Politics recap
- Joe Biden toured New Jersey and New York neighborhoods impacted by Hurricane Ida. Delivering remarks in Queens, the president said the dangerous flooding caused by Ida demonstrated the threat that climate change poses. “People are beginning to realize this is much, much bigger than anyone was willing to believe,” Biden said in Queens. “Even the climate skeptics are seeing that this really does matter.”
- The Biden administration requested $30bn in additional funding to respond to natural disasters and resettle Afghan refugees. As Congress prepares to craft a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government funded past the end of the month, the administration asked for $24bn to respond to Hurricane Ida and other recent extreme weather events, while also requesting $6.4bn to process and transport Afghan refugees who fled their country last month.
- Republican governor Greg Abbott signed a highly controversial voting bill in Texas. The law will prohibit 24-hour and drive-through voting, making it even harder to access the ballot box in a state that already has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the country. The signing of the bill ends a weeks-long standoff between Democratic and Republican state legislators over the proposal.
- House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she disagreed with Democratic senator Joe Manchin’s call for a “strategic pause” in negotiations over the $3.5tn spending package. “Well, obviously I don’t agree,” Pelosi said on Capitol Hill. “I’m pretty excited about where we are. Everybody’s working very hard. The committees are doing their work. We’re on a good timetable.” Manchin penned an op-ed last week expressing concern about the price tag of the budget bill, raising concerns that it will not pass the evenly divided Senate.
– Joan E Greve
Updated
An editorial co-published by more than 200 medical and health journals asserting that global heating will cause “catastrophic harm to health”.
The editorial said that the climate crisis was the “greatest threat to global public health”.
“The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5C above the preindustrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse,” it reads. “Indeed, no temperature rise is ‘safe’.”
Authors of the piece included the editors the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.
They mentioned both direct and indirect health risks brought on by global heating. Increasingly severe heat and higher temperatures have triggered “increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality”, they said.
More broadly, the effects of climate change on agriculture will drive up malnutrition, they said. And the loss of biodiversity will increase the chance of pandemics.
“We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory,” the authors wrote.
Updated
Hurricane Larry is expected to send rip currents along the East Coast, but isn’t expected to make landfall.
Hurricane #Larry Advisory 29: Large Larry Still a Major Hurricane. Likely to Produce Dangerous Swells Over the Western Atlantic Coast This Week. https://t.co/VqHn0u1vgc
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 7, 2021
The storm intensified to a category 3 hurricane on Friday.
A number of hurricanes and tropical storms have been battering the US and Caribbean. In addition to Ida, there was Julian and Kate – as well as Tropical Storm Fred and Hurricane Grace.
“Folks, the evidence is clear: Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy,” Biden said today, after surveying the damage from Ida. “And the threat is here; it’s not going to get any better. The question: Can it get worse? We can stop it from getting worse.”
Updated
Mexico’s supreme court rules criminal penalties for abortion unconstitutional
Mexico’s supreme court has struck down a state abortion law, ruling that criminal penalties for terminating pregnancies are unconstitutional, in a decision which advocates say provides a path to decriminalisation across the country.
The ruling contrasts sharply with recent actions in the United States to restrict abortion access – most notably across the border from Coahuila in Texas, where legislation – upheld by the US supreme court – bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy and allows citizens to pursue legal actions against women seeking a termination.
In a unanimous 10-0 ruling, Mexico’s top court ordered the northern state of Coahuila to remove sanctions for abortion from its criminal code – with several justices arguing the prohibitions on voluntarily interrupting a pregnancy violated women’s rights to control their own bodies.
“It is not about the right to abortion,” said justice Luis María Aguilar, who wrote the court’s opinion for overturning the Coahuila law. “It’s rather the right to decide of women and persons able to gestate to make decisions.”
The decision continues a trend in Latin America towards decriminalization as women waving green handkerchiefs have thronged the streets across the continent to demand action on abortion access and gender violence.
Mexico follows Argentina, where lawmakers voted in December to decriminalise abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
Tuesday’s ruling continues a trend from Mexico’s supreme court to rule in favour of petitions brought by women seeking abortions for health reasons or due to sexual assault.
It also turns back a spate of state-level attempts over the past dozen years to restrict abortion through constitutional amendments.
Read more:
The children of 9/11: haunted by their fathers’ last hours, some dread the anniversary
Robyn Higley has always hated September. It’s the month when everything bad happens, when her spirits, generally so bright and bubbly the rest of the year, grow bleak and deflated.
