Summary
- Joe Biden said the US has “more to do” to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. During a virtual meeting with a bipartisan group of governors this afternoon, the president announced that the ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft will be providing free rides to coronavirus vaccination centers starting 24 May.
- Dr Anthony Fauci said the country will soon “begin to return to normality” if vaccinations continue at their current pace. The president’s chief medical adviser made the comments during a Senate committee hearing on the coronavirus pandemic. “I feel confident that if we continue to vaccinate people at the rate that we’re doing, that we will very soon have a situation where we will have so few infections in this country, we will begin to return to normality that all of us desire so much,” Fauci said in his opening remarks.
- Senators sparred over voting restrictions during a hearing on Democrats’ election reform bill, the For the People Act. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of pushing “anti-democratic” measures to make it harder for people to vote, while minority leader Mitch McConnell claimed Democrats were staging a partisan takeover of state election systems.
- Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm discouraged Americans from “hoarding gasoline” following the ransomware attack on the Colonial pipeline. Granholm’s comments at the White House press briefing come amid reports of long lines at gas stations in some east coast states. The energy secretary said long lines were the result of a “supply crunch”, not a gasoline shortage. “Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline,” Granholm said.
Hugo Lowell reports:
House Democrats plan on Wednesday to unveil a $2.1bn supplemental bill to enhance security at the Capitol that will propose creating a quick reaction force to guard against future threats in the wake of the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The proposed bill will also include the construction of a retractable fencing system around the Capitol, the sources said.
Rose DeLauro, chair of the House appropriations committee, is expected to unveil the proposal to House Democrats on a caucus call on Wednesday, amid growing calls urging the adoption of recommendations made by a taskforce in the wake of the 6 January insurrection in which a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol.
No lawmakers were injured during the attack, but several, such as Senator Mitt Romney and former vice-president Mike Pence had only a narrow escape from attackers looking for them. Meanwhile, nearly 140 officers suffered injuries and one, Brian Sicknick, later died after being assaulted.
The proposed bill largely tracks recommendations made by retired Army Lt Gen Russel Honoré, who was appointed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to examine security shortcomings, as well as critical flaws identified by the US Capitol police inspector general, the sources said.
Read more:
How much? Mayoral hopefuls red-faced after guessing New York housing costs
With less than six weeks to New York’s mayoral primaries, two candidates have left themselves electorally vulnerable for vastly underestimating the median cost of buying a home or apartment in Brooklyn.
“In Brooklyn, huh? I don’t know for sure. I would guess it is around $100,000,” Shaun Donovan, housing and urban development secretary under former President Obama and housing commissioner under the former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, told the New York Times.
Donovan’s press secretary said later in a statement to the Hill that Donovan “misinterpreted the question and made a mistake”.
In the same set of endorsement-seeking interviews, Ray McGuire, a wealthy former Citigroup executive, guessed that the median sales price was “somewhere in the $80,000 to $90,000 range, if not higher”.
McGuire later said: “I messed up when accounting for the cost of housing in Brooklyn. I am human.”
The tech entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang guessed correctly, while two other candidates, Maya Wiley and the former NYC financial comptroller Scott Stringer, both guessed over $1m, with Wiley suggesting $1.8m.
Brooklyn’s median sales price is $900,000.
The housing-cost guesstimate game comes as voters in the city begin to engage with the choice of who will replace Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is stepping down after serving two terms.
This week, two of New York’s media outlets offered their endorsements – the New York Times picking the former sanitation department chief Kathryn Garcia, and the New York Post picking the former police officer Eric Adams.
Donovan and McGuire’s wild underestimation of housing costs, particularly in a borough where average individual income is about $32,000 and has, in parts, seen an affordable housing crisis develop as a result of rapid gentrification, was widely mocked on social media and by progressives.
“How could people running for mayor of the city not know this? Because most people want power, but few want responsibility,” podcast host Ashley C Ford posted on Twitter.
Read more:
Biden administration approves first major US offshore windfarm
Jillian Ambrose and Oliver Milman report:
Joe Biden’s administration has approved the construction of the US’s first large-scale offshore windfarm, with 84 turbines to be erected off the coast of Massachusetts.
The approval of the project, which will generate about 800 megawatts of energy, enough to power around 400,000 homes and businesses, is a boost to Biden’s agenda of ramping up renewable energy production across the US in order to confront the climate crisis.
