Friday evening summary
That’s it for me tonight. Thanks for sticking with us! Here’s what happened this afternoon:
- The Biden administration issued new sanctions against Cuba, responding to the human rights abuses seen during protests in recent weeks.
- Nurses across the country are striking, protesting worsening work conditions and understaffing issues.
- Walmart and Disney – two of the largest employers in the US – are issuing mandatory vaccination requirements for employees.
- Republican state lawmakers in Georgia are attempting to take over county elections in a Democratic stronghold after paving the way for the process in a new restrictive voting bill passed earlier this year.
- The House adjourned without passing an extension on the eviction moratorium, which is set to expire Saturday. Roughly 11.4 million renters are currently behind on their rent and Biden has urged state and local officials to step in.
- The US Department of Justice has sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott over his order barring migrants from entering or passing through the state.
See you next time!
Updated
The US Department of Justice sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott today over his order to stop migrants from entering the state or being transported through it, unless by law enforcement officials.
According to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in El Paso, only the federal government has jurisdiction over immigration, Reuters reports.
From Reuters:
The order, which Abbott signed on Wednesday, permits only ‘law enforcement officials’ to provide ground transport for migrants detained for illegally crossing the southern border. It also gives the state’s public safety department the authority to stop any vehicle suspected of carrying migrants and send it back to its point of origin.
The order would interfere with the U.S. government’s ability to transport migrants between facilities, including unaccompanied children, according to the lawsuit. The government regularly employs contractors and other non-law enforcement personnel to transfer migrants.
The lawsuit came after US attorney general Merrick Garland called on Abbott to rescind the order a day after it was signed.
“The order violates federal law in numerous respects, and Texas cannot lawfully enforce the executive order against any federal official or private parties working with the United States,” Garland reportedly wrote in a letter to Abbott.
Abbott who responded to the lawsuit by blaming the Biden administration for creating a “constitutional crisis” between his state and the federal government, argued that his order was needed to stop migrants from bringing in additional risks of Covid. There is no evidence to back up his claims and Texas, where cases have risen 200% in just the last two weeks, has a rate of only 44% vaccinated among residents.
Updated
House adjourns without passing eviction moratorium
The House has adjourned for the August recess leaving the eviction moratorium – which would protect renters impacted by the Covid crisis – to expire.
After scrambling to get the votes Friday evening, Democratic lawmakers failed to get the extension through.
Roughly 11.4 million renters are currently behind on payments according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
On Thursday, the Biden administration pushed Congress to act, but left little time before the bill’s 31 July expiration.
A federal moratorium on evictions is scheduled to expire tomorrow without congressional action tonight. @krisvancleave reports that an extension appears unlikely due to a lack of support on Capitol Hill. pic.twitter.com/YWeEjCIJjy
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) July 30, 2021
“This moratorium prevented hundreds of thousands of Americans from experiencing the heartbreak, homelessness, and health risks that too often emanate from evictions –particularly during a pandemic,” said Jen Psaki said in a statement issued yesterday, adding that President Biden would have supported an extension from the CDC but “the supreme court has made clear that this option is no longer available”.
As a congressional extension became more unlikely, Biden urged state and local governments to take up the cause, and disburse rental assistance funds. “State and local governments should also be aware that there is no legal barrier to moratorium at the state and local level,” he said in a statement.
Updated
Republicans in Georgia are attempting to take over election operations in a Democratic stronghold which could help the GOP shift the scales in the battleground state, CNN reports.
Georgia’s Republican lawmakers passed a sweeping elections bill in March, complete with new voting restrictions, that enabled them to conduct a performance review of local election officials. After that concludes, the law allows the state election board to replace a local board in question and grant officials chosen by them the responsibility to run vote counting.
Republicans took the first step in requesting the performance review in Fulton county, a majority-Democrat area.
I've done 20 years of voter protection work, and I'm chair of the Fulton County Delegation in the GA House of Representatives.
— David Dreyer (@ddreyer) July 29, 2021
Fulton County elections are constantly under attack by voices seeking to delegitimize elections and undermine our democracy. #S1TownHall https://t.co/p0WS5i9kiy
Earlier this week, after Republicans issued the first letter requesting the audit, Fulton county’s chairman Robb Pitts told reporters that the move was “really a wake-up call”.