She feels sad in September. Though she doesn’t fully understand why.
As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, she knows that this September is going to be worse than even the 19 others she has lived through. The media will endlessly reprise that terrible day, there will be an outpouring of patriotic fervor and emoting, and she will be even more on show than in previous years.
“I do not like it all,” she said. “Yes I get it, the 20th is a big thing. But there’s so much expectation of how I’m supposed to feel. People expect this grieving little girl who’s so heartbroken. But I’m almost 20 years old, I’m grown up now.”
It’s complicated being Robyn Higley around 9/11. How should she grieve for the father whom she never met? What should she make of the label that has been pinned to her throughout her life – “9/11 baby” – when she herself was not even there on that tragic day?
On 11 September 2001 her father, Robert Higley – Robbie as he was known to all – went to work on the 92nd floor of the south tower of New York’s World Trade Center. An insurance executive, he had started a new job three months before and was excited that day to have been asked to step up as acting manager.
When the north tower was struck at 8.46am, Robbie called his wife Vycki and told her that something had happened in the other building but that he was fine. “It was an agonizingly short conversation when I look back on it now,” Vycki Higley said.
It took Vycki time to piece together what happened next. Her husband helped evacuate 12 of his colleagues, ushering them into an elevator that was one of the last to reach the ground floor before United Airlines flight 175 slammed into the south tower at 9.03am.
Robbie didn’t make it out. He chose not to get into the elevator because he wanted to “do the managerial thing”, Vycki said, and make sure everyone else was all right.
Vycki was left a widow on 9/11, a single mother caring for her four-year-old daughter Amanda. She was also heavily pregnant with Robyn.
By the time Robyn was born seven weeks later, on 3 November 2001, the “9/11 baby” was already a celebrity. Such was the level of interest in her as a newborn victim of the twin towers attacks that a camera crew from ABC News’ 20/20 was present in the delivery room at her birth.
“It was hilarious,” Robyn said. “When my mom went into labour she got to the hospital and found ABC News already waiting for her.”
Robyn Higley is one of 105 children who were in the womb when their fathers were killed in the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. As a member of this exceptionally rarified club, she entered the world and grew up in an environment in which her identity had already been set for her.
Read more:
Nearly 300% more Covid patients in US hospitals at weekend than a year ago
The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the US this Labor Day weekend was nearly 300% higher than this time last year, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The average number of deaths was over 86% higher than the same period last year.
The surge in patients comes as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread across the US, and coincided with a weekend that saw a spike in travel. According to the Transportation Security Administration, more than 3.5 million people travelled across the country on Friday and Saturday for the Labor Day holiday, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation for unvaccinated people to refrain from traveling.
Hospitalizations and deaths are a lagging indicator of Covid spread, so the impact of people’s travels this week will not be clear right away, but the agency is continuing to advise caution.
“We have actually articulated that people who are fully vaccinated and who are wearing masks can travel,” said Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, last week. “Although given where we are with disease transmission right now, we would say that people need to take their own – these risks – into their own consideration as they think about traveling,” she added.
This past weekend saw 1.146m weekly cases, compared with 287,235 last year. Despite the decline in cases in certain states including Florida, other states such as Idaho are seeing hospitals begin to ration healthcare amid patient surges.
Read more:
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 toured New Jersey and New York neighborhoods impacted by Hurricane Ida. Delivering remarks in Queens moments ago, the president said the dangerous flooding caused by Ida demonstrated the threat that climate change poses. “People are beginning to realize, this is much, much bigger than anyone was willing to believe,” Biden said in Queens. “Even the climate skeptics are seeing that this really does matter.”
- The Biden administration requested $30bn in additional funding to respond to natural disasters and resettle Afghan refugees. As Congress prepares to craft a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government funded past the end of the month, the administration asked for $24bn to respond to Hurricane Ida and other recent extreme weather events, while also requesting $6.4bn to process and transport Afghan refugees who fled their country last month.
- Republican governor Greg Abbott signed a highly controversial voting bill in Texas. The law will prohibit 24-hour and drive-thru voting, making it even harder to access the ballot box in a state that already has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the country. The signing of the bill ends a weeks-long standoff between Democratic and Republican state legislators over the proposal.