The US has lagged behind other countries in offshore wind, despite its lengthy coastlines, but the Biden administration said the new Vineyard Wind project will be the first of many as it aims to generate 30 gigawatts of energy from offshore wind by 2030. Two other offshore proposals, located in New York, are also now under review.
“A clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States,” said Deb Haaland, secretary of the interior. “The approval of this project is an important step toward advancing the administration’s goals to create good-paying union jobs while combatting climate change and powering our nation.”
The $2.8bn development, a joint venture between energy firms Iberdrola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, will be located about 12 nautical miles from the shoreline of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The administration said the project will create 3,600 new jobs.
Jonathan Cole, the head of Iberdrola’s global offshore wind business, said the US government’s approval for Vineyard Wind was the project’s latest “watershed moment” for the US offshore wind industry.
The project surprised industry observers in 2018 by setting a record low price in a government auction to procure electricity. The lower than expected price, combined with its size, showed that offshore wind would “grow quicker than everyone thought, bigger than everyone thought, and cheaper than everyone thought”, Cole said.
Updated
New York mayor hopeful Andrew Yang said he was asked not to attend an Astoria event where he was meant to distribute groceries ahead of Eid, after his staunch pro-Israel stance amid the attacks and forced expulsions in East Jerusalem.
Yang has come under fire after tweeting yesterday: “I’m standing with the people of Israel who are coming under bombardment attacks, and condemn the Hamas terrorists. The people of NYC will always stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel who face down terrorism and persevere.”
But Yang failed to provide context for the Hamas attack that followed an Israeli government order that would forcibly expel six Palestinian families from generational homes. Amid escalating tension over the order, Israeli officers escalated violence, stormed a mosque, and wounded over 300 unarmed Palestinians.
When Israel and Hamas exchanged fire today, Israeli strikes killed at least 28 Palestinians including nine children in Gaza.
“Utterly shameful for Yang to try to show up to an Eid event after sending out a chest-thumping statement of support for a strike killing 9 children,” New York representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said.
Utterly shameful for Yang to try to show up to an Eid event after sending out a chest-thumping statement of support for a strike killing 9 children, especially after his silence as Al-Aqsa was attacked.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 11, 2021
But then to try that in Astoria? During Ramadan?! They will let you know. https://t.co/r721mHyfri
Despite heavy criticism, Yang hasn’t backed off his pro-Israel statement.
.@AndrewYang is confronted in Astoria by passersby upset over his pro-Israel tweet. He calls conflict in the Middle East “heartbreaking,” but doesn’t condemn Israeli airstrikes. pic.twitter.com/L0oAja66zR
— Emily Ngo (@emilyngo) May 11, 2021
Updated
Washington Post names new executive editor
The Washington Post has a new executive editor, replacing Marty Baron: it’s Sally Buzbee, formerly in the same role at the Associated Press.
Buzbee, 55, was previously the AP Washington bureau chief and before that Middle East editor, in an AP career stretching back to 1988.
The Post had been under pressure to avoid picking another white man. Cameron Barr and Steven Ginsburg, deputies to Baron, were reportedly among contenders to succeed him. Kevin Merida, an African American editor once of the Post but who moved to ESPN, was widely discussed but was named executive editor of the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.
The widely revered Baron led the Post from 2013, guiding a resurgence under the ownership of the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. Baron retired earlier this year at age 66. He is now working on a book about Trump, Bezos and the future of journalism. The Guardian understands the price tag for Baron’s book reached $1m.
Bezos, the richest man in the world, interviewed candidates in Washington last week. But Buzbee may find him to be a hands-off boss.
In March, Baron told the Guardian: “I don’t talk to him that much, to tell you the truth – hardly ever. It’s not like we have one-on-one conversations with any frequency whatsoever.
“He’s got a bunch of other interests. I’m sure he reads us closely but he just doesn’t get involved in the day-to-day of our newsroom. He has not questioned anything that we’ve written about Amazon or about him at all.”
On Tuesday Fred Ryan, the Post’s publisher and chief executive, said: “In an extensive search that included many of the best journalists in America, Sally stood out as the right person to lead the Post going forward. She is widely admired for her absolute integrity, boundless energy and dedication to the essential role journalism plays in safeguarding our democracy.”