“I can’t let them get away with it in broad daylight,” he said at the news conference.
Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger countered, writing in a tweet that the request was made in defense of voters.
“I have repeatedly called for the state election board to use its authority under SB202 to replace Fulton county’s elections leadership,” he said. “Fulton’s voters deserve better than decades of poor management and long lines.”
Updated
Walmart – the largest retailer in the US – and Disney announced today that they will require employees to have Covid vaccinations, CNN reports.
Starting 4 October, all corporate Walmart employees will have to be vaxxed, according to a memo issued by the president and CEO Doug McMillon. An earlier memo issued today from the retailer also said all employees would be required to wear masks inside effective immediately.
Rolling seven-day average of new U.S. covid cases, per The Post
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) July 30, 2021
Three weeks ago: 17,968
Two weeks ago: 30,515
Last week: 48,041
Today: 74,746
From CNN:
While Walmart is not mandating that its store employees get vaccinated, it will soon implement a new process to verify their vaccine status, and is strongly encouraging workers to get vaccinated. As part of its push for vaccination, the company is offering employees the chance to get vaccinated while on the clock and up to three days paid leave for any reaction to the shot.
Additionally, Walmart is doubling its current vaccine incentive to $150. Originally, the company was offering employees $75 to get vaccinated. Current employees who get vaccinated and new employees who were vaccinated before they started at Walmart are all eligible to receive the bonus.
For Disney, the new rules require salaried and non-union hourly employees to have shots and has given on-site workers 60 days to comply.
Updated
As the US faces another surge in Covid cases, nurses across the country are striking, protesting worsening work conditions and the lack of back-up that’s added more stress and strain to an already difficult year.
Reporter Michael Sainato detailed the issues in his story published on the Guardian today.
“Most of us felt like we went from heroes to zeroes quickly,” Dominique Muldoon, a nurse who has spent 20-years at Saint Vincent’s hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts told Sainato.
“Nurses were going home at night in their cars crying,” she added. “You’ll end up staying late or working through your break trying to fit the workload all in, but ultimately become so frustrated, because eventually you keep trying to overcompensate and cannot keep up with it.”
More from the story:
For over four months, more than 700 nurses at the Tenet Healthcare-owned Saint Vincent hospital have been on strike, the second longest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts’ history. The hospital has brought in replacement workers throughout the strike and have spent more than $30,000 a day on police coverage during the strike.
Muldoon, co-chair of the local bargaining unit, said understaffing worsened during the pandemic, with more staffing cuts and furloughs, while nurses worked through breaks and past scheduled shifts to try to keep up with the demand for patient care.
Read more here:
Gabrielle Canon here taking over from the west coast through the afternoon.
First up:
The US has issued new sanctions against Cuba’s police force and two of its leaders after severe responses to protestors, Reuters reports, before Biden met with Cuban officials today.
The sanctions are in response to “actions to suppress peaceful, pro-democratic protests in Cuba that began on July 11” according to the US Treasury Department, after demonstrations erupted this month over the country’s worsening economic crisis.
“We’re gonna do everything we can to keep Cuba on the front burner, so we can keep the conversation on the rights of the Cuban people and their rights to manifest peacefully,” a senior administration official told reporters.
The move follows sanctions imposed on Cuban officials earlier this month, according to Axios, which reported that the first round were Biden’s “first significant policy response to the crackdown by authorities during unrest in Cuba over widespread food and medicine shortages”.
“This is just the beginning,” Biden said in a statement at the time, rebuking the “mass detentions and sham trials”.
“The United States will continue to sanction individuals responsible for oppression of the Cuban people,” he added.
Read more about what led to the unrest here:
Updated
Today so far
That’s it from me today, My west coast colleague, Gabrielle Canon, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- The justice department ordered the IRS to release Donald Trump’s tax returns to the House ways and means committee, which has sought the records in connection to a congressional investigation. The DoJ Office of Legal Counsel said the committee had “invoked sufficient reasons for requesting the former president’s tax information”.
