden for easing Trump’s more restrictive policies, while the Biden administration has blamed Republicans for blocking legislation to reform the immigration system.

(Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso, Texas; Daina Beth Solomon in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; Daniel Becerril in Matamoros, Mexico; Dave Graham in Mexico City; and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Evan Garcia in Brownsville, Texas; Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Susan Heavey in Washington; Dan Trotta in San Diego; Writing by Mica Rosenberg and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Kim Coghill, Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis, Aurora Ellis and Diane Craft)

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By Ann Saphir, Andrea Shalal and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Federal Reserve Governor Philip Jefferson to be the central bank’s vice chair, a key policy advisory role recently vacated when Lael Brainard took a top position in Biden’s White House economics team.

Biden also nominated the World Bank’s U.S. executive director, Adriana Kugler, to be a Fed governor, adding a labor economist to the central bank’s leadership ranks as policymakers judge how much further to raise interest rates and cool a strong job market that a number of them, including Chair Jerome Powell, see as aggravating inflation.

The president also renominated Governor Lisa Cook, who joined the Fed at the same time as Jefferson roughly a year ago, to a full 14-year term on the Board of Governors. Her current term expires in January 2024.

“These nominees understand that this job is not a partisan one, but one that plays a critical role in pursuing maximum employment, maintaining price stability, and supervising many of our nation’s financial institutions,” Biden said in a statement. “I am confident these nominees will help build upon the historically strong economic recovery we have had under my administration.”

A Colombian-American, Kugler would be the first-ever Latina on the Fed Board of Governors, addressing the long-standing complaints of Senator Bob Menendez, an influential Democrat who has decried the historic absence of Hispanics in U.S. central bank leadership. For that reason, Menendez was one of only five Democrats to oppose Biden’s reappointment of Powell last year.

“We are finally giving Latinos, all 62 million of us who call this country home, a seat at the table where the most consequential decisions on monetary policy are made,” Menendez in a statement, pledging to fight for swift confirmations for all three in the closely divided Senate.

Jefferson, 61, would become the second-ever Black vice chair, the prior being Roger Ferguson who held the post roughly two decades ago.

Jefferson’s elevation to the No. 2 spot comes a year into a relatively subdued tenure on the Fed board during which he has offered limited views on monetary policy in the public sphere. He has also voted in favor of each of the eight interest rate increases the Fed has delivered since he joined the seven-member board after an easy Senate confirmation in May 2022.

Cook, 58, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed board, was approved by the Senate a year ago on a narrow 51-50 party line vote. She was a Michigan State University economics professor prior to joining the Fed, and was a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers during the administration of President Barack Obama. She, too, has voted in favor of the Fed’s ongoing rate increases.

HISTORIC TIGHTENING NEARS ENDGAME

The nominations to the world’s top central bank come as the Fed opens a new chapter in its battle against high inflation.

After just over a year of the steepest round of interest-rate hikes in 40 years, the Fed on May 3 nudged its policy rate to just over 5% and signaled it may be time to take a pause and assess whether any more hikes are needed.

Central bankers want policy tight enough to bring down inflation, now running at more than twice their 2% goal, but not so tight it craters a labor market that so far has weathered the steeper borrowing costs with surprising strength. Finding that balance will be a tricky task.

Meanwhile Biden is in a standoff with Republicans over the debt limit that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says could leave the government short of the cash it needs to pay its bills as early as June 1. A default would send the economy into the recession it has so far avoided, analysts say, and do long-term damage to the nation to boot.

CONFIDENCE IN POWELL

The appointment of Jefferson, a PhD economist who has spent most of his career as a college economics professor, marks a departure from a recent run of vice chairs with extensive monetary policy expertise. Brainard, for instance, served as a Fed Board member for eight years before ascending to the No. 2 role. She resigned in February to become director of Biden’s National Economic Council.

The move suggests Biden continues to have confidence in Powell’s agenda-setting, even as it risks putting some of the historic employment gains under the president’s watch at risk with potentially more policy tightening to come, Capital III’s Karim Basta said.