In a statemen, Buzbee said she had been ‘blessed to have one of the best jobs in journalism, and I’m excited to take on a whole new challenge.
“The Post has a strong legacy, a committed staff, and is doing some of the most innovative work to engage new audiences.”
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Joe Biden said the US has “more to do” to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. During a virtual meeting with a bipartisan group of governors this afternoon, the president announced that the ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft will be providing free rides to coronavirus vaccination centers starting 24 May.
- Dr Anthony Fauci said the country will soon “begin to return to normality” if vaccinations continue at their current pace. The president’s chief medical adviser made the comments during a Senate committee hearing on the coronavirus pandemic. “I feel confident that if we continue to vaccinate people at the rate that we’re doing, that we will very soon have a situation where we will have so few infections in this country, we will begin to return to normality that all of us desire so much,” Fauci said in his opening remarks.
- Senators sparred over voting restrictions during a hearing on Democrats’ election reform bill, the For the People Act. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of pushing “anti-democratic” measures to make it harder for people to vote, while minority leader Mitch McConnell claimed Democrats were staging a partisan takeover of state election systems.
- Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm discouraged Americans from “hoarding gasoline” following the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline. Granholm’s comments at the White House press briefing come amid reports of long lines at gas stations in some east coast states. The energy secretary said long lines were the result of a “supply crunch”, not a gasoline shortage. “Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline,” Granholm said.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema has arrived at the White House for her meeting with Joe Biden, per CNN.
.@kyrstensinema has arrived at the White House for her meeting with Pres. Biden, per eagle eyed @nikkicarvajal pic.twitter.com/naNWelJIJU
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) May 11, 2021
The White House released a statement to the press pool earlier today saying that Biden and Sinema would meet to discuss the president’s infrastructure proposal.
“The President is hosting Senator Sinema at the White House today to discuss the American Jobs Act and the ongoing negotiations in Congress about investing in our infrastructure,” the White House said.
Along with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, Sinema is viewed as one of the most crucial votes for getting an infrastructure bill through Congress. Biden also met with Manchin yesterday.
The former acting defense secretary is expected to defend the Pentagon’s response to the 6 January insurrection tomorrow, when he testifies before the House oversight committee for a hearing on the Capitol attack.
The AP reports:
President Donald Trump’s acting defense secretary during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots plans to tell Congress that he was concerned in the days before the insurrection that sending troops to the building would fan fears of a military coup and could cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings, according to a copy of prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press.
Christopher Miller’s testimony is aimed at defending the Pentagon’s response to the chaos of the day and rebutting broad criticism that military forces were too slow to arrive even as pro-Trump rioters violently breached the building and stormed inside. He casts himself as a deliberate leader who was determined that the military have only limited involvement, a perspective he says was shaped by criticism of the aggressive response to the civil unrest that roiled American cities months earlier, as well as decades-old episodes that ended in violence. ...
He will also deny that Trump, criticized for failing to forcefully condemn the rioters, had any involvement in the Defense Department’s response and will say that Trump had even suggested that 10,000 troops might be needed for Jan. 6.
Miller is scheduled to testify tomorrow alongside former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and DC police chief Robert Contee III.
At past hearings on the insurrection, senior officials have blamed the violence at the Capitol on inadequate sharing of intelligence and delayed responses to the breaching of security barriers.
Updated
The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports on the latest voting restrictions in Arizona:
Arizona Republicans approved a closely-watched bill Tuesday that essentially ends a state practice allowing voters to permanently receive a mail-in ballot for each election if they choose to.
The new measure allows state officials to remove a voter from the list if they don’t vote by mail in two consecutive primary and general elections and respond to a mailer asking them if they want to remain on the list. State election officials estimated in February that around 200,000 voters would be affected in the state, which Joe Biden carried by around 10,000 votes in November.
The measure is the latest in a series of Republican efforts around the country to make it harder to vote, and specifically to make it more difficult to vote by mail. Those efforts come after record numbers of Americans cast mail-in ballots in 2020 and the US saw record high voter turnout. There is no evidence of voter fraud in mail-in voting or elsewhere in the US, but Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Florida, and Texas have all targeted it.
The measure, which now will head to Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk for approval, comes as Arizona has become a hotbed of the fight over voting rights in the US. Republicans in the state senate are currently conducting an ongoing audit of the 2020 race that many experts say is wrought with error and will only fuel doubts about the election.