- House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she disagreed with Democratic senator Joe Manchin’s call for a “strategic pause” in negotiations over the $3.5tn spending package. “Well, obviously I don’t agree,” Pelosi said on Capitol Hill. “I’m pretty excited about where we are. Everybody’s working very hard. The committees are doing their work. We’re on a good timetable.” Manchin penned an op-ed last week expressing concern about the price tag of the budget bill, raising concerns that it will not pass the evenly divided Senate.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Joe Biden criticized lawmakers who have pushed back against his administration’s efforts to respond to the climate crisis.
Speaking in Queens after touring hurricane-impacted neighborhoods in New York and New Jersey, Biden said that witnessing the devastation from the storm was “an eyeopener”.
“The people who stand on the other side of the fences, who don’t live there, who are yelling that we’re interfering with free enterprise by doing something about climate change — they don’t live there. They don’t understand,” Biden said.
The president called on Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who spoke before him, to help him get his Build Back Better agenda through Congress to ensure the nation is better prepared for extreme weather events like hurricanes.
“The nation and the world are in peril. That’s not hyperbole. That is a fact,” Biden said. “They’ve been warning us that extreme weather would get more extreme over the decade, and we’re living it in real time now.”
After concluding his prepared remarks, Biden wrapped up the event without taking questions from reporters.
Biden emphasizes danger of climate crisis after touring Ida-impacted neighborhoods
Joe Biden is now delivering remarks on the federal government’s response to Hurricane Ida and other extreme weather events, which have become more intense and more frequent because of the climate crisis.
Reflecting upon his tour of Ida-impacted neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York, Biden noted he also visited Louisiana last week to see how the hurricane devastated that state. The president will soon travel to California to witness the effects of recent wildfires as well.
“People are beginning to realize, this is much, much bigger than anyone was willing to believe,” Biden said in Queens. “Even the climate skeptics are seeing that this really does matter.”
Updated
Joe Biden is now holding an event in Queens, New York, to outline his administration’s efforts to respond to Hurricane Ida and other extreme weather events, which have become more common because of the climate crisis.
The first speaker at the event was Kathy Hochul, who took over as New York governor late last month, after Andrew Cuomo stepped down over allegations of sexual harassment.
Hochul introduced herself by saying, “I’m New York state governor Kathy Hochul, and this is my second week on the job.” That line got some laughs from the small assembled crowd in Queens.
Hochul noted that the rainfall caused by Ida broke a record that had been set just 10 days earlier. “Ladies and gentlemen, that is the definition of a climate crisis,” Hochul said. “We are experiencing a climate crisis as we speak.”
Joe Biden is now touring a neighborhood in Queens, New York, that was severely impacted by the flooding from Hurricane Ida last week.
The president was joined on the tour by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others.
Biden is expected to soon deliver remarks on hurricane response efforts, so stay tuned.
Taliban name all-male Afghan cabinet including minister wanted by FBI
The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Akhtar Mohammad Makoii report:
The Taliban have announced an all-male caretaker government including an interior minister wanted by the FBI, on a day when at least two people were killed by violent policing of street protests against the new authorities.
The leadership unveiled on Tuesday is drawn entirely from Taliban ranks, despite promises of an inclusive cabinet, and many of its senior figures are on UN sanctions lists, which is likely to complicate the group’s search for international recognition.
Afghanistan will once more be officially known as an Islamic emirate, as it was under Taliban rule in the 1990s, and its chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, will be supreme leader.
The Taliban have also brought back the ministry for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, a notorious enforcement body that was one of the most hated institutions when they last controlled Afghanistan. Its main function was to police the Taliban’s extreme interpretation of Islamic law.
The prime minister will be Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, one of the founding members of the group who was close to its original leader, one-eyed Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Jill Biden went back to work today, while her husband the president toured the flood-hit north-east.
The first lady spent months teaching writing and English remotely before Tuesday’s return to teaching in person at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has worked since 2009.
Biden, 70, is the first first lady to leave the White House to log hours at a full-time job.
“Teaching,” she has said, “isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am.”
Here’s more on the subject, from David Smith in Washington:
One New Jersey family told the president that they lost all their belongings after their home burned and exploded following the flooding from Hurricane Ida.
The couple were able to escape the home with their infant daughter, but they now must rebuild from scratch.
“Thank God you’re safe,” Biden told the family.
President Biden met with a NJ family whose home burned and exploded after the flooding. They escaped with their infant daughter but lost all their belongings. Watch short video clip of their visit. pic.twitter.com/hn0orAUwc6
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) September 7, 2021
Joe Biden toured one of the neighborhoods in Manville, New Jersey, that was severely impacted by flooding from Hurricane Ida last week.