The Fed vice chair typically works closely with the Fed chair and the New York Fed president – currently John Williams – as a “troika” who formulate policy options that feed into rate-setting decisions made twice a quarter by the Fed’s 19 policymakers.

Of five public appearances to date as Fed governor, Jefferson’s speech at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business conference in February gave perhaps the best glimpse into his views, which appear generally in line with Powell’s.

Responding to a paper that argued the Fed can’t win its inflation fight without sending the economy into recession, Jefferson said today’s inflation, driven by the coronavirus pandemic and war in Ukraine, may differ from past episodes, and though it is proving sticky particularly for services outside of the housing sector, a recession may yet be avoidable.

Powell made a similar point on May 3.

The nominations also bring greater diversity to Fed policymaking, not just by race and gender, but also by professional background and area of expertise.

Kugler, 53, is a PhD economist who has researched extensively on U.S. and international labor markets. Biden appointed her last year to her World Bank role, in which she is one of 25 national executive directors at the global development lender.

She also served as chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department from 2011 to 2013 during the Obama administration.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir;Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

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By Daniel Becerril and Ted Hesson

MATAMOROS, Mexico (Reuters) -The U.S. on Friday ended COVID-19 border restrictions that blocked many migrants at the border with Mexico, immediately replacing the so-called Title 42 order with a sweeping new asylum regulation meant to deter illegal crossings.

But several last-minute court actions added confusion to how the new border policies will play out in coming days.

Just before Title 42 was set to expire at midnight on May 11, immigration advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a legal challenge to the new asylum bars, claiming they violate U.S. laws and international agreements.

    Advocates argue the new regulation, put in place by Democratic President Joe Biden to curb illegal crossings, resembles restrictions issued by former President Donald Trump, his Republican predecessor. The rights groups successfully blocked the Trump rules in court and asked the same California-based judge to block these as well.

The Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chaotic scenes unfolded of migrants scrambling to enter the country on Thursday before Title 42 expired and the new rule went in to effect. The regulation presumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum if they passed through other nations without first seeking protection elsewhere, or if they failed to use legal pathways for U.S. entry, which Biden has expanded.

Thousands of migrants have waded through rivers, climbed walls and scrambled up embankments onto U.S. soil in recent days, hoping to be processed before midnight.

Some migrants turned themselves in to border officials. Others tried to cross undetected.

In Matamoros, Mexico, on Thursday afternoon groups crossed the Rio Grande River in chin-high water. Some carried tiny babies and bags of belongings above their heads to make it into Brownsville, Texas.

In El Paso, Texas, hundreds of migrants camped out on downtown streets trying to figure out where to go next after crossing the border from Juarez, Mexico.

More migrants – including families with young children wrapped in Mylar blankets – awaited processing while penned between two towering border walls in San Diego, California, across from Tijuana, Mexico.

COVID EMERGENCY ENDS, ASYLUM BAN BEGINS

Trump first implemented Title 42 in March 2020 as COVID swept the globe. Health officials said at the time the order aimed to curb the spread of the virus in crowded detention facilities. It allowed U.S. authorities to quickly expel migrants to Mexico or other countries without the chance to request U.S. asylum.

But Democrats, public health experts and immigration advocates saw it as an extension of Trump’s quest to block migrants at the border.

Biden, who campaigned on reversing Trump’s policies, kept Title 42 in place and ultimately expanded it.

Migrants have been expelled more than 2.7 million times under Title 42, although the total includes many repeat crossers.

Mexico has generally only accepted certain nationalities – its own citizens, many Central Americans and more recently migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti. So during the same period, around 2.8 million migrants ineligible for expulsion were allowed into the United States under a process known as Title 8 to pursue their immigration claims in court, which can take months or years.

Even before Title 42 expired, along with the end of the COVID public health emergency, Biden’s administration was grappling with record numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, straining U.S. authorities and border cities.

Republicans fault Biden for easing the more restrictive Trump policies. Biden has blamed Congress for not passing comprehensive immigration reform.

But with the new asylum rule, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other Biden officials have been trying to spread the message that illegal crossers will face consequences, sending troops and thousands of additional personnel to the borer.

“Do not believe the lies of smugglers. The border is not open,” Mayorkas said in a statement.

