Reuters reports from this morning’s Covid briefing by the White House, in which it has been announced that the US “is reviewing reports of
potential additional cases of severe side effects among people who received Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 shot, beyond the half-dozen cases of serious blood clots that caused it to pause administration of the vaccine earlier this month”.
We are encouraged that it hasn’t been an overwhelming number of cases but we’re looking and seeing what’s come in,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said.
She added that the agency and the Food and Drug Administration were monitoring the US government database for additional reports of side effects.
Federal health agencies last week recommended pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine for at least a few days after six women under 50 given the shot developed rare blood clots.
Here’s
more on the subject from our health reporter, Jessica Glenza:
Fear that Johnson & Johnson pause could heighten vaccine hesitancy in US
Senator
Joe Manchin of West Virginia has signed on as a co-sponsor of the PRO Act, legislation aimed at overhauling workers’ rights and empower them in disputes.
Tony Romm (@TonyRomm)
News: Manchin says at event with the National Press Club he is co-sponsoring PRO Act, saying it will "level the playing field" for union workers, adding he wants to work with both parties to move it through the "legislative process."
April 19, 2021
The support of Manchin is important. He’s one of the most conservative senators in the Democratic caucus and has made headlines lately for bucking his party at moments. His support for the bill will give other lawmakers cover to support it.
Here’s the
Bloomberg News’s description of the proposal, which has already passed through the House of Representatives:
Labor unions’ strength was on display this week after the House passed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (H.R. 842), the top priority for organized labor, for the second time, with more Democrats voting in favor compared to last year’s passage.
But progressives fear the caucus unity could be for naught without changes to the filibuster, a procedural rule that requires 60 votes to bring a bill to the floor in the Senate—which the bill is unlikely to garner.
Failures to pass progressive priorities like the PRO Act, gun control, or a hike in the minimum wage could imperil the party’s House majority in 2022, Democrats on the left say. At the same time, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce alerted lawmakers that voting in favor of the PRO Act would factor into future endorsements from the influential business group.
“This is not one of the more bipartisan plays,” Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) said about the PRO Act. “It’s hard to see us passing something in the Senate without dealing with the filibuster in one way or another.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, promised she would work to advance the bill. However a Democratic aide said Democrats don’t see a path to getting 10 GOP votes needed to break a filibuster in the 50-50 chamber.
Senate Democrats—particularly Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), who have opposed changing the filibuster—are facing renewed heat from organized labor leaders who said they’ll do whatever is necessary to pass the biggest expansion of union rights in nearly a century.
The White House released a 19-second video where
Joe Biden says as of today everyone is eligible to receive a vaccine and the stockpile is large enough to facilitate that. Watch below:
President Biden (@POTUS)
As of today, every American is eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. For yourself, your neighbors, and your family — please, get your vaccine.
pic.twitter.com/o75JYpGe6r
April 19, 2021
On the target date for nationwide availability of Covid-19 vaccines, the White House has started
a campaign aimed at Americans still hesitant to sign up for a life-saving jab.
About a
quarter of the US population is fully vaccinated, a landmark achievement almost unimaginable this time last year. But even though more than 567,000 have died in the US, vaccine hesitancy or politically inspired opposition are dogging attempts to end the pandemic.
Chief White House medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci is among officials reaching out to communities skeptical
of the vaccines.
Black and Latino communities have received the vaccine at lower rates,
though whether that is because of hesitancy or lack of access remains unclear. Although a legacy of experimentation and racism haunts US healthcare in general,
polling suggests Black Americans are as eager to be inoculated as white.
Many conservatives openly decry Covid-19 regulations. Among 28% of white evangelical Christians,
vaccines are seen as a non-starter.
“I’ll just tell you today, if being anti-mask and anti-vaccine is anti-government, then I’m proud to be anti-government,” Pastor Tony Spell
recently told congregants at Life Tabernacle Church in Louisiana.
“If you have a 99.6% survival rate, why do you want somebody to contaminate your bloodstream with something that may or may not hurt you?”
To combat such views, surrogates for
Joe Biden will appear on TV and radio programs popular among Black Americans, Latinos and conservatives, Axios first reported. The administration is also partnering with social media companies and community partners. Fauci, 80, is even taking to Snapchat.
The targeted messaging also comes after officials temporarily benched
the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine amid rare reports of blood clots, an announcement that further stoked anxieties. Jeffrey Zients, the White House Covid-19 coordinator, said last week the pause should “give the American people confidence” rather than concern.
“We believe that by
empowering Americans with data and facts we will strengthen the public’s trust in government and increase their confidence in the vaccines,” Zients said.