- The House oversight committee released notes showing Donald Trump pressured senior justice department officials to declare the election corrupt. According to notes taken by former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, Trump told officials in a December 27 call, “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me” and congressional Republicans. Trump has produced no evidence of widespread fraud in the election, which Joe Biden fairly won.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data on breakthrough infections that led to the agency’s new mask guidance for vaccinated Americans. The data showed that a Massachusetts outbreak caused by the Delta variant of coronavirus resulted in hundreds of infections, even though 74% of people affected were vaccinated. However, health experts emphasized that the data also shows vaccines prevent more than 90% of severe disease from coronavirus.
- Congress is scrambling to pass an extension of the pandemic-related eviction moratorium, which is set to expire after tomorrow. House Democrats are working to approve a bill authorizing an extension, but the legislation does not currently seem to have enough support to pass. Millions of Americans are at risk of eviction if the moratorium expires.
- The bipartisan infrastructure bill cleared a second procedural hurdle in the Senate, but the final text of the legislation has not yet been released. According to Bloomberg, a draft of the bill runs more than 2,500 pages long.
Gabrielle will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
House Democrats appear to be falling short in their efforts to extend the pandemic-related eviction moratorium, which is set to expire after tomorrow.
“We don’t have the votes,” a Democratic aide told the Hill.
However, House speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters she is not yet pulling the bill that would authorize an extension, per ABC News. She declined to say whether she believes the bill has enough support to pass.
Once again, if Congress does not approve an extension, millions of Americans are at risk of being evicted.
Speaker Pelosi says she has not pulled the bill on eviction moratorium. She wouldn’t answer questions about if she has enough support for it.
— Rachel Scott (@rachelvscott) July 30, 2021
It looks like Barack Obama is gearing up to throw the (outdoor) bash of the summer.
The 44th president is reportedly pulling out all the stops when it comes to celebrating his 60th birthday on Wednesday. He will be inviting dozens of friends to his estate on Martha’s Vineyard this weekend, Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney among them, according to the Hill.
Obama and family bought the house, which sits on nearly 30 acres, on the island off the Massachusetts coast in 2019 for $11.75m, according to the Vineyard Gazette.
Over on the other side of Capitol Hill, the Senate cleared another procedural hurdle on the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
In a bipartisan vote of 66-28, the Senate agreed to a motion to proceed to the legislative vehicle for the bill, which would provide $550bn in new federal funds for physical infrastructure projects.
By a vote of 66-28, the #Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to H.R.3684, the legislative vehicle for the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act.
— Senate Press Gallery (@SenatePress) July 30, 2021
The Senate is now voting on cloture on Ur Mendoza Jaddou to be Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services
However, senators have still not seen the final text of the bill, and the lead negotiators have said that drafts being circulated should not be considered the final version.
The debate over the specifics of the bill will likely spill over into next week, but ultimately the legislation’s Senate passage seems likely, given the bipartisan support for it so far.
House Democrats expected to abandon efforts to extend eviction moratorium - report
House Democrats are reportedly expected to soon abandon their bill that would extend the pandemic-related eviction moratorium, which is set to expire after tomorrow.
According to Politico, House leadership will soon pull the bill, after spending the day trying to get enough votes to approve the extension.
NEW: House Dems are likely to pull the eviction moratorium bill shortly, after more than a full day of whipping, per @heatherscope and me.
— Sarah Ferris (@sarahnferris) July 30, 2021
If House Democrats do give up on the effort, millions of Americans will be at risk of being evicted starting next week.
The White House deputy press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said moments ago that the administration fully supported the House bill and would do everything possible to get it across the finish line.
Joe Biden has indicated he believes his administration cannot unilaterally extend the moratorium because the supreme court ruled last month that any extension beyond July 31 would require congressional authorization.
White House faces questions after CDC releases data on breakthrough infections
Karine Jean-Pierre has received many questions about the newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on breakthrough infections of the Delta variant of coronavirus.
The CDC’s report showed that hundreds of people contracted coronavirus in Massachusetts earlier this month, even though 74% of people there were vaccinated.
Jean-Pierre emphasized that the vaccines remain incredibly effective at preventing severe illness and death from coronavirus, even with the more highly transmissible Delta variant. She described it as a national imperative to get more Americans vaccinated as quickly as possible.