Some migrants who spoke to Reuters on Thursday said they heard it would be more difficult to enter the country after May 11 and rushed to cross before the deadline. Daily apprehensions rose above 10,000 this week and detention capacity maxed out.

Due to the high volume of arrivals, agents on Wednesday began releasing some migrants without a notice to appear in immigration court where they can make an asylum claim, telling them to report to an immigration office later. But late Thursday night, a federal judge in Florida blocked such releases, saying they failed to follow proper regulatory procedures.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection called the ruling “harmful” and said it would “result in unsafe overcrowding” at border facilities. 

(Reporting by Daniel Becerril in Matamoros, Mexico and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Evan Garcia in Brownsville, Texas, Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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By Daniel Becerril and Ted Hesson

MATAMOROS, Mexico (Reuters) -The U.S. on Friday ended COVID-19 border restrictions that blocked many migrants at the border with Mexico, immediately replacing the so-called Title 42 order with a sweeping new asylum regulation meant to deter illegal crossings.

But several last-minute court actions added confusion to how the new border policies will play out in coming days.

Just before Title 42 was set to expire at midnight on May 11, immigration advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a legal challenge to the new asylum bars, claiming they violate U.S. laws and international agreements.

    Advocates argue the new regulation, put in place by Democratic President Joe Biden to curb illegal crossings, resembles restrictions issued by former President Donald Trump, his Republican predecessor. The rights groups successfully blocked the Trump rules in court and asked the same California-based judge to block these as well.

Marsha Espinosa, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, defended the Biden regulation, saying it “seeks to incentivize migrants to use lawful pathways” instead of crossing the border illegally.

Chaotic scenes unfolded of migrants scrambling to enter the country on Thursday before Title 42 expired and the new rule went in to effect. The regulation presumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum if they passed through other nations without first seeking protection elsewhere, or if they failed to use legal pathways for U.S. entry, which Biden has expanded.

Thousands of migrants have waded through rivers, climbed walls and scrambled up embankments onto U.S. soil in recent days, hoping to be processed before midnight.

Some migrants turned themselves in to border officials. Others tried to cross undetected.

In Matamoros, Mexico, on Thursday afternoon groups crossed the Rio Grande River in chin-high water. Some carried tiny babies and bags of belongings above their heads to make it into Brownsville, Texas.

In El Paso, Texas, hundreds of migrants camped out on downtown streets trying to figure out where to go next after crossing the border from Juarez, Mexico.

More migrants – including families with young children wrapped in Mylar blankets – awaited processing while penned between two towering border walls in San Diego, California, across from Tijuana, Mexico.

COVID EMERGENCY ENDS, ASYLUM BAN BEGINS

Trump first implemented Title 42 in March 2020 as COVID swept the globe. Health officials said at the time the order aimed to curb the spread of the virus in crowded detention facilities. It allowed U.S. authorities to quickly expel migrants to Mexico or other countries without the chance to request U.S. asylum.

But Democrats, public health experts and immigration advocates saw it as an extension of Trump’s quest to block migrants at the border.

Biden, who campaigned on reversing Trump’s policies, kept Title 42 in place and ultimately expanded it.

Migrants have been expelled more than 2.7 million times under Title 42, although the total includes many repeat crossers.

Mexico has generally only accepted certain nationalities – its own citizens, many Central Americans and more recently migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti. So during the same period, around 2.8 million migrants ineligible for expulsion were allowed into the United States under a process known as Title 8 to pursue their immigration claims in court, which can take months or years.

Even before Title 42 expired, along with the end of the COVID public health emergency, Biden’s administration was grappling with record numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, straining U.S. authorities and border cities.

Republicans fault Biden for easing the more restrictive Trump policies. Biden has blamed Congress for not passing comprehensive immigration reform.

But with the new asylum rule, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other Biden officials have been trying to spread the message that illegal crossers will face consequences, sending troops and thousands of additional personnel to the borer.

“Do not believe the lies of smugglers. The border is not open,” Mayorkas said in a statement.

Some migrants who spoke to Reuters on Thursday said they heard it would be more difficult to enter the country after May 11 and rushed to cross before the deadline. Daily apprehensions rose above 10,000 this week and detention capacity maxed out.