Fear that Johnson & Johnson pause could heighten vaccine hesitancy in US
Politico
reports that Biden officials are frustrated with the slow movement health and human services secretary
Xavier Becerra’s team have had on housing unaccompanied minors who came through the southern border:
The dissatisfaction with Becerra centers on complaints he’s been slow to take charge of the response since his confirmation on March 18, according to eight current and former government officials and others familiar with the situation. The administration has scrambled to find new shelters and speed the vetting of adults to care for the children as thousands remain in packed detention facilities along the border.
Biden aides led by Domestic Policy chief Susan Rice and Amy Pope, a senior adviser on migration hired to help direct the administration’s border response, have pressed the health department in meetings over the past several weeks to pick up the pace, warning that the influx of unaccompanied children is only likely to accelerate into the spring and early summer.
But a month into Becerra’s tenure, officials working on the issue have privately questioned his preparedness for managing such a sprawling emergency — and his willingness to take ownership of a historically intractable and politically divisive problem.
“He did not fully appreciate the issue when he first came in,” said one senior administration official. “It’s been a steep learning curve for him.”
Dismayed by the slow progress, the White House has concluded that Becerra’s team needs help organizing care for the rising number of migrant children spread throughout shelters administered by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement — a population that’s fast approaching 20,000.
This Politico report illustrates the struggle the Biden administration has experienced on dealing with immigration through the southern border. Last week, the Biden administration
backtracked after initially saying it wouldn’t follow through on a pledge to let tens of thousands of refugees fleeing danger to come into the united States.
Plenty of attention is given to which potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate has visited with former president
Donald Trump or traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a fundraiser. But less attention has gone to where else these likely contenders are going. The Hill’s Scott Wong
reports that one place is the Republican Study Committee, a congressional group made up of conservative lawmakers:
Sen.
Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has addressed the Republican Study Committee (RSC) about the surge of migrants at the border. Former New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie (R) told the conservative group last week they need to get tougher on
President Biden and that former
President Trump was to blame for losing the White House and Senate.
Former Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo will join the RSC this week at a news conference on Iran. And
Mike Pence,
Nikki Haley,
Kristi Noem and
Marco Rubio are expected to meet with the group in the coming weeks and months.
Notably, there’s this nugget:
Meanwhile, during a packed RSC lunch at the Capitol Hill Club, Christie suggested it was time for the party to put Trump in the rearview mirror. The former governor previously had said Trump’s actions led to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, characterizing them as an “impeachable offense.” Last week, Christie said Trump had cost Republicans the White House and Senate.
“We didn’t lose the White House because the American people disagree with our ideas and support what [Democrats] are trying to do right now. We know why we lost. We know why we lost, and so does President Trump,” Christie told RSC members, according to
RealClearPolitics.
Once upon a time the RSC was
the conservative group to woo. Since then more aggressive outside groups and caucuses have formed. The attention they’re getting from expected 2024 hopefuls shows the RSC still has some sway.
Big news on the American campaign front. Congressman
Steve Stivers of Ohio has decided not to run for the U.S. Senate and is planning to leave Congress.
Henry J. Gomez (@HenryJGomez)
This is a significant development in the
#OHSen picture. Stivers has been linked to this job for a while in Ohio, and this would seem to take him out of the running.
https://t.co/iZttIQsVuO
April 19, 2021
Stivers, it’s important to note, is a former chairman of congressional Republicans’ campaign arm. He had also amassed a not insignificant warchest.
Punchbowl News (@PunchbowlNews)
NEWS ... Rep. Steve Stivers, an Ohio Republican who chaired the NRCC, is retiring from Congress May 16 to become president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber. Stivers considered a Senate bid -- and raised $1.3m last quarter. But is not running
April 19, 2021
Stivers’ district has trended Republican in the last few cycles but Democrats have won it at times. That’s an important point to keep in mind in a Congress where Democrats control the House of Representatives by only six seats with five vacant.
The Biden administration has directed agencies to stop using the phrases like “illegal alien” or “assimilation” in reference to immigrants. The
Washington Post’s Maria Sacchetti has more:
The
Biden administration has ordered U.S. immigration enforcement agencies to stop using terms such as “alien,” “illegal alien” and “assimilation” when referring to immigrants in the United States, a rebuke of terms widely used under the Trump administration.
The change is detailed in memos sent Monday to department heads at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the nation’s chief enforcers of federal immigration laws, according to copies obtained by The Washington Post. It is part of an ongoing effort to reverse President Donald Trump’s hard-line policies and advance Biden’s efforts to build a
more “humane” immigration system.