"A national vaccine requirement is not under consideration at this time," White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says amid the rapid spread of the delta variant in the U.S. https://t.co/I6o5F5E3Xb pic.twitter.com/3Jd79eWZ7y
— ABC News (@ABC) July 30, 2021
One reporter asked the deputy press secretary whether the White House is considering a national vaccine requirement, after Joe Biden indicated yesterday that he has asked justice department to determine whether such a mandate would be legal.
“A national vaccine requirement is not under consideration at this time,” Jean-Pierre said.
Asked whether the White House anticipates that more lockdowns may be necessary if the Delta variant continues to spread, Jean-Pierre said no.
“The way we see this is that we have the tools in our toolbelt to fight this variant,” Jean-Pierre said. “We are not going to head towards a lockdown.”
In a new letter to House Democrats, speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was working to pass a bill that would extend the eviction moratorium until 18 October, when the federal public health emergency declaration expires.
“It is our hope that we could pass a bill extending the eviction moratorium to that date immediately,” Pelosi said.
“As we do so, we urge states and localities to expeditiously distribute the money that Congress has allocated to renters in need. Of the $46.5 billion provided by Congress in the December Omnibus and the American Rescue Plan, only $3 billion has been distributed to renters by state and local governments. Families must not pay the price for that.”
However, it remains unclear whether Pelosi has enough votes to pass the extension bill. And again, it seems unlikely that such a bill could make it through the evenly divided Senate.
The moratorium is currently set to expire tomorrow, and millions of Americans are at risk of being forced out of their homes if the policy is not extended.
Updated
One reporter asked Karine Jean-Pierre about House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s efforts to extend the pandemic-related eviction moratorium, which is set to expire tomorrow.
The deputy press secretary said the White House completely supports those efforts and will do everything possible to help advance a bill authorizing an extension.
“It has been a lifeline to so many Americans,” Jean-Pierre said. “So we support the speaker’s effort, and we will do everything we can to move this forward.”
Reiterating a statement from press secretary Jen Psaki yesterday, Jean-Pierre said the president did not feel his administration could unilaterally extend the moratorium because the supreme court ruled last month that such an action would require congressional authorization.
The White House deputy press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is now holding the daily briefing with reporters.
Jean-Pierre noted that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris held a virtual meeting with governors today to discuss wildfire prevention and response efforts.
At the meeting, the president “highlighted the heroism of our firefighters” as the country confronts a historic wildfire season, Jean-Pierre said.
The deputy press secretary noted that the 2021 wildfire season continues to outpace the 2020 season in terms of large fires to date, and FEMA has been distributing grants to help states pay for the cost of fighting fires.
Based on evidence gathered on earlier strains of the virus, the CDC had said vaccinated individuals could completely abandon masks. The new guidance from the CDC recommends masks in schools and for individuals in public places with substantial and high transmission in their most recent guidance. But suggestions in the study from Massachusetts suggested going further.
“Findings from this investigation suggest that even jurisdictions without substantial or high Covid-19 transmission might consider expanding prevention strategies, including masking in indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status, given the potential risk of infection during attendance at large public gatherings that include travelers from many areas with differing levels of transmission”.
Vaccines remain the most important thing individuals can do to protect themselves from severe illness and death from Covid-19, and they remain highly effective against the delta variant, in spite of rare cases of breakthrough infections. Although vaccinated individuals are not believed to be able to readily transmit the delta variant, the vast majority of spread in the US is thought to be among unvaccinated individuals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released a detailed report on the Massachusetts Covid-19 outbreak among vaccinated individuals that ultimately led the agency to revise mask guidance.
The outbreak ultimately led the CDC to advise Americans to again don masks, regardless of their vaccination status, especially in areas of “substantial or high” Covid-19 transmission.
The report found that around the July 4th holiday on Cape Cod, a vacation destination in the northeast, an outbreak of Covid-19 sickened 469 people though the majority (74%) were vaccinated. Among samples that could be sequenced, the CDC found the vast majority had the delta variant of the virus.
The findings pointed the agency to a startling finding – vaccinated people who contracted the delta variant of Covid-19 in “breakthrough” infections, or transmission that breached the highly effective barrier of immunity conferred by vaccines, could transmit the virus as easily as unvaccinated individuals, even as they remained far less likely to be seriously sickened.
Former Republican congresswoman Barbara Comstock predicted there will be more records revealed detailing Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election.