Due to the high volume of arrivals, agents on Wednesday began releasing some migrants without a notice to appear in immigration court where they can make an asylum claim, telling them to report to an immigration office later. But late Thursday night, a federal judge in Florida blocked such releases, saying they failed to follow proper regulatory procedures.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection called the ruling “harmful” and said it would “result in unsafe overcrowding” at border facilities. 

(Reporting by Daniel Becerril in Matamoros, Mexico and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Evan Garcia in Brownsville, Texas, Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Stephen Coates and Kim Coghill)

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By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will kick off fundraising for her 2024 re-election campaign in the swing state of Georgia on Friday as she and President Joe Biden tap donors for contributions to a ticket that raised over $1 billion in 2020.

Harris will be headlining the Democratic Party of Georgia’s Spring Soiree fundraiser – a gathering expected to have hundreds of attendees. She will also attend a private fundraiser hosted by the Democratic National Committee, a White House official said.

The events come a day after Biden began his 2024 fundraising spree and attended two events in New York hosted by wealthy donors, where he addressed concerns about his age and said the upcoming campaign could be “a pretty ugly” one. The president launched his re-election bid in April with a promise to protect personal freedoms.

Georgia, which was considered safely Republican just a decade ago, has since seen significant change as Black voters, college-educated suburban women and young adults become more politically active.

Harris played a key role in mobilizing those voters ahead of the midterms with a focus on abortion rights to help boost turnout for Democrats. Biden won the state by a narrow margin in 2020.

Biden and Harris face significant political headwinds in their bid for a second term, including low approval numbers and concerns about Biden’s age. Political strategists have said Harris’s appeal as a fundraiser for the re-election campaign will be tested in the coming months.

Harris’s 2020 campaign ‘Kamala Harris for the People’ raised over $40 million, with nearly 57% coming from large contributors, according to campaign finance records.

Harris cited a lack of “financial resources” when she dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign but had a bundler donation list that spanned from Wall Street to Silicon Valley that was considered among the most valuable in the 2020 field. She is expected to tap those resources in 2024.

In April, Biden and Harris met 150 high-dollar donors and fundraisers in Washington, who will tap their networks to help fund their campaign over the next 18 months.

Biden’s campaign in 2020 was the first presidential campaign in history to raise over $1 billion. Campaign officials say it may need well more than $1 billion this time to re-elect Biden, hold the Senate and regain control of the House of Representatives, which Republicans took in the 2022 midterm elections.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington, Editing by Chris Sanders and Edwina Gibbs)

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By Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A debt limit meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and top lawmakers that had been scheduled for Friday has been postponed, and the leaders agreed to meet early next week, a White House spokesperson said on Thursday.

“Staff will continue working and all the principals agreed to meet early next week,” the spokesperson said.

Aides to Biden, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and Democrats Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer met Wednesday and Thursday to discuss raising the debt ceiling, the White House said earlier.

The aides have started to discuss ways to limit federal spending, as talks on raising the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling to avoid a catastrophic default creep forward, people familiar with the discussions said.

White House officials acknowledge that they must accept some spending cuts or strict caps on future spending if they are to strike a deal, two sources said, while insisting they must preserve Biden’s signature climate legislation that passed along party lines last year.

The White House portrayed the postponement as a positive development, with meetings progressing.

The U.S. federal government could run out of money to pay its bills as soon as June 1, the Treasury said, unless the debt ceiling is raised. Biden is set to leave the country next week to attend the G7 meeting in Japan, and there are just a few days left when he and House and Senate leadership will be in town before that deadline.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Jarrett Renshaw and Rami Ayyub, writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Scott Malone and Eric Beech)

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By Daphne Psaledakis and Maya Gebeily

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) -A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill on Thursday intended to bar the American government from recognizing Bashar al-Assad as Syria’s president and to enhance Washington’s ability to impose sanctions – a warning to other countries normalizing relations with Assad.

The bill, first reported by Reuters, would prohibit the government from recognizing or normalizing relations with any Syrian government led by Assad, who is under U.S. sanctions, and expands on the Caesar Act, which imposed a tough round of sanctions on Syria in 2020.

