Joe Biden pledges 600m vaccine doses by end of July in town hall – as it happened

On immigration, Biden says he wants a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, and that he also wants to restore the refugee system, which used to allow 125,000 refugees into the US on a yearly basis. He cites the violence, persecution and horrific conditions in refugee camps that people are fleeing: “People piled up in camps, kids dying, no way out, refugees fleeing from persecution. We the United States used to do our part. We were part of that.”

He adds, “We must speak up for human rights, it’s who we are.”

Asked if he would expand student loan forgiveness beyond the $10,000 proposed, Biden says he would not extend it to $50,000: “I will not make that happen.” But he adds, “Everyone should be able to go to community college for free.” He also says he wants to eliminate interest on debt.

He adds that he understands debt can be debilitating, saying, “I do think you should be able to work it off.”

Asked about divisions in the country, Biden points out that his Covid plan is popular, adding, “The nation is not divided ... You have fringes on both ends.”

Discussing systemic racism and policing, Biden goes on a tangent and praises the fact that so many TV advertisements now feature biracial couples: “This new generation, they are not like us. They are thinking differently. They are more open, and we got to take advantage of that.”

Biden is now talking about criminal justice reform and argues that public defenders need more support, saying, “It’s high time public defenders are paid the same as prosecutors. It matters that you have adequate defense, and you are able to attract people who can live on being able to be that public defender.”

He says, “We have to deal with systemic racism that exists throughout society,” and discusses charging and sentencing disparities for Black Americans, saying the US needs to tackle prosecutorial discretion.

Asked about defunding the police, Biden reiterates his opposition to the movement (which calls for reductions to law enforcement budgets and reinvestments into community services), saying, “We have to put more money in police work, so we have legitimate community policing.” He continues, “No one should go to jail for a drug offense. No one should go to jail for the use of a drug.” He says people with drug addictions need treatment.

Asked about white supremacists in America, Biden says his civil rights office will take this threat seriously, adding, “It’s a bane on our existence ... These guys, and women, are demented. They are dangerous people.”

Biden is asked about impeachment and whether he agrees with Nancy Pelosi’s criticisms that the Republicans who voted to acquit Trump were “cowards”. Biden declines to answer the question, saying, “For the last four years, the news was Trump. I want to make sure for the next four years, the news is the American people.” He says again that he is sick of talking about Trump.

Asked about potential prosecutions by the justice department, he says he wants to ensure the DoJ is independent from the White House and he’s not going to intervene in those kinds of decisions: “It’s not mine, it’s the people’s justice department.”

Biden is asked how to ensure small businesses receive the loans they need and that large corporations don’t continue to reap the benefits. Biden says, “I’m tired about talking about Donald Trump. I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” but blames the previous administration for poor oversight of the stimulus funds for companies. (Trump actively blocked scrutiny by inspectors general.)

Biden pledges that this time will be different: “The money is going to go to small businesses ... the mom and pop businesses that hold communities together.”

An independent voter who supported Trump asks Biden about proposal for a $15 minimum wage and his concerns about small businesses.

Biden: “It’s about doing it gradually. We are at $7.25 an hour. No one should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty, but it’s totally legitimate for small business hours to be concerned ... The impact on business would be absolutely diminished [if it’s gradual].”

The president reiterates that he supports $15 minimum wage: “It would grow the economy ... and benefit small businesses and large businesses.”

Anderson Cooper asks, “When are we going to get back to normal?”

Biden responds: “By next Christmas, we’ll be in a very different circumstance, God willing, than we are in today.”

He says experts advise him not to try and predict with certainty, adding, “I don’t want to overpromise.”

On vaccine access for Black Americans, Biden says, “The biggest part is access – physical access. All of the community health centers, which take care of the toughest of toughest neighborhoods, in terms of illness, they will get 1m doses a week, because they are in the neighborhood... I’m making sure there are doses of vaccine for 6,700 pharmacies, because people live within the distance of pharmacies... I also am providing for mobile vans to go into neighborhoods that are hard to get to.”

Asked about the challenges people face finding appointments online, Biden blames the Trump administration, saying, “We wasted so much time.” He adds:

Look at what we inherited. We inherited a circumstance here ... where there weren’t many vaccinators. You didn’t know where you could go get a vaccine administered to you. There was very little federal guidance as to say what to look for, how to find out where to go to. ... Every single state has a slightly different mechanism by which they say who is qualified and where you can get the vaccine.

Biden offers to try and help a woman obtain a vaccine for her son who is immunocompromised, but notes that states control the eligibility process: “I’ll stay around, let’s see if I can get you some help.”

Biden, asked about reopening schools, says the key is: smaller classes, more ventilation, making sure everyone has masks and is socially distanced so there are fewer students in one room.

He said teachers and other workers should be prioritized for vaccines: “We should move them up in the hierarchy.”

The winter weather affecting large parts of the central and southern US is delaying Covid-19 vaccine shipments and leading to canceled appointments in numerous states.

