Biden news live: Trump blasts ‘crazies’ in Easter message

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has said President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan would start paying for itself and cutting the deficit at least 16 years after its passage.

Speaking on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, Mr Buttigieg said that “across 15 years, it would raise all o the revenue needed for these once-in-a-lifetime investments”.

“So, by year 16, you’d actually see this package working to reduce the deficit,” he said.

Mr Biden’s plan would largely be funded by a corporate tax rate raise from 21 per cent to 28 per cent.

Pushing the proposed increase in corporate taxes, Mr Buttigieg further said:“We’re just asking corporations to pay their fair share at a rate, by the way, that would be lower than it’s been for most of my life.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Sunday that he believes Democrats could get Republicans behind President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill, despite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s vow to fight the plan “every step of the way”.

“I’m having a lot of conversations with Republicans in the House and Senate, who have been wanting to do something big on infrastructure for years. We may not agree about every piece of it, but this is one area where the American people absolutely want to see us get it done,” Mr Buttigieg told ABC’s “This Week”’s George Stephanopoulos.

“In my view, this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. I don’t think in the next 50 years, we’re going to see another time when we have this combination of a demonstrated need, bipartisan interest, widespread impatience and a very supportive president who is committed,” Mr Buttigieg said.

Ultimately, however, the transportation secretary said: “One way or the other, we’ve got to get it done”.

Republican Sen Roy Blunt has said on Sunday that keeping fencing around the Capitol would be a “mistake”, even in the wake of a recent attack that saw a suspect ram his car into a barricade, killing a Capitol Police officer.

Speaking on This Week, Mr Blunt said: “I think it would be a mistake for fencing to be a permanent part of the Capitol.”

“Fencing can create a false sense of security on a daily basis,” he said.

The GOP senator said the Capitol should be secure, but also “as free as we can possibly make it.” “It’s an important element of who we are, it’s an important symbol of who we are,” he said.

US Capitol Police officer Kenny Shaver was released from hospital to cheers from supporters on Saturday after a suspect rammed a car into a police barricade outside the US Capitol, killing his colleague.

William Evans, who worked with the force for 18 years, was killed in the attack.

The suspect, who has been named as Noah Green, was fatally shot by police.

Read more on the situation as lawmakers debate security measures in the wake of the incident:

President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser Brian Deese has said job growth is at the heart of the administration’s infrastructure proposal.

“What our plan says is, ‘let’s keep the economy going, let’s see more job creation’ – that’s a really good thing for the economy,” Brian Deese said on Fox News Sunday.

However, he said the Biden administration was also looking forward into the long-term future “about where those investments that we can make that will really drive, not just more job growth but better job growth”.

He said the plan would focus on “not just job growth in the short term but job growth for long term, by investing in our infrastructure, by investing in our research and development, in a way that we haven’t since the 1960s,”

Former President Donald Trump has issued a bizarre Easter statement in which he took the opportunity to rant at “radical left crazies” who he claimed, without evidence, “rigged our presidential election and want to destroy our country”.

Mr Trump repeated unfounded claims that the election was stolen from him.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Sunday that his country would work with the United States to calm rising tensions between China and Taiwan ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington next week.

“It is important for Japan and the United States to cooperate and use deterrence to create an environment where Taiwan and China can find a peaceful solution,” Mr Suga said on a television talk show on Sunday, according to The Associated Press.

The PM is set to meet Mr Biden next week in what will be the US leader’s first in-person summit since his inauguration in January.

The meeting comes amid growing tensions between China and Taiwan, with Chinese warplanes repeatedly entering the latter country’s airspace.

China recently warned the US against crossing a “red line” after the country had an American ambassador visit Taiwan, marking the first such official visit in more than four decades.

Two rockets fell on Sunday in an area close to an Iraqi military air base hosting a number of US contractors, Iraqi security officials have said.

No one was killed in the incident, which saw two rockets land on the outside fence of the base, security officials said, according to Reuters.

Preliminary probes suggested that the attack had been aimed at the Balad air base, north of Baghdad, Iraqi security officials said. However, the rockets failed to reach the site, hitting the village of al-Bu Asi instead.

The Balad air base was attacked as recently as 15 March, when at least five rockets hit the base.

The attack has yet to be claimed by any group.

The suspect in an incident that saw a man ram a car into two officers outside the US Capitol, killing one of them before he was fatally shot by police, had been suffering from delusions, paranoia and suicidal thoughts, The Associated Press has reported.

Citing a US official, AP said investigators believe that the attack that claimed Capitol Police officer William “Billy” Evans’ life was an isolated incident from “a disturbed young man”.

Noah Green, 25, who is suspected of having carried out the attack before being shot, passed away in hospital following the incident.

According to AP, investigators have focused in on Green’s mental health as they strive to identify a motive for the attack.

In online posts that have since been removed, Green had reportedly described being under government thought control and being watched.

He identified himself as a follower of the Nation of Islam and suggested he had been going through a difficult time when he turned to religion.

The Biden administration has reportedly put Johnson and Johnson in charge of a plant that ruined 15 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine.

J&J has said it will assume “full responsibility” of the Emergent…