The proposed legislation comes after Arab states turned the page on years of confrontation with Assad on Sunday by allowing Syria back into the Arab League, a milestone in his regional rehabilitation even as the West continues shunning him after years of civil war.

Regional countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others, had for years supported anti-Assad rebels, but Syria’s army – backed by Iran, Russia and allied paramilitary groups – regained most of the country. The icy ties with Assad began to thaw more quickly after devastating earthquakes in Syria and Turkey in February.

“Countries choosing to normalize with (the) unrepentant mass murderer and drug trafficker, Bashar al-Assad, are headed down the wrong path,” U.S. Representative Joe Wilson, the chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, said in a statement.

Syria’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bill was introduced by Wilson, House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a fellow Republican; Republican French Hill and Democrat Brendan Boyle, who co-chair the Free, Democratic and Stable Syria Caucus; and others.

The legislation is a warning to Turkey and Arab countries that if they engage with Assad’s government, they could face severe consequences, a senior congressional staffer who worked on the bill told Reuters.

“The readmission of Syria to the Arab League really infuriated (Congress) members and made clear the need to quickly act to send a signal,” the staffer said.

The staffer said the State Department was consulted in the drafting of the bill.

Asked about the measure at a regular news briefing, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to comment on pending legislation. But he said Washington has been very clear it does not seek to normalize relations with Assad’s government and would not support its allies and other partners doing so either.

The bill’s provisions include a requirement that the secretary of state provide Congress with a strategy for countering normalization with Assad’s government – including a list of diplomatic meetings between Syria’s government and Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and others – every year for five years.

The legislation would also pave the way for sanctions to be imposed on airports that allow landings by Syrian Arab Airlines and another carrier, Cham Wings, the staffer said.

If passed, the bill would also require a review of transactions, including donations over $50,000 in areas of Syria held by Assad’s government by anyone in Turkey, the UAE, Egypt and several other countries.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis in Washington and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By Jarrett Renshaw and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A debt limit meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and top lawmakers that had been scheduled for Friday has been postponed, and the leaders agreed to meet early next week, a White House spokesperson said on Thursday.

Aides from both sides have started to discuss ways to limit federal spending, as talks on raising the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling to avoid a catastrophic default creep forward, people familiar with the discussions said.

“Staff will continue working and all the principals agreed to meet early next week,” the spokesperson said.

The aides to Biden, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries and met Wednesday and Thursday to discuss raising the debt ceiling, the White House said earlier.

McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol that the delay was not a sign of trouble in the talks but that he believed the staff negotiators who had been meeting this week needed to continue to talk before the principals met again.

“I don’t think there’s enough progress for the leaders to get back together,” he said. He also said one of the Congress members wasn’t able to make the Friday meeting. 

White House officials acknowledge that they must accept some spending cuts or strict caps on future spending if they are to strike a deal, two sources said, while insisting they must preserve Biden’s signature climate legislation that passed along party lines last year.

The House Republican bill to suspend the borrowing limit passed in April would cut government spending to 2022 levels, cap its future growth below inflation and repeal incentives for renewable energy, electric vehicles and other climate-friendly technology passed in the Biden legislation.

The two sides are also debating how long to push out the next potential debt ceiling showdown, sources said. Biden and Democrats would prefer a two-year window, pushing any legislative action beyond the 2024 presidential election, but they may have to accept larger spending cuts or stricter caps to get more time, the sources said.

    “Spending levels is the key,” Republican Representative Daniel Webster said before the talks were rescheduled. “Spending cuts is a place where we’re stuck. Not with all of them, but with a list of them. Not necessarily in any order, just that we want some.”

Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget request relies on tax increases to reduce deficits while proposing to increase discretionary spending by 5 percent next year. That represents a more than $200 billion difference with House Republicans, however, who want to cut agency budgets on average by 8 percent while increasing defense and veterans spending — meaning other programs would face steeper cuts.

The fact that spending cuts and caps are under discussion could be a sign of progress in talks where Democrats have long pushed for an unconditional lifting of the debt ceiling, while Republicans have demanded a slew of policy changes in addition to sharp spending cuts.

