President Joe Biden is traveling to Wisconsin for a town hall event Tuesday evening to field questions about the pandemic, the economy and his plans for unifying a deeply divided nation, putting him face-to-face with voters for the first time since he took office.
The town hall, hosted by CNN at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, will feature a socially distanced audience, members of which will be able to ask Biden questions. The event marks an early test for Biden to make good on his inaugural speech promised to promote “unity” and be “a president for all Americans.”
The makeup of the town hall audience is unknown, but White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday afternoon that Biden picked Wisconsin because of the Badger State’s reputation as a political melting pot.
“Wisconsin is a state where clearly there are Democrats, Republicans, independents, as we saw from the final outcome of the vote in November — people who have different points of view on a range of issues,” Psaki told reporters in the White House briefing room. “The president felt that he could have a good conversation with people about the path forward, and also even people who disagree with him.”
Biden won Wisconsin by roughly 210,000 votes. It was one of six states where former President Donald Trump falsely insisted for months that election results were tainted by fraud and Democratic cheating.
Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package is likely to take center stage during the town hall.
The gargantuan relief measure, which could be passed by the House as early as next week, would bankroll $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans, renew soon-to-expire federal unemployment benefits at $400-per-week and provide billions of dollars for coronavirus vaccination efforts and billions more in budgetary relief for cash-strapped state and local governments.
But while polling shows the stimulus proposal is overwhelmingly popular among voters, Republicans on Capitol Hill have voiced near-unanimous opposition to appropriating another major round of COVID-19 relief.
The GOP resistance has prompted Democrats to pursue a budgetary option known as reconciliation that will allow them to pass Biden’s relief plan without any Republican support.
Biden has said he supports the reconciliation option, which could open him up to pointed questions at Tuesday’s town hall about how that go-it-alone attitude squares with his vow for bipartisanship and unity.
Seeking to dissuade such concerns, Psaki said at her briefing that Biden’s plan should be considered bipartisan because a “vast majority of the American people like what they see in this package.”
“That should be an indication — or should be noted by members of Congress,” she said.
Beyond the coronavirus-stricken economy, Biden could face questions about whether his Justice Department will pursue criminal charges against former President Donald Trump in light of the Senate acquitting him of the impeachment charge that he incited the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Even some Senate Republicans suggested after Trump’s Saturday acquittal that he should face criminal repercussions for stoking the Jan. 6 chaos.
Biden, however, has long said he won’t meddle in the Justice Department’s business, and that matters of prosecution will be left entirely up to Merrick Garland, his attorney general nominee, whose Senate confirmation hearing is set to start next week.