Vaccine events were canceled and sites shut down in Alabama, Indiana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri, according to the Washington Post. Some sites in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia also stopped taking new appointments due to delays in shipping caused by the storm. Texas is also impacted:

The additional challenges come as the White House is moving forward with plans to send its largest vaccine shipments yet to states – a 23% increase from last week, and a 57% increase since President Joe Biden took office, officials said earlier today.

The number of doses going to states is expected to rise to 13.5 million a week, a Biden official told USA Today. In his first week in office, states were receiving 13.5 million.

The Biden administration is directing Department of Homeland Security officials to stop using outdated terms like “alien” and “illegal alien” in its communications on undocumented immigrants.

Tracy Renaud, the acting head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has instructed agency leadership to use the terms “undocumented” and “noncitizen” instead of “alien”, according to a memo obtained by BuzzFeed News:

The memo also says the agency should use “integration” instead of “assimilation” and that it should refer to green card applicants as “customers”, according to the report.

Deemed offensive and dehumanizing, the “alien” term is integrated into US laws, court cases and official immigration documents. The directive may not lead to changes in formal documents, but is supposed to change internal and external communications within DHS, according to BuzzFeed.

The new administration has started to take steps to undo Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, but advocacy groups are pushing Biden to be more aggressive in protecting the rights of migrants and undocumented residents:

Donald Trump’s statement attacking Mitch McConnell was originally going to be nastier, according to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman:

Citing sources close to the former president, Haberman said Trump’s “initial version of the statement was more incendiary than what was released publicly” and that the statement was issued instead of a news conference that Trump had originally planned to hold today. Aides were worried that he would go off track in a speech, she said.

Politico also reported that Trump, in an earlier draft, wanted to mock McConnell’s physical appearance, but that aides persuaded him to remove that attack from the statement:

Joe Biden, on his way to Wisconsin for the CNN town hall, was asked about the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s recent comments that Republicans should unify in opposition to the president and his $1.9tn Covid relief bill.

Biden said, “It may unify Republicans, but it’ll hurt America badly.”

The son of a conservative activist has been charged with multiple federal offenses in a Capitol riot case, HuffPost reports:

Leo Brent Bozell IV is the son of conservative activist L Brent Bozell III, who founded the rightwing groups, Media Research Center and NewsBusters. Bozell is facing charges of disorderly conduct, obstructing an official proceeding and entering a restricted building, according to HuffPost, citing unsealed court documents.

The criminal complaint features photos of Bozell IV on the floor of the Senate. In an affidavit, an FBI agent included a tweet pointing out that Bozell IV was wearing a sweatshirt from a school where he used to work as a basketball coach.

More background on him and his family here:

Hi all - Sam Levin in Los Angeles, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has opened up its first Covid-19 mass vaccination sites, starting in LA and in Oakland, as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to speed up immunizations and to reach communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

Here’s the set up in Oakland:

More details from the AP:

The site, set up in heavily Latino East LA as part of an effort to reach communities that have suffered disproportionately during the crisis, aims to vaccinate up to 6,000 people a day. Another such site opened at the Oakland Coliseum, near working-class Black and Latino neighborhoods.

The LA site is “proximate to a community that has been disproportionately impacted by this pandemic”, Gov Gavin Newsom said. “The effort here is to address that issue forthrightly.”

The Biden administration intends to establish 100 such federally assisted vaccination sites nationwide in cooperation with state authorities.

The pandemic has been particularly brutal on Latino residents of Los Angeles, with inequities that have only gotten worse in the recent surge of the crisis. More:

Nevada officials are one step closer to renaming McCarran international airport after the former Senate majority leader Harry Reid.

Clark county commissioners have unanimously approved a resolution calling for the airport to be renamed, and the proposal will now be sent to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Reid represented Nevada in the Senate for 30 years, before the Democrat stepped down in 2017 at the age of 77. Reid was replaced in the Senate by Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto.

The AP has more details on the name change:

There have been longstanding calls to rename the airport. Its current namesake, former Nevada Sen. Patrick McCarran, served as one of Nevada’s two U.S. senators from 1933 until his death in 1954. He was known for his contributions to aviation along with his anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic views. ...

The proposal drew public support from longtime Reid aides and supporters, including Dan Hamilton, dean of the law school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Stephen J. Cloobeck, founder of Diamond Resorts International, Inc. and a major Democratic donor; and MGM Resorts, which has Reid co-chairing its public policy institute.

The Guardian’s Erum Salam reports from San Antonio, Texas:

Texas remains in the grip of an arctic blast that has left millions of people without power for several days and advocates are warning of a growing crisis for homeless people in the state.

Homeless and elderly people are always the most vulnerable populations in a natural disaster, and many in Texas are facing limited options for food and warmth as the state struggles to deal with the freezing temperatures and deep snow.

Latest figures show that in 2020 there were 27,229 homeless people in Texas, a jump of about 5% on the previous year. Homelessness also significantly affects communities of color more than white communities. Of the total number some 37% of homeless people in Texas were Black, compared to being just 13% of the population.