Among the changes: “Alien” will become “noncitizen or migrant,” “illegal” will become “undocumented,” and “assimilation” will change to “integration.”
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News television personality-turned-Donald-Trump-adviser-and-surrogate, is chairing former Governor
Eric Greitens’ of Missouri’s Senate campaign.
Daniel Strauss (@DanielStrauss4)
Kim Guilfoyle is chairing ERIC GREITENS' Senate campaign
pic.twitter.com/aLTY8YCO72
April 19, 2021
There’s a lot to unpack here. Guilfoyle is not the first former Trump adviser to sign on to a Republican Senate campaign.
Kellyanne Conway, a former senior counselor to the president during the Trump administration, is
advising Republican Senate candidate
Bernie Moreno of Ohio.
Greitens, political junkies will recall, is the former Missouri governor who
resigned from office over allegations of blackmail and having an affair. He
admitted to the affair but denied the allegations of blackmail.
Greiteins tenure as governor was, as St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum
put it, “rocky”:
But his governorship was decidedly rocky, as he fought with Republicans who controlled the GOP-controlled legislature over a host of issues. And it came apart after it was revealed he had an extramarital affair before he was governor, which opened a Pandora’s box of personal and campaign finance-related issues over a roughly five-month period. He resigned while facing possible impeachment.
In February 2018, Greitens was charged with felony invasion of privacy after he was accused of taking a semi-nude photo of the woman he was having an affair with without her consent. That
case fell apart after an investigator St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner hired allegedly made false statements during a deposition. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who then took over the case as a special prosecutor,
declined to charge Greitens.
But even after the invasion of privacy case was dropped, Greitens still faced likely impeachment by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. He had made a myriad of enemies in the Missouri Republican Party, including then-Attorney General Josh Hawley — who turned over evidence to Gardner that resulted in Greitens
being charged with felony computer data tampering related to use of a charity he helped found for political fundraising.
A group of high profile progressive lawmakers plan to roll out legislation aimed at moving the country more toward using renewable energy and modernizing public housing, according to
The New York Times’ Emily Cochrane:
The introduction of the legislation, led by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, is the first of multiple proposals from progressive lawmakers as they seek to influence a $2.3 trillion infrastructure overhaul to address climate change and economic inequities.
Their proposal comes as Mr. Biden and his allies are navigating congressional crosscurrents that include the larger policy demands of a Democratic caucus that has little room for disagreement and Republicans who say they want to compromise, but have largely panned a plan
paid for by tax increases. While the president has outlined the broad contours of his proposal, it is up to lawmakers to reach agreement on the final provisions and details of the legislation.
Some lawmakers are floating the prospect of downsizing Mr. Biden’s legislative plan to win the 10 Republican votes needed to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate, amid a
flurry of lobbying from rank-and-file members. Progressive Democrats like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders are instead doubling down on their call for a larger package than the president proposed and pushing to shape what could be one of the largest investments of federal dollars in a generation.
The progressives’ legislation, billed as the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, is a prong of the
broader climate platform that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and others have long championed to help the United States wean itself from fossil fuels. It would repeal limitations on the construction of public housing and create grant programs to ensure improvements that not only address unsafe and aging housing, but reduce carbon emissions.
The legislation is unlikely to rally a lot of Republican support. Congressional Republicans have used the initial Green New Deal proposal to bash Democrats.
Goodmorning, Daniel Strauss here. I’ll be your initial blogger today. Let’s get started.
Joe Biden is slated to meet with a group of members of Congress to discuss his American Jobs Plan. The meeting will be in the Oval Office, according to the White House.
“These former state and local elected officials understand firsthand the impact of a federal investment in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure on their communities.”
The lawmakers are: Senator
John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Senator
John Hoeven of North Dakota, Senator
Angus King of Maine, Senator
Mitt Romney of Utah, Senator
Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Congressman
Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Congressman
Charlie Crist of Florida,
Carlos Giménez of Florida,
Kay Granger of Texas, and
Norma Torres of California.
The meeting is the latest example of White House officials or the president himself meeting with members of Congress as they try and move Biden’s agenda. It’s one of a number of meetings happening this week.
Gina Raimondo, the treasury secretary, and
Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, will meet with the Senate Democratic Steering Committee on Wednesday. On Thursday,
Brian Deese, the director of Biden’s national economic council, and
Anita Dunn, another close Biden adviser, will meet with the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.
For Democrats, the bipartisan meetings offer a bit of cover against Republican complaints that they were not involved in the legislation Biden is hoping to pass and therefore the president isn’t following through on a key premise of his presidential candidacy -uniting the country. These meetings allow Democrats to argue he is following through.
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