President Joe Biden will host Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden and President Sauli Niinistö of Finland at the White House for a meeting Thursday amid their push to join NATO in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The requests by the long-neutral nations to join NATO have been widely lauded within the alliance as a rebuke of Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, though Turkey has expressed reservations.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said his understanding is that Turkey wants to have its concerns over Finland and Sweden addressed but does not intend to block their membership.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday did not hesitate to call the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, an act of domestic terrorism, condemning the racist ideology of the suspected shooter.

"White supremacy is a poison. It's a poison ... running through our body politic," Biden said, adding that silence is "complicity."

"And it's been allowed to grow and fester right before our eyes," he continued. "No more, no more. We need to say as clearly and as forcefully as we can that the ideology of White supremacy has no place in America. None."

 

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