Many organizations and volunteers are coming together to provide support for vulnerable groups especially those living outdoors or on the streets. VIA, San Antonio’s transit authority, is offering courtesy rides to the city’s emergency warming centers for those living outside on the streets.

Valerie Salas, the director of homeless services at Christian Assistance Ministry (Cam), said she was driving around San Antonio through ice and snow, looking for homeless people in need of shelter.

“For the past couple of weeks, we have been warning people because we knew a cold front was going to hit. I don’t think they realized how bad it was going to be,” Salas said. “We just hit the streets once the snow started coming down. I had calls of people crying that they were cold in their tents. Some had to go the hospitals, some had to go to shelters.”

Congressman Bennie Thompson addressed his new lawsuit against Donald Trump in a statement released by the NAACP, which filed the suit on his behalf.

“January 6th was one of the most shameful days in our country’s history, and it was instigated by the President himself,” the Democratic lawmaker said in his statement.

“His gleeful support of violent white supremacists led to a breach of the Capitol that put my life, and that of my colleagues, in grave danger. It is by the slimmest of luck that the outcome was not deadlier. While the majority of Republicans in the Senate abdicated their responsibility to hold the President accountable, we must hold him accountable for the insurrection that he so blatantly planned. Failure to do so will only invite this type of authoritarianism for the anti-democratic forces on the far right that are so intent on destroying our country.”

Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP added, “Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for deliberately inciting and colluding with white supremacists to stage a coup, in his continuing efforts to disenfranchise African-American voters.”

The White House said Joe Biden has been briefed about the recent outbreak of Ebola in west and central Africa.

“While the world is reeling from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Ebola has again emerged, simultaneously, in both Central and West Africa,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

“The world cannot afford to turn the other way. We must do everything in our power to respond quickly, effectively, and with commensurate resources to stop these outbreaks before they become largescale epidemics.”

Psaki continued, “President Biden has been briefed on the situation in both Central and West Africa, and his prayers are with the families of those who have died and those who are impacted by Ebola, COVID-19, and other ongoing global health challenges.”

It’s worth noting that Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, previously served as the Ebola czar under Barack Obama, during the 2014 outbreak that ultimately killed more than 11,000 people.

“The Biden Administration will do everything in its power to provide U.S. leadership to stop these outbreaks, working with the affected governments, the World Health Organization, the African Union and the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and neighboring states,” Psaki said in her statement.

Congressman Jamaal Bowman announced that his mother, Pauline Bowman, has died of coronavirus.

“It is with deep sorrow that I share the passing of our mother, Ms. Pauline Bowman. She battled Covid for many weeks before transitioning on Valentine’s Day,” Bowman said in a tweet.

“Our mother raised us to live our lives with love and joy with and for each other. I share her legacy with all of you.”

Bowman was first elected to Congress in November, after defeating fellow Democrat and longtime incumbent Eliot Engel in a closely-watched primary.

The New York congressman is one of several well-known progressive lawmakers who joined the ranks of Congress last month.

The unusual winter storm hitting the central US is impacting the delivery of coronavirus vaccines to a number of states.

Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, said vaccine shipments from Pfizer and Moderna could be delayed by one to two days. Small shipments are being delivered on a two-hour delay.

The winter storm has left millions of people without power in Texas, and at least two people have already died as a result of the subfreezing temperatures.

Republican David Perdue confirmed he is considering running for Senate again, after losing his runoff race to Democrat Jon Ossoff last month.

The former senator said he filed paperwork for the 2022 Senate race yesterday in order to “continue to keep all options open”.

If he won the Republican nomination, Perdue would be running against Democrat Raphael Warnock, who won his own runoff against Kelly Loeffler last month. Because Warnock won a special election, he must run again next year to secure a full term in the Senate.

In a statement, Perdue argued that Ossoff and Warnock, who is the first African American from Georgia to serve in the Senate, “do not fairly represent most Georgians”.

The former senator said the election of a Republican was necessary “to change the direction of the country” and provide a check on the “radical” Biden administration.

Perdue tried to make a similar argument during his runoff race, but his candidacy was complicated by Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud among Georgia voters in the presidential election.

The Clintons attended the memorial service for acting legend Cicely Tyson in New York City earlier today.

Former US president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were among the attendees of a private memorial service for Tyson at Harlem’s famed Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Actor-director Tyler Perry was also there.

The memorial service came a day after hundreds of admirers of the pioneering Black actor lined up outside the church for a public viewing. Some said they had come from as far as Atlanta or Los Angeles to be there, The Associated Press reports.

Abyssinian Baptist’s pastor, Rev. Calvin O. Butts, said afterwards that Tyson was an example of “a life well lived and an example of how we all might live,” adding, “She was as much an ambassador for peace and love as anybody I can think of.”

Also in attendance for the nearly three-hour service were gospel singer Bebe Winans and Valerie Simpson of the duo Ashford & Simpson.

