United States President Joe Biden vowed Thursday to push China to play by international rules, criticized his GOP opponents, and defended his policy to provide shelter to unaccompanied children crossing the United States border from Mexico at his first solo news conference since taking office on January 20.

Appearing before the media for over an hour, Joe Biden seemed well-prepared, read from written papers occasionally, and calmly took question requests, a sharp contrast to the frequently raucous, combative news conferences held by Donald Trump.

Mr. Biden compared Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling them both autocracy supporters amid the worst America-China relations in the past several years.

But he stated America wasn’t looking for confrontation with China over differences in trade, Beijing’s rollback of democracy in Hong Kong, treatment of minority Uighurs, and military buildup.

Joe Biden said of Xi Jinping that, like Putin, he thinks that autocracy is the future wave and democracy cannot function in an ever-complex world. Moreover, he does not have a democratic, with a small ‘d’ bone in his body, but he is an intelligent guy.

He stated he would insist the Putin play by the international rules, fair practices, fair competition, and fair trade.

U.S. President says his government would care for Unaccompanied Children Migrants

Joe Biden also criticized GOP-backed measures in many state legislatures to restrict voting rights, saying they were worse than ‘Jim Crow,’ referring to laws put in place in Southern states in the past several years after the 1861-65 United States Civil War to legalize racial segregation and disenfranchise Black American citizens.

Grappling to contain a surge in unaccompanied children seeking asylum at the southern American border, Mr. Biden suggested his GOP critics who say his policies are at fault were inhumane.

Biden said No former government had refused care and housing to unaccompanied children coming over from Mexico, except that of Donald Trump. Instead of leaving those children to starve to death at the Southern border, American President said his government would care for them.

Joe Biden noted that he had selected U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to lead diplomatic efforts with Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and El Salvador to stem the migrant’s flow.

Congressional Republicans disagreed with Biden’s ambitious strategies for what could end up being a $3T plan for infrastructure and tax rises to pay for it. Moreover, he believed the Democratic-controlled Senate should make it more challenging for GOPs to use a parliamentary blocking maneuver called the filibuster that requires sixty votes to move on most legislation in the Hundred-seat chamber, saying it’s being abused.

Biden called for a return to the talking filibuster, a tradition from several years ago that required senators to occupy the floor and make their case against legislation on their opposition.

Read Also: HHS asks Pentagon to Shelter Migrant Children at 2 Military Bases in Texas

Biden’s New Inoculation Target

United States President Joe Biden’s political future arise at the news conference.

At seventy-eight years of age, several political experts believe Mr. Biden could decide to serve only a single term as U.S President. However, he said that he intends to run for re-election in 2024, keeping Kamala Harris as his running mate. He said that is his expectation.

On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden became the oldest United States president to be inaugurated.

On Thursday, Joe Biden also set a new goal of managing 200M vaccination jabs against coronavirus in America in his first 100-days in office.

He said his primary goal of administering 100M shots in his first 100-days in the White House was reached in mid-March, forty-two days ahead of schedule, and that he was almost doubling the target.

The Democratic President stated that he knows that is ambitious, twice their original goal, but no other nation in the world has even come closer.

Mr. Biden backed away from a May 1, 2021 deadline to withdraw American troops in Afghanistan after Mr. Trump tried but failed to pull them out before leaving the office.

Joe Biden said that it would be tough to meet the May 1 deadline, but they aren’t staying a long time in Afghanistan, the site of the US’s longest war.

Moreover, Biden said he didn’t think the troops would still be in Afghanistan in 2022.

Biden says if North Korea chooses to escalate, America will respond

President Joe Biden read carefully from talking opinions in responding to a question about North Korea’s missile launches, which also alarmed United States allies South Korea and Japan. He said if North Korea chooses to escalate, America will respond accordingly.

Moreover, he said he was prepared for some form of diplomacy with North Korea, but it has to be conditioned upon the final consequence of denuclearization.

Pyongyang wants America and other countries to ease economic sanctions imposed over its nuclear arms program. American officials have stated they have tried to engage with North Korea diplomatically but received no positive response.

Read Also: North Korea ‘Unresponsive’ to U.S. Outreach Efforts

Mr. Biden was repeatedly pressed to protect his migration policy along the America-Mexico border. He added the increase in migration across the border was cyclical.

He said that it happens every single solitary year. Moreover, there is a significant surge in the number of people reaching the border in the winter months; it happens every year already. Biden said many migrants were fleeing problems in their home nations and blamed Donald Trump for dismantling parts of the United States immigration system.