The president was seen shaking hands and chatting with residents who had been forced to remove belongings from their homes because of flood damage.
President Biden tours Hurricane Ida damage in Manville, NJ.
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 7, 2021
Full video here: https://t.co/4Rs7mycXRT pic.twitter.com/a8xiS0I896
Updated
Biden calls on Congress to approve $24bn in funds for disaster response after Ida
The Biden administration is calling on Congress to appropriate more funds for disaster response and Afghan refugee resettlement in its short-term continuing resolution.
In a new statement, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young, acknowledged that Congress likely have to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded past the end of the month.
“At the same time, we are also calling on Congress to include additional funding in a CR to help address two other urgent needs: responding to recent and ongoing natural disasters, and meeting our commitments to our Afghan allies and partners,” Young said.
“Specifically, we urge Congress to appropriate over $14 billion as part of a CR to address the natural disasters that occurred prior to Hurricane Ida. We fully expect that Hurricane Ida will significantly increase the need for further disaster response funding, by at least $10 billion.”
Young also requested $6.4bn in funds to “meet our commitments to Afghan allies and partners,” as the US government seeks to resettle tens of thousands of Afghan refugees.
If approved, the funds would support refugee processing centers overseas and cover transportation costs as approved Afghans make their way to the US.
Young’s statement comes as Joe Biden tours neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York that were severely impacted by flooding caused by Hurricane Ida.
The restrictive new Texas voting law is not the only piece of Lone Star legislation attracting condemnation today.
United Nations human rights monitors have strongly condemned the state for its new anti-abortion law, which they say violates international law by denying women control over their own bodies and endangering their lives.
In damning remarks to the Guardian, Melissa Upreti, the chair of the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls, criticized the new Texas law, SB8, as “structural sex and gender-based discrimination at its worst”.
She warned that the legislation, which bans abortions at about six weeks, could force abortion providers underground and drive women to seek unsafe procedures that could prove fatal.
“This new law will make abortion unsafe and deadly, and create a whole new set of risks for women and girls. It is profoundly discriminatory and violates a number of rights guaranteed under international law,” the human rights lawyer from Nepal said.
Upreti, one of five independent experts charged by the UN human rights council in Geneva to push for elimination of discrimination against women and girls around the world, was also sharply critical of the US supreme court.
Last week the court’s rightwing majority decided by a 5-4 vote to allow the Texas law to go ahead, despite its blatant disregard of the court’s own 1973 ruling legalizing abortion in the US, Roe v Wade.
“The law and the way it came about – through the refusal of the US supreme court to block it based on existing legal precedent – has not only taken Texas backward, but in the eyes of the international community, it has taken the entire country backward,” Upreti said.
Updated
Biden in Jersey: 'Climate change was here'
A long way from Texas in New Jersey, of course, Joe Biden is still touring areas hit by flooding unleashed by the remnants of Hurricane Ida last week.
Here’s a taste of what the president said just now in New Jersey: “For decades, scientists have warned of extreme weather … and climate change was here. And we’re living through it now. We don’t have any more time … We’re at one of those inflection points where we either act, or we’re gonna be in real, real trouble.”
He’ll find receptive audiences for such rhetoric in Jersey and across the Hudson River in New York, where he’s due to speak later today. State and local leaders have been very clear about what such extreme weather events mean about the new normal.
Here’s our southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, reporting on the fallout from Hurricane Ida further south, in Louisiana:
Statements are coming in from opponents of the new Texas voting law. Here are some edited versions of some of them:
- Derrick Johnson, president, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: “Black votes were suppressed today. Texas governor Greg Abbott has intentionally signed away democracy for so many. We are disgusted. This voter suppression bill is undemocratic, unAmerican and even violates core conservative principles. While Greg Abbott and many other governors have confirmed over and over how far they are willing to go to attack Black voters, we will continue to fight twice as hard to defend the right to vote.”
- Nina Perales, vice-president of litigation, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund: “SB1 will reduce voter participation and discriminate on the basis of race, and for those reasons it should be struck down in court. In addition to making voting more difficult for all voters, SB1 is aimed directly at Latinos and Asian Americans with specific provisions that cut back on assistance to limited English-proficient voters.”