During the ceremony, the sun broke through the clouds and the temperature rose past 40F for the first time in the snowy city for more than a week.

Tyson died January 28. The New York-born actor was 96.

Tyson was the first Black woman to have a recurring role in a dramatic television series, the 1963 drama “East Side, West Side.” Her performance as a sharecropper’s wife in the 1972 movie “Sounder” cemented her stardom and earned her an Oscar nomination.

She went on to win two Emmy Awards for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and another Emmy 20 years later for “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.”

At age 88, Tyson won a Tony Award for the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful” in 2013. President Barack Obama awarded her the Medal of Freedom in 2016.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not say when specifically Joe Biden will address a joint session of Congress for the first time as president.

Biden said last month that he would lay out his Build Back Better plan in a February address to Congress.

Reports had indicated that Biden may speak before Congress next Tuesday, but Psaki said she did not know where that date had come from. There is no specific date set for a presidential address to Congress, Psaki told reporters.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed the resignation of her deputy, TJ Ducklo, over the weekend.

Psaki was pressed on why Ducklo resigned when he did, given that Joe Biden previously promised that staffers would be fired “on the spot” if they did not treat their colleagues with respect.

Ducklo resigned a day after Vanity Fair reported that he made sexist and threatening comments to a White House reporter.

“I think the president leads by example, and I try to do the same,” Psaki said. “Everyday we’re going to try meet the standard set out by the president in treating others with dignity and respect, with civility and with a value for others through our words and our actions.”

Psaki said of Ducklo specifically, “He’s no longer employed here, and I think that speaks for itself.”

Jen Psaki said she did not know when specifically Joe Biden would be able to meet with a foreign leader in person at the White House.

“It will be a couple of months,” the White House press secretary said.

The question of an in-person meeting came up after Biden spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Biden told Trudeau they would “meet” again soon, raising questions about whether the leaders planned to meet in person.

“You can meet over video, as you all know,” Psaki said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Joe Biden’s first call to a leader in the Middle East will be to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Psaki would not specify when the call will occur, simply saying that it will take place “soon”.

Biden has not yet spoken to Netanyahu, even though he took office nearly a month ago, which has raised questions about how the new US president will interact with Israel.

Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had a close relationship with Netanyahu and supported the prime minister’s settlement-building policies in the West Bank and Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not address whether it was likely that Donald Trump will face a criminal investigation over his role in the Capitol insurrection.

“I am not going to speculate on criminal prosecution from the White House podium,” Psaki said.

The press secretary emphasized the importance of an independent department of justice as it reviews the events of January 6.

“We’re doing something new here, and there’s going to be an independent justice department,” Psaki said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Joe Biden “would support” the establishment of a 9/11 commission-style panel to investigate the January 6 insurrection.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced plans to form such a commission yesterday, in addition to the Capitol security review that is already underway.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson’s lawsuit against Donald Trump over the Capitol insurrection.

Psaki largely dodged the question, simply saying that Joe Biden supports lawmakers’ right to “take steps through the judicial process” in response to the Capitol attack.

Thompson’s lawsuit accuses Trump, as well as Rudy Giuliani and two far-right extremist groups, of conspiring to incite the January 6 insurrection.

Family disagreements over US politics proliferated under four years of Donald Trump, with Facebook and other social media providing an accelerant for acrimony.

But relatives of Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois representative who is one of Trump’s rare Republican critics, have taken their beef with the congressman into the public square, in an open letter published on Monday by the New York Times.

Kinzinger, a centrist Republican whose ambitions could extend beyond the conservative district he serves, called for Trump to be removed from office after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol on 6 January.

Days later, nearly a dozen cousins and extended relatives in Illinois sent a blistering, handwritten, two-page letter to state Republican officials and to Kinzinger’s father.

“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” said the letter, addressed to Kinzinger, the word “disappointment” underlined three times and “God” underlined once, according to the version published by the Times. “You go against your Christian principles and join the ‘devil’s army’ (Democrats and the fake news media).”

Two Senate committees will hold a joint hearing next week on the security failures that allowed the Capitol insurrection to occur.

The Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee and the Senate rules and administration committee have set the hearing for next Tuesday.

Senators will hear testimony from Robert Contee, the acting chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington; Michael Stenger, the former Senate sergeant at arms; Paul Irving, the former House sergeant at arms and Steven Sund, the former chief of the US Capitol Police.

Stenger, Irving and Sund all stepped down from their roles amid widespread criticism over the security failures at the Capitol on January 6.

The House is also currently conducting a security review, led by Lt Gen Russel Honoré, that is meant to prevent another event like the January 6 attack.

Dr Anthony Fauci warned that it would be several months before most Americans are actually vaccinated.

The infectious disease expert had previously said he believed the vaccine would be widely available to the American public by April, but that was dependent upon Johnson & Johnson having more vaccine doses than are currently ready to be distributed once the company receives approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

“That timeline will probably be prolonged, maybe into mid- to late May and early June,” Fauci told CNN when asked about when most Americans would have access to the vaccine.