There will be more notes, texts, records like this as the Jan.6 Committee subpoenas White House records. https://t.co/YqmMRphtS5
— Barbara Comstock (@BarbaraComstock) July 30, 2021
“There will be more notes, texts, records like this as the Jan.6 Committee subpoenas White House records,” Comstock said on Twitter in response to the release of the notes of former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue.
The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection held its first hearing earlier this week, and members of the panel have indicated they will be issuing subpoenas as they carry out their work.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi applauded the justice department for ordering the IRS to turn over Donald Trump’s tax returns to the House ways and mean committee.
“Today, the Biden Administration has delivered a victory for the rule of law, as it respects the public interest by complying with Chairman Neal’s request for Donald Trump’s tax returns,” the Democratic speaker said in a new statement.
“Access to former President Trump’s tax returns is a matter of national security. The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president.”
Trump has fought for years to keep his tax returns from public view, although the New York Times previously obtained some of the records, which showed the former president paid almost nothing in federal income taxes in the years before he entered the White House.
DoJ says IRS must give Trump tax returns to House committee
Double trouble for Donald Trump. The US Department of Justice has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to hand over his tax returns to a House committee, saying the panel has invoked “sufficient reasons” for requesting it.
There are also further developments in the saga of Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, in the shape of the news that Trump pressured top justice department officials to falsely claim the 2020 election was corrupt so he and his allies in Congress could subvert the results and return him to office, according to newly released memos.
As Hugo Lowell puts it for us from Washington:
“Just say that the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me,” the former president told former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, memos obtained by the House oversight committee showed.
The notes were taken by Donoghue, who documented a 27 December call with Trump and Rosen.
The documentation of Trump’s demand to the justice department represented an extraordinary instance of a president seeking to weaponise an agency that is supposed to operate independently of the White House, to advance his own personal interests and political agenda.
It is also the latest example of the far-reaching campaign mounted by Trump over the final weeks of his presidency to falsely cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden in a contest devoid of any widespread voter fraud.
CDC explains mask guidance changes
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released data to back up its recent changes to mask guidance.
The changes, it says, were based on an outbreak investigation in Barnstable county, Massachusetts.
The CDC notes that on 27 July it “recommended that all persons, including those who are fully vaccinated, should wear masks in indoor public settings in areas where Covid-19 transmission is high or substantial.
“Findings from this investigation suggest that even jurisdictions without substantial or high Covid-19 transmission might consider expanding prevention strategies, including masking in indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status, given the potential risk of infection during attendance at large public gatherings that include travelers from many areas with differing levels of transmission.”
Some further reading:
David Litt, a former speech- (and joke-) writer for Barack Obama turned author, writes for Guardian US today about Republican attitudes to personal responsibility in the time of Covid-19…
“It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions,” declared Ronald Reagan at the 1968 Republican National Convention.
By the time he became president 12 years later, this idea – that individuals can be trusted to act wisely and should be held accountable when they don’t – was firmly entrenched in Republican rhetoric. Reagan even included “personal responsibility” in his list of America’s bedrock values, right up there with faith in God, honesty, and caring for others.
But those days are long over – and the conservative movement’s nationwide anti-vaccination effort proves it. Political parties are large; there are plenty of responsible Republican voters, and a handful of responsible Republican politicians. But the conservative movement no longer argues that individuals are better than the government at promoting the greater good. Instead, the movement encourages its members to make objectively selfish, harmful choices, then uses the tools of government to shield them from accountability when they do.
Republicans have become the party of personal irresponsibility.”
Updated
Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, and Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Ohio, are out with a joint statement about the state of the bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal:
We are close to finalizing legislative text that reflects the work of the bipartisan working group and hope to make it public later today. While various pieces of legislative text have been circulating among members, staff and the public for days, if not weeks, none of it is the final legislative text and should not be considered as such. When legislative text is finalized that reflects the product of our group, we will make it public together consistent with the bipartisan way we’ve worked for the last four months.
… and so the saga rolls on.
Also today, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said she thinks Democrats have “a very good case” for including immigration reform in the reconciliation measure meant to accompany the bipartisan infrastructure deal, and thereby to rely only on Democratic votes to pass.