Updated
Some House Republicans are reportedly raising questions about Elise Stefanik’s potential elevation to conference chair, citing some of her past moderate positions as cause for concern.
The criticism comes one day before the House Republican caucus is scheduled to vote on removing Liz Cheney as conference chair. Stefanik has already received Donald Trump’s endorsement to replace Cheney.
Politico reports:
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, sent a memo to every Republican office in the chamber arguing that Stefanik should not be serving in leadership. But Roy hardly embraced Cheney’s continued presence atop the conference, also asserting that the Wyoming Republican no longer deserves to be conference chair.
Despite multiple Freedom Caucus members privately expressing reluctance — if not outright opposition — to Stefanik over concerns about the New Yorker’s past moderate record, Roy is one of only a few House conservatives to take his criticism public. He focused his case against Stefanik on past votes that he contended should disqualify her from leading the conference on messaging.
‘We must avoid putting in charge Republicans who campaign as Republicans but then vote for and advance the Democrats’ agenda once sworn in -- that is, that we do not make the same mistakes that we did in 2017,’ Roy wrote in his memo, which was first obtained by POLITICO.
C-Span has footage of an extraordinary exchange earlier today between White House chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, over links – or not – between US federal health authorities and the laboratory in Wuhan, China which some believe caused the coronavirus pandemic:
Axios transcribed the “key exchanges”, thus:
Paul: “For years, Dr Ralph Baric, a virologist in the US, has been collaborating with Dr Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create superviruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the [National Institutes of Health (NIH)] ... Dr Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH lab in Wuhan?”
Fauci: “With all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect. The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Paul: “Do you fund Dr Baric’s gain-of-function research?”
Fauci: “Dr Baric is not doing gain-of-function research, and if it is, it is according to the guidelines and is being conducted in North Carolina.”
And…
Paul: “Will you categorically say that the Covid-19 could not have occurred through serial passage in a laboratory?”
Fauci: “I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I am fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China. However, I will repeat again, the NIH and [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)] categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
During Jen Psaki’s press briefing, a reporter noted that House minority leader Kevin McCarthy will be coming to the White House for an infrastructure meeting shortly after his caucus votes on whether to remove Liz Cheney from her role as conference chair.
The reporter asked Psaki whether the president considered excluding McCarthy from the meeting out of concern that Cheney’s ouster is undermining his presidency.
“The focus of this meeting is not on the future of the Republican party,” the White House press secretary said, expressing hope that McCarthy and other members of his party will be able to work with the president to find common ground on infrastructure.
Residents in Gaza City reported bombings on high-rise buildings, as families spent the night cowering in basements. On Tuesday evening, a 13-storey tower housing apartments and the offices of officials from Hamas, the Islamist group that rules inside Gaza, was hit by an Israeli airstrike and collapsed.
Residents had earlier been told to evacuate. In response, Hamas’s military wing said it had fired 130 rockets towards Tel Aviv, and air raid sirens and then explosions were heard in the coastal city.
The attacks began on Monday evening, when after weeks of intense violence in Jerusalem, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets towards the holy city, believed to be the first time it had targeted Jerusalem in more than seven years.
Gaza health officials earlier said seven members of a single family, including three children, had died in an explosion. It was not clear if the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike or a rocket that landed short.
Medics in Israel said more than 25 civilians were being treated following rocket fire, including those wounded from broken glass and shrapnel. Militants had fired at least 250 rockets toward Israel, many of which were intercepted but some made direct hits on apartment buildings. One hit an empty school. The national ambulance service, Magen David Adom, said rocket strikes killed two women in the southern city of Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon.
The White House press secretary said Joe Biden has been briefed daily on the escalating violence in Jerusalem.
Jen Psaki emphasized that the president and his administration “believe Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity”.
The press secretary added that administration officials have “spoken candidly” with Israeli officials in recent weeks about the negative impact that evictions of Palestinian families have on regional stability.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to increase the intensity of attacks on Gaza, which have already killed 30 people -- 28 Palestinians and two Israelis.
Energy secretary urges Americans against 'hoarding gasoline' after pipeline attack
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm and homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas joined Psaki in the briefing room.
The two cabinet secretaries provided updates on fallout from the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, amid reports of long lines at gas stations in some east coast states.
“Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline.”
— The Recount (@therecount) May 11, 2021
— Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Colonial Pipeline cyberattack. pic.twitter.com/2ACNKBE7Yk
“Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline,” Granholm told reporters.
The energy secretary emphasized that there should be no serious reason for concern about a gasoline shortage, particularly given that the pipeline is expected to be “substantially operational” by the end of this week.
Granholm said the long lines are the result of a “supply crunch” rather than a shortage, and that crunch is expected to most directly impact North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and southern Virginia.
NBC reports that Donald Trump’s much-trumpeted new online platform – From the Desk of Donald J Trump, meant to fill the void left by his ejection from Twitter and Facebook but in NBC’s words “essentially a blog” – is … not exactly setting the internet alight, let alone breaking it.
The ex-president’s blog has drawn a considerably smaller audience than his once-powerful social media accounts, according to engagement data compiled with BuzzSumo, a social media analytics company. The data offers a hint that while Trump remains a political force, his online footprint is still dependent on returning to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The Desk of Donald J Trump is limited – users can’t comment or engage with the actual posts beyond sharing them to other platforms, an action few people do, according to the data.
Trump’s new blog has attracted a little over 212,000 engagements, defined as backlinks and social interactions – including likes, shares and comments – across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit.
Before the ban, a single Trump tweet was typically liked and retweeted hundreds of thousands of times.
Here’s more on the subject, from David Smith in Washington and under a gloriously blunt headline from the top operatives on the Guardian US subs desk in New York:
Trump family members got too close to Secret Service agents – book
Two Trump family members got “inappropriately – and perhaps dangerously – close” to agents protecting them while Donald Trump was president, according to a new book on the US Secret Service.
Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, by the Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, is published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Leonnig writes that Secret Service agents reported that Vanessa Trump, the wife of the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr, “started dating one of the agents who had been assigned to her family”.
Vanessa Trump filed for an uncontested divorce in March 2018. Leonnig reports that the agent concerned did not face disciplinary action as neither he nor the agency were official guardians of Vanessa Trump at that point.
Leonnig also writes that Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter with his second wife, Marla Maples, broke up with a boyfriend and “began spending an unusual amount of time alone with a Secret Service agent on her detail”.
Leonnig reports that it was not clear if Donald Trump knew what Secret Service personnel were saying about his daughter and daughter-in-law.
But she says the president did repeatedly seek to remove Secret Service staff he deemed to be overweight or too short for the job.
“I want these fat guys off my detail,” Trump is reported to have said, possibly confusing office-based personnel with active agents. “How are they going to protect me and my family if they can’t run down the street?”
Utah Governor Spencer Cox celebrated the news that those between the ages of 12 and 15 can now receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine in the US.
During Joe Biden’s virtual meeting with several governors, Cox noted that Utah has the lowest average age for state residents, so the new authorization will have a major impact there.
“Mr President, we’re really good at having kids here,” Cox joked.
Cox also encouraged the Biden administration to provide more recommendations on what fully vaccinated people can safely do because he argued it would spur more people to get their shots.
“We have fully vaccinated people, we should start acting like it,” Cox said. “That’s a big motivation.”
Biden agreed with Cox’s point and said he expected the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to unveil more recommendations in the coming weeks.
“We’ve gone a little slower to make sure we’re exactly right,” Biden said. “We’re going to be moving on that in the next little bit.”
Some of the governors participating in Joe Biden’s virtual meeting outlined the unique steps their states have taken to encourage residents to get their coronavirus vaccines.
Janet Mills, the Democratic governor of Maine, noted her state is providing incentives like free fishing or hunting licenses to the newly vaccinated.
Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, explained that his administration is placing an emphasis on walk-up clinics to make it as easy as possible to get vaccinated. DeWine also said he has seen a high level of interest in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because Ohioans want to be done after one shot.
Biden announces Uber and Lyft to provide free rides to vaccination sites
Meeting with a bipartisan group of governors, Joe Biden outlined some of the innovative steps his administration is taking to encourage people to get vaccinated.
“Americans from every walk of life are getting their vaccines, but we got more to do though,” Biden said.