Fauci added, “What you’ve got to be careful of is when vaccines become available and when they have actually been successfully administered.”

Fauci noted that it would likely take a few months to actually get the vaccine distributed to every American who needs it.

“It may take until June, July and August to finally get everyone vaccinated,” Fauci said. “I don’t think anybody disagrees that that’s going to be well to the end of the summer and we get in the early fall.”

Fauci said it was reasonable for the average American to expect to be vaccinated by the end of the summer.

Congressman Bennie Thompson’s lawsuit names Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, as a defendant in the case.

Giuliani led the Trump campaign’s legal team as the then-president and his allies spread the lie that the November election was tainted by widespread fraud.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, repeated that baseless lie while speaking to attendees of the January 6 rally in Washington, which culminated in the attack on the Capitol.

“I’m willing to stake my reputation, the president is willing to stake his reputation, on the fact that we’re going to find criminality there,” Giuliani said at the rally. He then added, “Let’s have trial by combat.”

The capitol was stormed shortly after that. The attack resulted in five deaths.

Congressman Bennie Thompson’s lawsuit comes three days after Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell raised the possibility that Donald Trump could face criminal prosecution over his role in the Capitol insurrection.

McConnell voted to acquit Trump of incitement of insurrection because he argued it was inappropriate for the Senate to hold an impeachment trial for a former president.

But the Republican leader said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol insurrection and could still face legal consequences for his actions on January 6.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while in office,” McConnell said on Saturday. “He didn’t get away with anything yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation.”

Congressman Bennie Thompson’s lawsuit accuses Donald Trump of conspiring to incite the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

“On and before January 6, 2021, the Defendants Donald J. Trump, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers conspired to incite an assembled crowd to march upon and enter the Capitol of the United States for the common purpose of disrupting, by the use of force, intimidation and threat, the approval by Congress of the count of votes cast by members of the Electoral College as required by Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution,” the lawsuit says.

“In doing so, the Defendants each intended to prevent, and ultimately delayed, members of Congress from discharging their duty commanded by the United States Constitution to approve the results of the Electoral College in order to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States.”

The lawsuit goes on to note, “The Defendants conspired to prevent, by force, intimidation and threats, the Plaintiff, as a Member of Congress, from discharging his official duties to approve the count of votes cast by members of the Electoral College following the presidential election held in November 2020.”

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has written a Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining his vote to acquit Donald Trump in the impeachment trial.

McConnell writes in the op-ed, which was published last night:

Jan. 6 was a shameful day. A mob bloodied law enforcement and besieged the first branch of government. American citizens tried to use terrorism to stop a democratic proceeding they disliked.

There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility. His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world’s largest megaphone. His behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable, from attacking Vice President Mike Pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended.

I was as outraged as any member of Congress. But senators take our own oaths. Our job wasn’t to find some way, any way, to inflict a punishment. The Senate’s first and foundational duty was to protect the Constitution.

Some brilliant scholars believe the Senate can try and convict former officers. Others don’t. The text is unclear, and I don’t begrudge my colleagues their own conclusions. But after intense study, I concluded that Article II, Section 4 limits impeachment and conviction to current officers.

It should be noted that the Senate voted twice on whether the impeachment trial was constitutional. In both instances, the Senate upheld the constitutionality of the trial.

Senator Richard Burr, a Republican who voted in favor of conviction, has said he also did not believe the trial was constitutional, but he said he was obligated to set those concerns aside when the chamber decided the proceedings could move forward.

“When this process started, I believed that it was unconstitutional to impeach a president who was no longer in office. I still believe that to be the case,” Burr said in a Saturday statement.

“However, the Senate is an institution based on precedent, and given that the majority in the Senate voted to proceed with this trial, the question of constitutionality is now established precedent. As an impartial juror, my role is now to determine whether House managers have sufficiently made the case for the article of impeachment against President Trump.”

Burr went on to say, “The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Therefore, I have voted to convict.”

Republican congressman Kevin Brady, whose Texas district covers some of the northern suburbs of Houston, warned his constituents that power outages and freezing temperatures continue in the state.

This bizarre winter storm is impacting much of the southern US, and the subfreezing temperatures appear to have already resulted in two deaths in the Houston area.

Much of the Texas state capitol of Austin is now without power, forcing some residents to sleep in their cars with the engine running to provide heat.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

Joe Biden is traveling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin today, where the president will participate in a CNN town hall focused on the coronavirus pandemic.

The event comes as Democrats in Congress work to get Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package passed as swiftly as possible.

Now that the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump has concluded, the Senate is free to focus on the relief package and Biden’s remaining cabinet nominations.

Biden will likely make a pitch for the relief package during the town hall tonight. The blog will have more about the president’s Wisconsin trip and the other news of the day coming up, so stay tuned.

