While the highlight of President Joe Biden’s week may have been driving an electric Ford F-150 on the track in Michigan, he also had to contend with continued strife in Israel and Gaza, helping to negotiate a precarious ceasefire. Elsewhere, in the United Kingdom, the Royal Family dealt with the fallout from a damning report about the BBC’s conduct regarding a 1995 interview with Princess Diana. Prince Harry meanwhile, launched his docuseries, continuing his rift with the family. And closer to home, Speaker Nancy Pelosi upset certain elements of Congress with her continued mask mandate on the Capitol. Here are the quotes of the week:
“Mr. [Andrew] Brown’s death, while tragic, was justified because Mr. Brown’s actions caused three deputies with the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office to reasonably believe it was necessary to use deadly force to protect themselves and others.”
— 1st Prosecutorial District, North Carolina, District Attorney Andrew Womble on Andrew Brown’s death
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“We have concerns about some of the increased military activities in the Arctic that increases the dangers or prospects of accidents, miscalculations, and undermines the shared goal of a peaceful and sustainable future for the region.
“What, again, we need to avoid is a militarization of the region.”
— Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Russian movement in the Arctic
“This sucker’s quick!”
— Biden after he got to test an electric Ford F-150
“No, you can’t, not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it … I’m only teasing.”
— Biden’s response when asked if he could answer a question on Israel while behind the wheel of the F-150
“How do they lay their heads down at night knowing they’re supposed to be protecting these people and providing them with what they need to live? Ole Joe sold us out.”
— Peter Bardeson, the business manager for the Laborers, Local 620 union in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, reacts to the Biden administration saying pipelines are the best way to transport oil — months after it shelved plans for the Keystone XL pipeline
“You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens.
“So much so, they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, on Pelosi’s mask mandate in Congress
“I can be objective about just about any topic, but not about my family. Those of you who watch this show get it. Like you, I bet, my family means everything to me. And I am fiercely loyal to them. I’m family first, job second.
“But being a journalist and a brother to a politician is unique and a unique challenge, and I have a unique responsibility to balance those roles. It’s not always easy. People can say and write what they want, but I want you to know the truth. How I helped my brother also matters. When my brother’s situation became turbulent, being looped into calls with other friends of his and advisers that did include some of his staff, I understand why that was a problem for CNN. It will not happen again.”
— CNN anchor Chris Cuomo apologizes to his viewers after it emerged he had been on calls strategizing with his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on mounting sexual harassment allegations
“The interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse, and has since hurt countless others. It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”
— Prince William reacts to the release of an independent report from retired judge Lord Dyson, which concluded that then-BBC reporter Martin Bashir, the interviewer, “acted inappropriately” in the way he obtained the interview in which Diana infamously said there were “three of us” in her marriage, referring to Prince Charles’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.
“Meghan decided to share with me the suicidal thoughts and the practicalities of how she was going to end her life.
“The thing that stopped her from seeing it through was how unfair it would be on me after everything that had happened to my mum and to now to be put in a position of losing another woman in my life — with a baby inside of her, our baby.
“The scariest thing for her was her clarity of thought. She hadn’t ‘lost it.’ She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t self-medicating, be it through pills or through alcohol. She was absolutely sober. She was completely sane.”
— Harry, during his new AppleTV+ docuseries, The Me You Can’t See, in which he repeatedly criticizes the Royal Family
“Shopify, like any other for-profit company, is not a family. The very idea is preposterous. You are born into a family. You never choose it, and they can’t un-family you.”
— Shopify CEO Tobias Lutke in a letter to employees explaining that the company will focus on business
“The legislation is essentially a shortcut, trying to steal from the future in return for trimming some costs right now.”
— Chris Pope, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, criticizing Democrats’ drug pricing reform bill H.R.3
“I understand that your first response to us hosting this event was to ask, ‘Why all the fuss? Why all the fuss? Can’t they just mail it to me?’”
— Biden jokes about retired Army Col. Ralph Puckett Jr. during a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room for the war-decorated Ranger
“… As evident by the fact that the prime minister of Korea is here for this ceremony.”
— Biden, incorrectly referring to South Korean President Moon Jae-in by the wrong title
“I would not give him all he’s looking for, international recognition as legitimate and, say, give them what allowed him to move in a direction of appearing to be more — how can I say it? More serious about it.”
— Biden on negotiating with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, taking a shot at former President Donald Trump in the process