We’re working hard to ensure transportation is less of a barrier when it comes to getting a COVID-19 vaccine. And I’m excited to share that starting May 24th, Uber and Lyft will offer everyone in America free rides to vaccination sites.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 11, 2021
The Biden administration announced today that the ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft will provide free rides to vaccination sites starting May 24 to make it easier for people to get their shots. The program will run until July 4.
The administration also announced that high-enrollment community colleges will serve as vaccination sites, and more funding is being made available to help state and local governments’ vaccination outreach campaigns.
Updated
Biden meets with bipartisan group of governors
Joe Biden is now holding a virtual meeting with a bipartisan group of six governors, and he opened the conversation by discussing the need to continue administering coronavirus vaccines.
The president noted that 150 million Americans have now received at least their first shot. Biden has set a goal of having 70% of American adults with at least one shot by July 4.
“Millions of Americans are starting to live life more normally after more than a year of sacrifice,” the president said.
Biden applauded the governors for pursuing innovative ways to get people in their states vaccinated, and he emphasized the importance of keeping up those efforts.
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Joe Biden will soon meet with a bipartisan group of governors to discuss the US economy. The meeting comes amid disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over how to pay for an infrastructure bill.
- Dr Anthony Fauci said the country will soon “begin to return to normality” if vaccinations continue at their current pace. The president’s chief medical adviser made the comments during a Senate committee hearing on the coronavirus pandemic. “Based on experience thus far in this country and globally, I feel confident that if we continue to vaccinate people at the rate that we’re doing, that we will very soon have a situation where we will have so few infections in this country, we will begin to return to normality that all of us desire so much,” Fauci said in his opening remarks.
- Senators sparred over voting restrictions during a hearing on Democrats’ election reform bill, the For the People Act. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of pushing “anti-democratic” measures to make it harder for people to vote, while minority leader Mitch McConnell claimed Democrats were staging a partisan takeover of state election systems.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
The AP reports:
The Biden administration is holding tens of thousands of asylum-seeking children in an opaque network of some 200 facilities that the Associated Press has learned spans two dozen states and includes five shelters with more than 1,000 children packed inside.
Confidential data obtained by the AP shows the number of migrant children in government custody more than doubled in the past two months, and this week the federal government was housing around 21,000 kids, from toddlers to teens.
A facility at Fort Bliss, a US army post in El Paso, Texas, had more than 4,500 children as of Monday. Attorneys, advocates and mental health experts say that while some shelters are safe and provide adequate care, others are endangering children’s health and safety.
“It’s almost like ‘Groundhog Day’,” said the Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Luz Lopez, referring to the 1993 film in which events appear to be continually repeating.
A US Department of Health and Human Services spokesman, Mark Weber, said the department’s staff and contractors were working hard to keep children in their custody safe and healthy.
Joe Biden is meeting today with Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema to discuss his infrastructure plan, as the president urges Congress to pass his $2.3 trillion proposal.
“The President is hosting Senator Sinema at the White House today to discuss the American Jobs Act and the ongoing negotiations in Congress about investing in our infrastructure,” the White House told the press pool.
Biden also met yesterday with Joe Manchin, another key Senate Democrat who will be crucial to the passage of an infrastructure bill.
The White House said in a readout of that meeting, “President Biden enjoyed speaking with Senator Manchin about the American Jobs Plan and their shared goal of rebuilding our country, especially when it comes to investing in rural communities.”
Joe Biden will travel to Dearborn, Michigan, next Tuesday, the White House has just announced in a statement.
The president will visit Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center and will likely promote his infrastructure plan, which includes extensive funding for electric vehicles.
Several of the president’s cabinet secretaries have held similar events at electric car charging stations to emphasize the need to expand America’s electric vehicle infrastructure and decrease US greenhouse gas emissions.
The only woman in Republican Senate leadership complained about cancel culture on Monday, regarding the imminent removal of Liz Cheney, the only woman in Republican House leadership, because she opposes Donald Trump’s big lie that the presidential election was stolen.
The Iowa senator Joni Ernst told reporters: “I feel it’s OK to go ahead and express what you feel is right to express and, you know, cancel culture is cancel culture no matter how you look at it.
“Unfortunately, I think there are those that are trying to silence others in the party.”
“Cancel culture” has become a shibboleth of the modern Republican party, repeatedly invoked when public figures become embroiled in controversy regarding opinions or statements deemed to be racist, sexist or otherwise unacceptable.