We could be up for a Georgia re-match in 2022. Well, sort of. Associated Press report that former Georgia Sen David Perdue filed campaign paperwork yesterday, opening up the potential for the recently defeated Republican to run against newly-installed Democratic Sen Rev Raphael Warnock in 2022.

Perdue, 71, filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission, an early step toward a possible bid to return to Washington.

Perdue lost his reelection bid during a closely watched runoff last month against Democrat Jon Ossoff. Ossoff’s win, along with Warnock’s victory over Sen Kelly Loeffler, resulted in Democrats taking control of the Senate for the first time since 2011.

Unlike Ossoff, who will not be up for reelection until 2026, Warnock’s term expires in two years. That’s because Warnock is filling the remainder of retired Republican Sen Johnny Isakson’s term.

Warnock, who served as pastor for the same Atlanta church where civil rights leader the Rev Martin Luther King Jr preached, is Georgia’s first African American senator.

Perdue is a former business executive who was elected in 2014. He was one of former president Trump’s chief defenders in the Senate and fell just short of the 50% threshold he needed to defeat Ossoff outright on 3 November.

Marc Caputo at Politico this morning has written about Gov Ron DeSantis as in some quarters people talk up his chances of a 2024 presidential run – partly off the back of his handling of the Covid pandemic. Caputo writes:

“Ron DeSantis is having a moment with conservatives,” said Josh Holmes, a top adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “Part of this is liberals tried to cast this in the yin-and-yang comparison with New York Gov Andrew Cuomo ... It’s policy and it’s partly stylistic, the way he handles the news media and his blue-collar appeal.”

Early on in the pandemic, both California Gov Gavin Newsom and Cuomo won national praise for their handling of the pandemic while DeSantis was panned for his more economy-focused and laissez-faire approach — one closely aligned with Donald Trump’s response to the Covid-19 crisis. Now – with both Cuomo and Newsom faltering – conservatives are relishing the contrast and holding up DeSantis as an example of effective governance.

But it’s the fight in DeSantis that has animated conservatives, said Holmes, pointing to a recent press conference DeSantis held to announce a proposal to crack down on Big Tech where, in accusing the news media of having double standards, he told a reporter at one point that “you can whiz on my leg but don’t tell me it’s raining.”

“A Republican saying that in a press conference is like a shot of adrenaline to the conservative grassroots,” Holmes said. “The reaction was ‘Wow!’ He actually said it!”

Read more here: Politico – Covid wars launch DeSantis into GOP ‘top tier’

There’s an interesting little piece from Scott Rosenberg at Axios this morning, pegged to a stat that suggests the social media attention furore that surrounded one-term president Donald Trump has already subsided.

Rosenberg notes that “Over the first two weeks of February, there were an estimated 13.8 million social media posts about president Biden. That’s roughly an eighth of the 104 million posts about Trump over the first two weeks of January.”

(I feel duty bound to point out that this isn’t quite comparing apples and oranges, because during the two time periods, only one of them fomented an insurrection that ended up with their supporters sacking the US Capitol, which you imagine might skew the figures somewhat.)

Nevertheless, Rosenberg makes a useful point about the divergence over what comes next – and who is doing it:

Actors on the national stage are choosing from two different approaches in this new world. Some are using time-tested, Trump-like tactics to fill the post-Trump void.

Trump-supporting officeholders — among them Sen Josh Hawley and Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene — have commandeered news cycles by promoting unsupported claims of election fraud or amping up rhetoric against “socialist” Democrats. Elon Musk’s social-media antics — pumping up cryptocurrencies, inviting Vladimir Putin for a chat on Clubhouse — show the same game can be played in business and tech. They’re betting that, even with Trump off stage, the information-overload dynamics he exploited will continue to shape US society.

Others are aiming to reset public-square norms, believing that a pandemic-exhausted public yearns for simpler, straighter talk at lower volume. Most prominent in this camp is the incoming Biden administration, whose approach to shaping the public conversation couldn’t be more different from Trump’s impulsive show.

Biden’s announcements emerge in a planned, orderly way. He unveils appointments after serious deliberations, not at the drop of a tweet. His policies arrive with details fleshed out. This communications style may offer reassurance to Americans whose adrenaline glands need a rest. It also, of course, runs the risk of boring people.

Read more here: Axios – After Trump, the attention economy deflates

Yesterday, the North Carolina Republican’s central committee voted unanimously to censure Sen Richard Burr for his vote in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.

The Senator, who is in his third term, issued a statement in response saying: “It is truly a sad day for North Carolina Republicans. My party’s leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation.”

Barr was one of the most interesting votes in the impeachment trial. He twice voted that it was unconstitutional to try the former president at all, but argued that once the Senate had voted that it was, it had set that as a precedent, and he should therefore try the case on its merits. He found Donald Trump guilty of incitement of insurrection.