Here’s some of Joanie’s reporting on the subject of infrastructure, the deal and the 17 Republicans who voted with Democrats to advance:
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Congress is scrambling to approve an extension of the pandemic-related eviction moratorium, which is set to expire tomorrow. House Democrats are working to pass a bill authorizing an extension, but even if they do, the legislation faces major hurdles in the evenly divided Senate. Millions of Americans are at risk of eviction if the moratorium expires.
- The House oversight committee released notes showing Donald Trump pressured senior justice department officials to declare the election corrupt. According to notes taken by former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, Trump told officials in a December 27 call, “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me” and congressional Republicans. Trump has produced no evidence of widespread fraud in the election, which Joe Biden fairly won.
- The Senate is working to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, but the final text of the legislation has not yet been released. According to Bloomberg, a draft of the bill runs more than 2,500 pages long.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House oversight committee, said the notes painted a damning picture of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election.
“These handwritten notes show that President Trump directly instructed our nation’s top law enforcement agency to take steps to overturn a free and fair election in the final days of his presidency,” Maloney said in a statement.
“The Committee has begun scheduling interviews with key witnesses to investigate the full extent of the former President’s corruption, and I will exercise every tool at my disposal to ensure all witness testimony is secured without delay.”
Here’s a quote for the ages: to justify his false claims of widespread fraud in the presidential election, Donald Trump told senior justice department officials, “You guys may not be following the internet the way I do.”
That’s according to the notes taken by deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue during a December 27 call with Trump, which were released by the House oversight committee moments ago.
Just to repeat the facts: Trump has produced absolutely no evidence of widespread fraud in the presidential election. Joe Biden fairly won the election and was accordingly sworn in on 20 January.
Updated
Trump pressed DoJ officials to declare the election corrupt, notes show
Donald Trump pressed senior officials at the justice department to declare the 2020 presidential election was corrupt, according to notes obtained by the House oversight committee.
The panel has released the notes of former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, who documented a 27 December call with Trump and acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.
NEW: @OversightDems released notes taken by then-Acting Deputy AG Donoghue of a 12/27/20 call with Pres. #Trump & former Acting AG Rosen, revealing attempts by Trump to pressure the 2 most senior officials at the DOJ to help overturn the #2020election or risk losing their jobs.
— Oversight Committee (@OversightDems) July 30, 2021
In the notes, Donoghue quotes Trump as telling him and Rosen, “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me” and congressional Republicans.
According to Donoghue’s notes, Trump specifically named Republican congressman Jim Jordan as a “fighter” who would help promote this false narrative.
The notes demonstrate the dangerous lengths that Trump went in his efforts to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
“We have an obligation to tell people that this was an illegal, corrupt election,” Trump said, according to the notes.
Just to state the obvious: Joe Biden fairly won the presidential election, and Trump has produced no evidence to validate his false claims of widespread voter fraud.
Updated
House speaker Nancy Pelosi once again emphasized the need to extend the eviction moratorium to protect renters at risk of being forced out of their homes.
At a press conference with some of the House committee chairs, the Democratic speaker noted that this is not about securing more money for rent assistance, but about distributing the unused funds from the American Rescue Plan.
“Why should the renters be punished for the fact that the system did not put money in their pockets to pay the rent to the landlords?” Pelosi asked.
“I think this is something that we’ll work out,” she added.
But time is of the essence. The extension is set to expire after tomorrow, and it’s still unclear whether the Senate would be able to pass an extension, even if the House approves it.
As the House scrambles to pass an extension of the eviction moratorium, the Senate is working to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
According to a Bloomberg Government reporter, the draft of the Senate bill is more than 2,500 pages long.
Happening soon: #Senate back at 10:30 AM ahead of vote to begin advancing bipartisan #Infrastructure bill. Discussion DRAFT circulating in Senate ahead of the vote; measure obtained this AM by @BGov is 2,540 pages. pic.twitter.com/gYzO87J0Bj
— Nancy Ognanovich (@NOgnanovich) July 30, 2021
Updated
When the eviction moratorium expires on Saturday, the situation on Sunday for people behind on rent will depend on what state they live in.
Some states, such as California and Washington, still have local moratoriums in place. In states that don’t, such as Florida and Missouri, there are specific rules on processing a case.
Either way, people can’t be pushed out of their homes immediately on Sunday. Landlords are required to follow a legal process, including giving notice to the tenant, waiting the notice period (which can be as short as 3 days), filing the eviction and then going to court. In some states, this process is done in weeks.