As expected, Republican Senator Rand Paul clashed with Dr Anthony Fauci during the Senate committee hearing on the coronavirus pandemic.
Paul, who indicated yesterday that he would be confrontational with the president’s chief medical adviser, repeatedly pressed Fauci on whether he still supports the National Institutes of Health providing funding to the lab in Wuhan that has been blamed (without evidence) for creating the coronavirus.
“Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute,” Fauci said.
"Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan institute" -- Dr. Fauci pic.twitter.com/6KP6PeoURz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 11, 2021
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell pushed back against majority leader Chuck Schumer’s comments about the For the People Act, accusing Democrats of staging a partisan takeover of state election systems.
“The truth is simple,” McConnell said at the Senate rules committee hearing. “Our democracy is not in crisis, and we aren’t going to let one party take over our democracy under the false pretense of saving it.”
McConnell accused Democrats of trying to “hot-wire our democracy” to give themselves an unfair advantage in future elections.
Senate Republicans appear to be unanimously against the election reform bill, meaning it cannot pass the upper chamber unless the filibuster is eliminated.
Democrats and Republicans clash at hearing on election reform bill
The Senate rules committee has started its hearing to mark up the For the People Act, Democrats’ election reform bill.
Republicans have indicated they will ardently oppose the legislation, and the hearing unsurprisingly started off with some sparring between Democratic chair Amy Klobuchar and Republican ranking member Roy Blunt over how to handle amendments to the bill.
The hearing has also featured rare appearances from the Senate majority and minority leaders, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Mitch McConnell.
Sen. Schumer on GOP voting restrictions: "Don't tell us these laws are about voter fraud. You are more likely in America to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud... These laws are about one thing, and one thing alone: Making it harder for Americans to vote." pic.twitter.com/JI87HNx500
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 11, 2021
In his comments at the hearing, Schumer fiercely criticized Republican proposals in dozens of states to restrict voting access, comparing such tactics to those of dictators.
Schumer also dismissed false claims from Republican leaders, namely Donald Trump, that recent elections have been tainted by widespread voter fraud.
“Don’t tell us these laws are about voter fraud. You are more likely in America to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud,” Schumer said.
“These laws are about one thing, and one thing alone: making it harder for Americans to vote. They are reprehensible in my judgment. They are anti-democratic in the judgment of most. And they carry the stench of oppression.”
Schumer went on to criticize Republicans for punishing Liz Cheney, who has correctly said that Joe Biden legitimately won the presidential election. Cheney is expected to be ousted as House Republican conference chair tomorrow.
“Liz Cheney spoke truth to power, and for that, she is being fired,” Schumer said.
US will soon 'begin to return to normality' if vaccinations continue, Fauci says
Dr Anthony Fauci expressed confidence that the US will soon “begin to return to normality” if vaccinations continue at their current pace.
The president’s chief medical adviser offered the optimistic assessment while testifying before the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee alongside other senior administration officials.
"I feel confident that if we continue to vaccinate people at the rate that we're doing, that we will very soon have a situation where we will have so few infections in this country, we will begin to return to nomality that all of us desire so much" -- Fauci pic.twitter.com/YXZJZvndyT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 11, 2021
“Based on experience thus far in this country and globally, I feel confident that if we continue to vaccinate people at the rate that we’re doing, that we will very soon have a situation where we will have so few infections in this country, we will begin to return to normality that all of us desire so much,” Fauci said in his opening remarks.
As of today, the US has administered 261,599,381 vaccine shots, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. About 35% of the US population is now fully vaccinated, and 46% of Americans have received at least their first dose.
Joe Biden has set a goal of getting 70% of American adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4.
Updated
Donald Trump has endorsed Glenn Youngkin, the political newcomer who won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Virginia last night.
“Glenn is pro-Business, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Veterans, pro-America, he knows how to make Virginia’s economy rip-roaring, and he has my Complete and Total Endorsement|” the former president said in a statement released by his political action committee.
Youngkin defeated state Senator Amanda Chase, who tried to win the primary by embracing Trump and his false claims of widespread fraud in the presidential election.
Youngkin did not go to the same lengths that Chase did to align himself with Trump, but he spoke favorably of the former president and made “election integrity” a top focus of his campaign.
Republicans hope that Youngkin’s status as a political outsider will allow them to win the Virginia governor’s mansion for the first time since 2009.