Ryan Teague Beckwith reports for Bloomberg this morning on renewed efforts by Republican state legislatures to make it harder to vote, and the belief among some people that it could be self-defeating, given the profile of voters who turned out for Donald Trump. Beckwith writes:

State legislatures across the country are considering more than a hundred bills that would increase voter ID requirements, tighten no-excuse vote-by-mail, and ban ballot drop boxes, among other changes. That’s more than three times the number of bills to restrict voting that had been filed by this time last year.

This flood of legislation comes despite research showing that voter ID laws passed over the last decade not only don’t hamper minority turnout, but may even boost it by motivating angry Democrats and spurring stronger get-out-the-vote efforts.

Kathleen Unger, president of the nonpartisan voter ID assistance group VoteRiders, said that the new proposals sweep up a different set of voters.

She said the photocopied ID requirement would be particularly onerous for people who don’t have a valid photo ID or easy access to a copy machine or a printer. That would include many rural, lower-income and older voters – three groups that are now a big part of the Republican base – as well as those with disabilities and college students who lean Democratic.

David Becker, director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the number of proposed restrictions is a sign Republicans are worried about demographic trends in those states.

“When you see a party trying to change the rules with as much intensity as they are, that tells you they have lost confidence in the power of their ideas to persuade voters,” he said.

Read more here: Bloomberg – Republican efforts to restrict voting risk backfiring on party

Twitter has said it has made a permanent decision to close his account, but Kari Paul reports for us that Facebook is yet to decide whether to continue hosting Donald Trump:

Facebook is expected to announce imminently whether it will allow Donald Trump to return to the platform after banning him more than a month ago.

The decision will be the most consequential yet made by Facebook’s Oversight Board, a group of 20 members who range from humanitarian activists and religious experts to lawyers and a former prime minister. The board, which launched in late 2020, is meant to function as an independent arm of the social platform, making binding decisions on a selection of its thorniest content moderation issues.

Trump was removed on 7 January following his encouragement of an insurrection of the US Capitol the day prior, but he had for years used his Facebook account to share misinformation and violent rhetoric with his millions of followers. Hundreds of civil rights advocates submitted comments in advance of the decision saying that reinstating Trump’s account would again allow those problems to flourish on the site.

“The Board must acknowledge that Trump’s social media presence has made not just Facebook users but the entire world less safe,” wrote Change the Terms, a coalition of more than 60 human rights groups. “It must act in defense of the people we represent and not reverse Facebook’s decision on a process foul.”

Another prominent voice in favor of a permanent Trump ban is Facebook’s former security chief Alex Stamos, who signed a letter along with a number of other prominent voices urging against Trump’s return.

“The eventual deplatforming of Trump’s accounts helped defuse a dangerous and antidemocratic situation,” said the letter sent by a group of researchers and lawyers including Stamos. “Trump’s actions justified the step of indefinitely deplatforming him.”

Read more of Kari Paul’s report here: Debate rages as Facebook prepares to say whether Trump can return

As well as deaths in Texas and widespread power outages, at least three people were killed after a tornado tore through a seaside town in North Carolina overnight.

Associated Press report that the deadly tornado, which authorities said left at least 10 people injured, hit just after midnight Tuesday in southeastern Brunswick County near Grissettown in the Ocean Ridge Plantation Community. The tornado destroyed homes, downing powerlines that left thousands without electricity and snapping trees in half, news outlets reported.

“It’s something like I have never seen before. A lot of destruction. It’s going to be a long recovery process,” Brunswick County Sheriff John Ingram said at an early press conference early.

Brunswick County Emergency Management said people were trapped in homes. Ingram said searches for missing people were underway and will increase during the day. He’s asked people to avoid the area while crews work to clear the streets and search for victims.

According to the Johns Hopkins University figures, yesterday the US recorded 53,883 new coronavirus cases, and 989 deaths.

I’m always slightly suspicious of numbers which show a big movement from the days before, but this marks a sharp decline in new cases, which were at 99,511 only four days ago. It is also the first day that fewer than 1,000 deaths have been recorded since 29 November. But there is a possibility they will get revised up as more data comes in.

The number of people hospitalized with Covid in the US has fallen, according to the Covid Tracking Project, to 65,455. That’s the lowest level they’ve recorded since 11 November.

At least 38.8 million people have received one or more doses of Covid vaccine.

Stephen Collinson at CNN writes that at this juncture, with pressure to reopen schools as the US vaccine program ramps up, Joe Biden faces a leadership test:

An exhausted and impatient nation needs the kind of clarity and leadership only a president can provide as the coronavirus pandemic reaches a potentially decisive stage.

After four weeks in the White House – which his team used to understand the full scope of Donald Trump’s negligence on the pandemic while Washington was consumed by the ex-President impeachment trial – Biden is now in a position to assume responsibility and, if necessary, blame for the federal effort.

With millions of parents anguished over the plight of their kids – many of whom haven’t attended in-person classes for a year, he is under pressure to set expectations on school openings that his team has so far struggled to provide.

The country wants to know whether a swift fall in new infections after a holiday surge is the start of the end of the nightmare. Can the White House speed up its promise for sufficient vaccine doses for everyone by the end of summer? Or should we brace for yet another wave of sickness and death because of proliferating variants may challenge the effectiveness of the program?