- Former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke: “Governor Abbott is restricting the freedom to vote for millions of Texans. Instead of working on issues that actually matter, like protecting school kids from Covid or fixing our failing electrical grid, Abbott is focused on rigging our elections and implementing extreme, right-wing policies. Abbott’s agenda of criminalising abortion, permit-less carry, anti-mask mandates and voter suppression is killing Texans and limiting their voting rights to elect more responsible leaders.
- Claudia Yoli Ferla, executive director, MOVE Texas Action Fund: “History will remember this period as one of democracy in distress; as an era during which our sacred freedom to vote endured unrelenting assault.”
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Republican governor Greg Abbott signed a highly controversial voting bill in Texas. The law will prohibit 24-hour and drive-thru voting, making it even harder to access the ballot box in a state that already has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the country. The signing of the bill ends a weeks-long standoff between Democratic and Republican state legislators over the proposal.
- Joe Biden arrived in New Jersey to tour neighborhoods impacted by Hurricane Ida, which caused widespread flooding in the Northeast last week. The president is now receiving a briefing from local leaders on hurricane response efforts, and he will later deliver a speech in Queens, New York, on how his administration is working to better prepare for extreme weather, which has become more common because of the climate crisis.
- House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she disagreed with Democratic senator Joe Manchin’s call for a “strategic pause” in negotiations over the $3.5tn spending package. “Well, obviously I don’t agree,” Pelosi said on Capitol Hill. “I’m pretty excited about where we are. Everybody’s working very hard. The committees are doing their work. We’re on a good timetable.” Manchin penned an op-ed last week expressing concern about the price tag of the budget bill, raising concerns that it will not pass the evenly divided Senate.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine has more details on the Texas voting law:
The signing of the bill marks the end of a weeks-long standoff between Democrats and Republicans over the legislation.
In late May, Democrats walked out of the legislature, denying Republicans the necessary quorum to pass the initial version of the bill, which would have made it easier for judges to overturn elections and restricted early voting on Sundays, a day traditionally used by African American churches to encourage people to vote.
Republicans subsequently cut both provisions from the bill. But before a new version could be considered in a July special session, Democrats in the state house left the state and flew to Washington DC, again denying Republicans a quorum to proceed with legislation.
While the Democrats in Washington lobbied federal lawmakers to pass federal voting restrictions, state senator Carol Alvarado undertook a 15-hour filibuster on the senate floor to try and block the measure.
Earlier this month, after Abbott called a second special session to consider the measure, the house speaker, Dade Phelan, signed civil arrest warrants for the Democrats who refused to show up at the capitol (no one was ultimately arrested). But slowly, a trickle of Democrats began to return to the capitol, giving Republicans a majority, and enraging Democrats who wanted to continue to stay away.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
The voting restrictions will only add to those already in place in Texas, which has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the US and was among the states with the lowest voter turnout in 2020.
The Texas house of representatives gave its approval to a final form of the measure on Tuesday, 80-41. The senate quickly followed with an 18-13 vote Tuesday afternoon.
The bill, nearly identical to a measure that passed the legislature last week, would prohibit 24-hour and drive-thru voting – two things officials in Harris county, home of Houston, used for the first time in 2020.
It would also prohibit election officials from sending out unsolicited applications to vote by mail, give poll watchers more power in the polling place and provide new regulations on those who assist voters.
Here is the Guardian’s report from last week:
Updated
Abbott signs highly controversial voting bill in Texas
Republican governor Greg Abbott as just signed a highly controversial bill to place new restrictions on voting access in Texas.
“Election integrity is now law in the state of Texas,” Abbott said after signing the bill, which voting right advocates have said unfairly targets people of color.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) signs restrictive voting bill SB1 into law, despite House Democrats fleeing state in attempts to stop its passage:
— The Recount (@therecount) September 7, 2021
“Election integrity is now law in the state of Texas.” pic.twitter.com/iViAQZZ6SB
The Texas legislature gave its final approval to the bill last Tuesday, after Democrats delayed the passage of the proposal for weeks by fleeing the state.
The law will prohibit 24-hour and drive-thru voting and place new restrictions on who can assist people as they seek to cast their ballots, making Texas one of the hardest places to vote in the country.
Updated
Jason Miller, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump, has released a statement in response to reports that he was detained by authorities in Brazil.
“This afternoon my traveling party was questioned for three hours at the airport in Brasilia, after having attended this weekend’s CPAC Brasil Conference. We were not accused of any wrongdoing, and told only that they ‘wanted to talk,’” said Miller.
