34 Tuesday December 21 2021 | the times
Wo r l d
Joe Manchin, the Democrat senator
who thwarted President Biden’s spend-
ing bill, has cryptically said that his
rebellion was prompted by “inexcus-
able” actions of White House staff.
Manchin, 74, blindsided the Biden
administration over the weekend by
declaring that he would not vote for the
Build Back Better plan, the linchpin of
the president’s domestic agenda.
Fellow Democrats accused the sena-
tor for West Virginia of lying to the
president and colleagues after he
announced on Sunday that he would
vote against Biden’s $1.75 trillion plan to
invest in social care and fight climate
change.
In an interview with a local West
US tariffs on Chinese goods should be
increased “very substantially” as
reparation payments for the chaos
unleashed by Covid-19, according to
Donald Trump.
The former president made the de-
mand on the fourth and final night of a
speaking tour. Appearing on a Dallas
stage with Bill O’Reilly, a former Fox
presenter fired after allegations of
sexual misconduct, he also claimed
that the pandemic was initiated to
prevent him winning the 2020 election.
Trump’s “History Tour” was a chance
for him to reprise familiar complaints:
about President Biden, and the election
being “rigged”, and the storming of the
US Capitol which was “not an insurrec-
tion” but caused by far-left agents prov-
ocateurs. It was also an opportunity to
lay out his priorities should he end his
interminable prevarication and an-
nounce that he will stand for president
again in 2024.
“We had this thing running so well
until the election was rigged and
now I don’t think our country has
ever been at a lower point,” he
said.
Asked if he believed in climate
change, Trump told his audience
in oil-rich Texas that “the ocean will
raise over the next 200 years
one-hundredth of one
inch. They’re trying to
take away our prosper-
ity. We are sitting on
Trump: US should
make China pay
for Covid disaster
liquid gold and we’re not being allowed
to use it.”
He pivoted to China, saying that the
world’s biggest problem was not global
warming but the spread of deadly
weapons. “And that includes biological
weapons because you take a look at
what came out of that Wuhan lab and
something happened there and China
has to pay for it ... a lot of people say
they did it on purpose, some people
even said they did it to try to get me out
of office because the Democrats used
Covid to cheat in the election.”
China, he said, owed “at least $60 tril-
lion” to the world in reparations “and
they know we’re going to have to do
something like increasing very sub-
stantially the tariffs, because we have to
wean ourselves off of China”.
A large section of seating in the upper
level of the American Airlines Centre in
Dallas was curtained off, just as it was at
other venues on the tour in Florida and
Texas, the two largest Republican
states. Several hundred seats were
empty each night, suggesting that the
$100 starting price for tickets was
a stretch even for Trump’s loyal
support base.
O’Reilly claimed that 35,000
tickets had been sold over the
four nights, bringing in at least
$7 million.
The crowd in the indoor
Dallas arena was
almost entirely un-
masked, in
defiance of the
venue’s rules, and
Trump had to
quieten boos
when he re-
vealed that he
had received a
booster jab.
“Look, we did
something that washistoric, we saved tens of millions of
lives when we, together, all of us, we got
the vaccine done... take credit for it, it’s
great what we’ve done,” he said to tepid
applause.
There was a much more enthusiastic
response when he added: “If you don’t
want to take it, you shouldn’t be forced
to, no mandates.”
Turning to his squabble with Nato,
Trump claimed that he had used “busi-
ness language” to tell leaders of the mil-
itary alliance that they were “delin-
quent” on their defence payments, reit-
erating that he told them the US would
not come to their assistance in the
event of a defence crisis unless they
spent more — which they then did.
One of those in the audience, Debbie
Mazzocchi, 65, said she had travelled
1,200 miles from North Carolina and
paid $106 for her ticket. She rejected
any suggestion that empty seats meant
Trump was losing support. “How many
people do you think Biden would
draw?” she demanded.
Asked why she thought Trump had
staged the speaking tour, she replied:
“Because he loves his country. He’s not
doing it to fill his pockets, he’s already a
billionaire. He’s doing it for the Amer-
ican people.”
Uthukrishna Gurusany, 43, an India-
born US citizen wearing a Make Amer-
ica Great Again cap, said he had paid
$217 for his ticket. “I came because I
don’t like illegal immigration,” he said.
“Me, I went through all the process and
I don’t want anyone to come illegally.
Trump is stopping all the illegal immi-
grants, that’s what I like about him.”
6 Lawyers for Trump have begun a
legal effort to block an investigation by
Letitia James, the New York attorney-
general, into his business practices. She
is hoping to force the former president
to give evidence under oath behind
closed doors on January 7.United States
David Charter Washington
Donald Trump
suggested
the Covid
pandemic was
staged “to try
to get me out
of office”
Biden’s nemesis exposes Democrat rifts
Virginia radio station yesterday, Man-
chin refused to reveal the “real reason”
behind his actions. However, he added:
“The bottom line is... it’s staff... It’s not
the president, it’s staff. And they drove
some things and put some things out
that were absolutely inexcusable.”
Biden has staked his presidency on
passing the bill, and the move by Man-
chin, who has blocked the plan after
months of negotiation, has left the
White House scrambling to salvage
what it can from the political damage.
“If I can’t go home and explain to the
people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for
it, and I cannot vote to continue with
this piece of legislation. I just can’t, I’ve
tried everything humanly possible,”
Manchin told Fox News Sunday.
Biden held two rounds of talks withManchin last week in an effort to allay
his objections to the cost of the ten-year
spending plan. With the Senate split
50-50 and Republicans united against
the plan, the White House needs every
Democrat onside for the bill to pass.
That has given Manchin huge leverage.
Jen Psaki, the White House press
secretary, said that Manchin’s com-
ments to Fox “are at odds with his dis-
cussions this week with the president,
with White House staff and with his
own public utterances”.
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic
Senate majority leader, said in a letter
to colleagues yesterday: “We are going
to vote on a revised version of the
House-passed Build Back Better Act —
and we will keep voting on it until we
get something done.”Hugh Tomlinson Washington
Emiratis allowed to savour
When Martin Scorcese’s The Wolf of
Wall Street premiered in 2014, many
filmgoers in Dubai said they walked out
halfway through because the storyline
was too difficult to follow.
The three-hour extravaganza of
debauchery, thought to hold the record
for the most F-words in a movie, had
about 45 minutes of footage cut by the
country’s censors, more than a quarter
of its running time. What was left of the
film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was
incomprehensible, with a plot riddled
with holes and abrupt scene changes.
In a stark change of course, the
United Arab Emirates announced on
Sunday that it would stop censoringwestern films and create a 21+ category
for mature viewers. All films will now be
screened in the UAE “according to their
international version”, the Media Regu-
latory Authority announced, and be
available for those over 21 years old.
There was previously an 18+ rating in
the UAE but so few international
movies fit the category that those with
“mature” or “offensive” scenes would
be submitted to the censorship board
and immediately be blocked.
Steven Spielberg’s remake of West
Side Story, released in the UK this
month, was banned in a number of Gulf
states, apparently because it featured a
transgender character. The UAE and
the others asked Disney to make cuts to
the film but it refused.
It is not clear if the media authorityUnited Arab Emirates
Abbie Cheeseman