Collinson doesn’t have the answers to those questions. Does Joe Biden?

Read more here: CNN – Joe Biden confronts a leadership moment

Joe Biden is heading to Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city, today. He’s been back home to Delaware and stayed at Camp David, but the trip is his first official engagement outside of Washington DC since taking office.

Jeff Mason at Reuters reports that the new president will use the trip to press his case for a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill in a battleground state that helped secure his victory last year. The state, which has 10 Electoral College votes, sided with the Democratic president over Donald Trump by a narrow margin in the November election.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said last week that Biden would do a CNN town hall with voters while visiting the state, hard hit by the pandemic and its economic fallout.

“That’s an opportunity to hear directly from people about how the dual crises are impacting them,” she told reporters.

With the drama of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial now in the rearview mirror, the White House is eager to press ahead with Biden’s agenda on the economy, fighting Covid-19, curbing climate change and addressing racial inequality.

Biden wants Congress to pass his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill in the coming weeks in order to get $1,400 stimulus checks out to Americans and bolster unemployment payments, and his strategy to promote the package and other policy goals involves getting out to voters.

Having been vaccinated for the coronavirus, Biden, 78, is stepping up his travel in coming days. On Thursday he will visit Michigan, another political swing state, to see a Pfizer manufacturing site and talk to workers involved in making the company’s Covid-19 vaccine.

NBC News this morning have a write-up of the immigration reform bill that we are expecting to see later this week from the Biden administration. They report:

Biden’s proposal includes an earned pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, expands the refugee resettlement program and deploys more technology to the Southern border. There are additional protections that are being considered in the legislation, such as asylum processing in home countries for minors, expanded benefits for DREAMers and ending the public charge rule.

While previous attempts at massive immigration reform have failed under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the Biden White House has signaled support for breaking the legislation into pieces.

As a potential secondary path, lawmakers would work to pass bills legalizing farmworkers and Dreamers right away, and then move toward a more expansive overhaul. The main objective, officials and advocates say, is progress.

Read more here: NBC News – Biden, Hill Democrats plan to unveil immigration reform bill this week

One strand of US politics over the coming weeks is going to be a backlash among grassroots Republicans – and their media mouthpieces – against Congressional Republicans who were not staunchly behind disgraced former president Donald Trump in his historic second impeachment trial.

Lee Moran at Huffington Post had an eye on how Sean Hannity was taking it all on Fox News last night – and he was putting the blame on Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell:

Hannity slammed McConnell as “sanctimonious” and accused the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump as being “way out of touch” with the GOP base.

“When is he going to give a speech on the Senate floor and hold those Democrats accountable for their incitement of insurrection and their insurrection-like language?” Hannity asked of McConnell.

“The time is now coming for new leadership in the US Senate,” Hannity added.

What does that news on the mortgage Covid relief program mean for renters? Well, nothing yet. As Joey Garrison at USA Today notes:

Today’s actions do not address the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s federal moratorium on evictions for not paying rent. That moratorium is also set to expire 31 March. About one-third of all Americans, roughly 107 million people, are renters.

The Biden administration has been meeting with stakeholders to assess their next steps on the eviction policy, according to a White House official, but did not offer additional details.

Garrison also reminds us that this is an extension of a Donald Trump Covid-relief policy.

Trump last extended the moratorium on federally backed foreclosures in August. Through the CDC, Trump in September initiated a four-month moratorium on evictions for renters unable to make payments.

And that there is more in the pipeline from the Biden administration:

In Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill, which he’s pushing Congress to pass in the coming weeks, the president has proposed a $10 billion Homeowners Assistance Fund that would provide states with federal assistance to help homeowners with mortgage payments and utility costs.

Read more here: USA Today – President Biden to extend mortgage relief, ban on home foreclosures through June

Welcome to our coverage of US politics for Tuesday. Here’s a catch-up on where we are, and a little of what we might expect…

• The Biden administration has announced it will extend the mortgage forbearance (suspension of payments) and foreclosure program until the end of June. It was due to expire in March. Some 2.7 million American homeowners are currently in Covid forbearance.
• Nancy Pelosi said that the US Congress will move to establish an outside, independent commission to review the “facts and causes” related to the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump
• A rocket attack on a US airbase in the Kurdish region of Iraq has killed one civilian contractor and injured eight other people in the first serious test of Joe Biden’s Iran policy.
• Gov Andrew Cuomo insisted New York state didn’t cover up Covid deaths – but he acknowledged that officials should have moved faster to release information.
• Two people have died in Texas, likely due to below-freezing temperatures and power outages, officials say, as unusual winter storms hit large parts of the southern US.
• Joe Biden will receive the president’s daily brief in the afternoon, and then travel to Milwaukee. He’ll participate in a CNN ‘town hall’, where he will “take questions directly from the American people on issues they are facing every day, from Covid to the economy and more.”