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Biden's trademark political traits tested by war in Ukraine
CNN
When President Joe Biden labeled Russia's actions in Ukraine "genocide" this week, the response by his team looked much different than when he declared, also unplanned, that Vladimir Putin shouldn't be in power.
Both comments caught advisers off guard, appearing nowhere in his scripted remarks and going well beyond the official government position. His remark about genocide happened inside an ethanol processing plant in Iowa, standing atop a stage covered in straw.
Like his declaration at Warsaw's royal castle that Putin "cannot remain in power," Biden identifying genocide in Ukraine prompted questions about what, if anything, the new rhetoric meant for the grinding conflict.
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The CIA has sent the White House an unclassified email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter – a deeply unorthodox move that could potentially expose the identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.
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Trump administration officials are hurrying to catch up to the president’s audacious and improbable plan for the United States to take ownership of Gaza and redevelop it into a “Middle Eastern Riviera,” trying to wrap their heads around an idea that some hope might be so outlandish it forces other nations to step in with their own proposals for the Palestinian enclave.