The White House portrayed the postponement as a positive development, with meetings progressing.

The U.S. federal government could run out of money to pay its bills as soon as June 1, the Treasury said, unless the debt ceiling is raised. Biden is set to leave the country next week to attend the G7 meeting in Japan, and there are just a few days left when he and House and Senate leadership will be in town before that deadline.

(Reporting by David Morgan, Jeff Mason, Jarrett Renshaw and Rami Ayyub, writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The chair of a U.S. House of Representatives committee on China’s Communist Party and other lawmakers on Thursday raised “deep concern” and sought answers over reports Chinese-owned short video app TikTok censored an account that posted content from a film about pro-democracy Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Representative Mike Gallagher and 12 other Republican lawmakers said in a letter to TikTok CEO Show Zi Chew that they want “additional information about TikTok’s content moderation policies and practices.”

The Michigan-based Acton Institute said last week its TikTok account was suspended for posting content from the film about Lai. The lawmakers said the account was restored after media reports about the suspension.

TikTok did not immediately comment.

ByteDance-owned TikTok told U.S. lawmakers in a May 4 letter that “TikTok does not moderate content due to political sensitivities” and does not boost content “in the U.S. at the request of any government, including the Chinese Communist Party.”

TikTok said it has more than 5,000 employees and contractors focused on content moderation for the United States.

Senators Mark Warner, a Democrat and John Thune, a Republican, in March proposed legislation to give the Commerce Department new authority to review, block, and address a range of transactions involving foreign information and communications technology that pose national security risks.

The White House and 26 senators back the proposal while critics say the bill is overbroad and hurts civil liberties of Americans including the more than 150 million U.S. TikTok users.

Chew appeared before Congress in March and faced tough questions about national security concerns.

TikTok says it has spent more than $1.5 billion on rigorous data security efforts and rejects spying allegations.

The Biden administration has demanded TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their stakes or face a U.S. ban. Then President Donald Trump’s attempts in 2020 to ban TikTok were blocked by U.S. courts.

(Reporting by David Shepardson;editing by Diane Craft)

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By Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leaders of major insulin makers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) traded blame for the life-saving drug’s high price on Wednesday while testifying at a U.S. Senate committee hearing on making it more affordable.

PBMs negotiate with drugmakers for rebates and lower fees on behalf of employers and other clients, and reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions they dispense. Both sides blame each other for high drug prices.

Testifying on Wednesday were the CEOs of major insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Co, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi, which together control 90% of the U.S. market, and top PBM executives from CVS Health Corp, Cigna Group’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth Group Inc’s Optum RX, which control 80% of the prescription drug market.

“Why, in the richest country on Earth, do 1.3 million Americans ration insulin because of the cost? Why are 1 out of 4 Americans not able to afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe?” asked Senator Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

The Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi CEOs all said drugmakers pay substantial rebates aimed at lowering costs but that PBMs and insurers are incentivized to choose drugs with higher prices because they lead to larger rebates.

“Higher list prices allow for higher fees and rebates, which can increase patients out of pocket costs while benefiting employers, insurance companies and people who don’t use medicines,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said.

PBM executives said manufacturers alone set the drug prices and abuse patent protections to stifle competition. Drug costs would be even higher without the rebates that PBMs negotiate for their customers, Optum Rx CEO Heather Cianfrocco said.

“They count on us to be a counterweight to the substantial market power of manufacturers, which have the sole discretion in setting and raising prices for their products,” she said.

The Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi CEOs pointed to their companies cutting list prices by more than 70% for some insulin products in March and said they hoped to provide insulin to more customers a year from now.

The cuts could help around 2 million people pay for insulin. Although many people, including some 3.3 million on Medicare, pay $35 a month or less, about 1-in-5 with private insurance and the 17% of insulin users who are uninsured stand to benefit.

Uninsured people often have to pay full list prices, an average of $900 a month, forcing many to ration or skip doses.

In response to a question from Sanders, the pharmaceutical executives all committed to keep their newest insulin available to patients at $35 a month or less.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Additional Reporting by Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Stephen Coates)

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