A crucial detail is that $47bn in rental assistance has been allocated to help renters and landlords, but only 6.5% of it had been distributed as of June.
Some landlords may wait it out for them or their renter to get this money, while others may decide to push the renter out, which could also be an opportunity to raise rent. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has details on the help still available to renters here.
Republican Jake Ellzey was sworn in as newest member of the Texas congressional delegation this morning.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi performed the ceremony, and Ellzey’s family was in Washington to witness the occasion.
Ellzey defeated Susan Wright, who received the endorsement of Donald Trump, in a special election on Tuesday.
Ellzey will fill the seat of the late congressman Ron Wright, who was married to Susan and died in February after testing positive for coronavirus. Wright had also lived with cancer for years before contracting the virus.
With Ellzey now officially sworn in, Democrats have a margin of just three seats in the House, meaning Pelosi needs the support of almost her entire caucus to pass legislation.
Harris to visit Singapore and Vietnam next month
Vice-president Kamala Harris will travel to Singapore and Vietnam next month, the White House has just announced.
According to a statement from Harris’s spokesperson, the vice-president’s trip is meant to “strengthen relationships and expand economic cooperation with two critical Indo-Pacific partners of the United States”.
“During the trip, the vice-president will engage the leaders of both governments on issues of mutual interest, including regional security, the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and our joint efforts to promote a rules-based international order,” spokesperson Symone Sanders said.
Sanders noted that Harris will be the first US vice-president to ever visit Vietnam.
Defense secretary Lloyd Austin was also in Singapore earlier this week, delivering a lecture on the need for the US to establish “a constructive, stable relationship with China”.
China will likely be a primary focus of discussions for Harris when she travels to Singapore and Vietnam as well.
Updated
When asked just now if House Democrats will bring an eviction moratorium bill to the floor today, speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “We will see.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “we will see” when asked if Democrats will bring the eviction moratorium bill to the floor today.
— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) July 30, 2021
Again, even if House Democrats can somehow manage to pass a bill today, it’s very unclear how the legislation will fare in the evenly divided Senate, which is busy working on the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
For months, Denise Forcer would get stressed just by opening her closet. The crush of belongings stuffed inside reminded her she didn’t know where she would go or what she would do if her landlord followed through with the eviction notices they kept posting on the door of her south Florida apartment.
“I thought I was going to have a breakdown, I really did,” Forcer, 51, told the Guardian. “I didn’t know when those people were going to come banging on my door or put up another paper.”
Forcer, like millions of other Americans, has been protected from eviction by a moratorium imposed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that expires at the end of this week. Unlike most of these renters, Forcer was able to pay off roughly three months of owed rent thanks to the $47bn in rental assistance the government allocated to stave off evictions.
But only 6.5% of that money has been delivered, and advocates are concerned evictions will rise next week when renters are suddenly on the hook for months, if not a year, of unpaid rent.
Roughly 12.7 million renters told the census in late June and early July that they had no or slight confidence in being able to make next month’s rent payment.
Joe Biden has called on Congress to extend the moratorium, indicating that he does not believe he has the ability to unilaterally do so.
Previous extensions have been granted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the supreme court ruled last month that any further extension would require congressional authorization.
In a statement yesterday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the President calls on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay.”
Congress scrambles to pass extension of eviction moratorium
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Congress is scrambling to pass an extension of the pandemic-related eviction moratorium, which is currently set to expire over the weekend.
Millions of Americans are at risk of possible eviction if the federal government allows the moratorium to expire.
In a letter sent to her House Democratic colleagues last night, speaker Nancy Pelosi said that extending the moratorium was a “moral imperative”.
The Democratic speaker noted that of the of the more than $46bn in rental assistance provided by the American Rescue Plan, only $3bn has been distributed.
“We in Congress have the opportunity – and the responsibility – to respect the dignity of those who have suffered so much in terms of their health, financial security and well-being,” Pelosi said.
The House rules committee is now meeting to discuss a potential extension. But even if House Democrats can somehow get the bill passed, it faces a very uncertain future in the evenly divided Senate, leaving millions of Americans in a terrifying limbo.
The blog will have more details coming up, so stay tuned.
