Tag: President Biden

Biden turns focus to next priority with infrastructure talks

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President Biden is starting to look beyond coronavirus relief to his next legislative fight, preparing to lay out a recovery package that makes significant investments in rebuilding U.S. infrastructure. 

Biden met with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for over an hour on Thursday afternoon, his second bipartisan meeting with the group over the past month. 

The president is expected to lay out his “Build Back Better” recovery plan sometime after the Senate passes its $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, which the chamber took up on Thursday and could pass by the weekend. While the White House has been mum on details of the recovery plan, it’s likely to at least partly mirror the $2 trillion infrastructure and climate proposal he laid out on the campaign trail and include a hefty investment in infrastructure to spur job creation. Continue reading.

Dems tighten relief benefits, firm up support for virus bill

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Democrats agreed to tighten eligibility limits for stimulus checks Wednesday, bowing to party moderates as leaders prepared to move their $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill through the Senate.

At the same time, the White House and top Democrats stood by progressives and agreed that the Senate package would retain the $400 weekly emergency unemployment benefits included in the House-passed pandemic legislation. Moderates have wanted to trim those payments to $300 after Republicans have called the bill so heedlessly generous that it would prompt some people to not return to work.

The deal-making underscored the balancing act Democrats face as they try squeezing the massive relief measure through the evenly divided, 50-50 Senate. The package, Biden’s signature legislative priority, is his attempt to stomp out the year-old pandemic, revive an economy that’s shed 10 million jobs and bring some semblance of normality to countless upended lives. Continue reading.

Biden to sanction Russia over Navalny poisoning, jailing

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The Biden administration on Tuesday announced new sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s poisoning and jailing of Alexei Navalny, accusing Russia’s main intelligence agency of attempting to assassinate the opposition leader last year.

The administration is imposing sanctions on seven members of the Russian government and export controls on several business entities involved in biological agent production. The sanctions include Russian officials and a Russian research center that were previously sanctioned by the European Union and United Kingdom in October in connection with Navalny’s poisoning.

The sanctions, which are being coordinated with EU partners, come after an intelligence community assessment concluded with “high confidence” that officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service used the Novichok nerve agent to poison Navalny in August, Biden administration officials said. Continue reading.

Merck to help make Johnson & Johnson vaccine

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President Biden will announce Tuesday that Merck will help make Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, administration officials said, a partnership between rival companies that could help produce more doses. 

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration over the weekend, adding a third vaccine to the U.S. arsenal, but supplies will be limited at first. The entire existing supply of 3.9 million doses are going out the this week, with none coming next week, and the company has faced production delays.

The partnership with Merck, a major vaccine manufacturer, could help address the shortages, though it was not immediately clear how many more doses Merck will be able to make or when they will be available.  Continue reading.

Biden’s approval tops 60 percent in new poll

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President Biden is starting his tenure in White House with the approval of 61 percent of voters, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released exclusively to The Hill on Monday.

Biden’s initial approval numbers are markedly higher than those of former President Trump when he first took office. The first Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey of Trump’s presidency, conducted in February 2017, showed his approval rating at 48 percent.

Only about 39 percent of respondents said they disapprove of the job Biden is doing in the White House, according to the poll.  Continue reading.

Biden speaks with Saudi king ahead of expected release of report on Khashoggi

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President Biden spoke for the first time Thursday with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, following weeks of speculation that relations were headed for a deep freeze as Biden has criticized Saudi human rights abuses, canceled arms sales to the kingdom and scheduled the imminent release of a U.S. intelligence report implicating Salman’s son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A White House statement after the call stepped carefully around the divisive issues, saying the two discussed “renewed diplomatic efforts” to end the war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, where thousands of civilians have died in Saudi air attacks using U.S.-supplied missiles.

Biden “noted positively” the recent release from imprisonment of a handful of political activists and Saudi American citizens, the statement said, “and affirmed the importance the United States places on universal human rights and the rule of law.” Continue reading.

Many of Biden’s nominees of color run into turbulence in the Senate

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The Biden administration has fewer top government leaders in place than other recent presidents at this point in their terms, a pace that’s been slowed by a siege at the Capitol, an impeachment trial, a plague and a series of snowstorms.

But activists who pushed Biden to nominate a diverse Cabinet are also noticing another phenomenon: Many of the president’s Black, Latino, Asian and Native American nominees are encountering more political turbulence than their White counterparts, further drawing out the process of staffing the federal government.

Controversy has centered on endangered nominee Neera Tanden, who would be the first Indian American to lead the Office of Management and Budget, typically a low-profile post. Her detractors, including Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, have seized on scores of pointed attacks that Tanden has made via social media in recent years — a line of criticism that women’s groups say is unfair because it focuses on her tone rather than her qualifications or policies. Continue reading.

Biden’s COVID Package Is Overwhelmingly Popular. Republicans Hate It Anyway.

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“I would be surprised if there was support in the Republican caucus if the bill comes out at $1.9 trillion,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

Polls show President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package is overwhelmingly popular with the American people, but that isn’t stopping Republicans from lining up against it.

According to a survey conducted by The Economist/YouGov, 66% of Americans back Biden’s plan, which includes $1,400 stimulus checks, added unemployment assistance, an expanded child tax credit, and hundreds of billions of dollars for schools and vaccine distribution. A survey released Tuesday by Morning Consult showed the plan polling even higher, at 76% with all Americans, including 60% of Republicans. 

Congressional bills rarely see this kind of public support, especially in a political atmosphere as divided as this one. Continue reading.

What America has been waiting for: the American Rescue Plan

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In what is expected to be a historic moment for Americans, the legislation that so many people desperately need will likely be approved later this evening in the U.S. House of Representatives. President Joe Biden’s comprehensive American Rescue Plan, which includes major areas such as direct relief checks, increased unemployment aid, vaccinations and tests, schools, and more, will answer the calls of the American people and provide help during this enduring crisis.

“The need is great. The opportunity is there,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. said. “The precision of this legislation to directly address the needs of the American people, the lives of the American people and the livelihoods.”

Democrats have been listening to needs of their constituents and will be passing the American Rescue Plan through the House tonight. Americans made it clear that a coronavirus relief plan would help ease their lives while enduring the harsh effects of the pandemic. The overwhelming majority of Americans support President Biden’s coronavirus relief agenda, including strong bipartisan support.

Continue reading “What America has been waiting for: the American Rescue Plan”

House passes $1.9 trillion COVID relief package

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The House approved President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package on a 219-212 vote early Saturday morning, sending it to the Senate for a possible rewrite before it gets to Biden’s desk.

The big picture: The vote was a critical first step for the package, which includes $1,400 cash payments for many Americans, a national vaccination program, ramped-up COVID testing and contact tracing, state and local funding and money to help schools reopen.

  • Two Democrats — Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Kurt Schrader (Ore.) — joined Republicans in voting against the bill.

What to watch: The bill will likely undergo an overhaul in the upper chamber after the Senate parliamentarian ruled the $15 minimum wage increase cannot be added in the relief package. Continue reading.