Youngkin, a former CEO of the Carlyle Group investment firm, has also already used his wealth to help finance his campaign, which could help him in the general election.
Dr Anthony Fauci has arrived on Capitol Hill to testify at a hearing before the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee.
Fauci arrives for Senate COVID-19 response hearing. pic.twitter.com/QCi5rkza2w
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) May 11, 2021
The president’s chief medical adviser will be testifying alongside Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fauci has previously clashed with one member of the committee, Republican Rand Paul, and Paul seemed to indicate yesterday that he was planning for another confrontation at the hearing.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s hearing, Dr. Fauci! https://t.co/xhSYueaCXe
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 10, 2021
Biden picks Rahm Emanuel as US ambassador to Japan
The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports:
Joe Biden has picked former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel to be his ambassador to Japan.
The selection ends months of speculation over whether Barack Obama’s first chief of staff, a former congressman and longtime Democratic operative, would be nominated to an administration role.
In the first days of the Biden presidency Emanuel, 61, was mentioned as a possible secretary of transportation. Biden ended up picking Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ran strongly in the Democratic presidential primary.
Some progressives view Emanuel as a major antagonist within the party. He is often criticized among liberals, for example, for his handling of a shooting of an African American teenager during his time in Chicago.
Emanuel served two terms as mayor but opted not to run a third time, in the face of a potentially brutal campaign.
His selection as ambassador was first reported by the Financial Times. The Guardian confirmed it on Tuesday.
More than 1 million Americans have signed up for health insurance since Joe Biden opened a special enrollment period through the Affordable Care Act on February 15.
“That’s one million more Americans who now have the peace of mind that comes from having health insurance,” the president said in a statement released this morning. “One million more Americans who don’t have to lie awake at night worrying about what happens if they or one of their family members gets sick. Through this opportunity for special enrollment, we have made enormous progress in expanding access to health insurance.”
Biden encouraged Americans who still do not have health insurance coverage to sign up before the special enrollment period ends on August 15.
The president also argued that the interest in the special enrollment period demonstrated the need to make the premium reductions included in his coronavirus relief package permanent by passing his American Families Plan.
“Today’s milestone demonstrates that there is a need and a demand for high quality, affordable health insurance across this country,” Biden said. “It is up to Congress to hear them, and act quickly to pass the American Families Plan.”
The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports on the extensive Republican efforts to save the Senate filibuster:
While congressional Democrats hope to make dramatic changes to a controversial legislative tool that has stalled bills in the Senate and could be used to frustrate Joe Biden’s ambitious agenda, Republicans are mounting an all-out defense to protect it.
Conservative outside groups have been organizing overtly and covertly to counter Democratic pressure to gut the filibuster – a Senate device that in effect allows the minority party to halt proposed legislation.
While Democrats have been struggling to unite members of their Senate caucus, especially the more centrist holdouts, to get rid of the filibuster, their Republican counterparts have been lockstep in opposing changes.
Meanwhile, Republican outside groups have churned out polling, aired ads, organized gatherings and released statements warning of the long-term consequences of changing the rule. It is a concerted program that Republicans see as vital to preserving their power in the Biden era, while Democrats see it as a potential threat to their attempts to bring in meaningful legislation.
The cause has reunited Republicans after the divisiveness of the Trump era – bringing together business interests, Trumpist politicians and their anti-Trump opponents in the party, as well traditional big donors to conservative causes.
Biden to meet with bipartisan group of governors amid infrastructure campaign
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Joe Biden will hold a virtual meeting with a bipartisan group of governors today, as the president pushes Congress to pass his infrastructure plan.
The meeting comes as Democrats and Republicans continue to clash over the specifics of Biden’s proposal, particularly how to pay for the $2.3 trillion package.
Over the weekend, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell seemed to indicate he was willing to go slightly higher on the overall cost of the package, but he remains adamantly opposed to rolling back Trump-era tax cuts to help pay for it. And McConnell’s top-line price of $800 billion is still probably not enough for Democrats.
“The president’s red lines are inaction and are anything that would raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said yesterday.
She added, “There is agreement about the need to modernize our infrastructure, about the need to do more to create jobs in the economy. And he’s looking forward to hearing what additional ideas they may have.”
Biden may hear some of those ideas from Republican governors this afternoon. Stay tuned.