“We informed them that we had nothing to say and were eventually released to fly back to the United States. Our goal of sharing free speech around the world continues!”
Miller previously served as Trump’s spokesperson, but he now runs the company Gettr, a social media platform designed for conservatives.
According to earlier reports, Miller was detained by Brazilian authorities to answer questions over his alleged anti-democratic activities in the country.
Biden arrives in New Jersey to receive briefing and tour Ida-affected neighborhoods
Joe Biden has arrived at Central Jersey Regional Airport in Hillsborough Township for a briefing and a tour of neighborhoods impacted by Hurricane Ida.
The president was greeted by New Jersey governor Phil Murphy and his wife, Tammy Murphy, as well as three Democratic House members from the state -- Tom Malinowski, Frank Pallone and Bonnie Watson Coleman.
Biden will soon receive a briefing on hurricane response at the Somerset County Emergency Management Training Center before touring a neighborhood in Manville, New Jersey.
The president will then travel on to Queens, New York, to deliver remarks on his administration’s efforts to better prepare for and respond to hurricanes, which have become more frequent and more intense due to the climate crisis.
Joe Manchin wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week calling for a “strategic pause” in advancing the spending package.
“While some have suggested this reconciliation legislation must be passed now, I believe that making budgetary decisions under artificial political deadlines never leads to good policy or sound decisions,” Manchin said in the op-ed.
“I, for one, won’t support a $3.5tn bill, or anywhere near that level of additional spending, without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs.”
Rebuilding our crumbling physical infrastructure – roads, bridges, water systems – is important. Rebuilding our crumbling human infrastructure – health care, education, climate change – is more important. No infrastructure bill without the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 2, 2021
Bernie Sanders, the leftwing chairman of the Senate budget committee, responded to Manchin’s warning in kind, threatening to torpedo the bipartisan infrastructure bill if the spending package is not approved.
“Rebuilding our crumbling physical infrastructure – roads, bridges, water systems – is important,” Sanders said on Twitter. “Rebuilding our crumbling human infrastructure – healthcare, education, climate change – is more important. No infrastructure bill without the $3.5tn reconciliation bill.”
As Congress prepares to return from its August recess, Democratic leaders are scrambling to figure out how to advance both bills, which encompass much of Joe Biden’s economic agenda. If centrists and progressives don’t reach an agreement, both proposals may fail.
Pelosi disagrees with Manchin over $3.5tn spending package
House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she did not agree with Democratic senator Joe Manchin’s call for a “strategic pause” in negotiations over the $3.5tn budget bill due to concerns about deficit spending.
“Well, obviously I don’t agree,” Pelosi said on Capitol Hill. “I’m pretty excited about where we are. Everybody’s working very hard. The committees are doing their work. We’re on a good timetable. And I feel very exhilarated by it.”
Pelosi this AM in Capitol: “Obviously, I don't agree” when I asked her about Manchin’s call to take a “strategic pause” on $3.5T bill. She also said: “why?” when asked about lowering price tag. Asked about Manchin and Sinema: “Well you have to go talk to the Senate about that” pic.twitter.com/XnH7d8TLB5
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 7, 2021
A CNN reporter asked Pelosi whether she believed the topline cost of the final bill would be less than $3.5tn because of the criticism from Manchin and fellow Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema.
“Well, you have to go talk to the Senate about that,” Pelosi said. “But we’re going to pay for as much of it as possible, and it will have far less impact on the national debt than the Republican 2017 tax scam.”
Updated
Joe Biden will head to California “early next week” to campaign with governor Gavin Newsom, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said moments ago.
Newsom is facing a difficult recall election in California, and a number of prominent Democrats have been offering their assistance as the governor fights to remain in office.
Vice-President Kamala Harris is also scheduled to travel to her home state of California tomorrow to campaign with Newsom.
According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, there are now less than 100 Americans remaining in Afghanistan who still need to be evacuated.
Psaki said Joe Biden is receiving regular updates from his national security team as the administration works to evacuate all US citizens seeking to leave Afghanistan.
The Kabul evacuation mission formally ended last week, but Biden pledged the US would continue to work past the deadline to help all Americans still in Afghanistan.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now gaggling with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New Jersey and New York, where Joe Biden will tour neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Ida.
Psaki confirmed that the president will use the tour as an opportunity to highlight how average Americans are being affected by extreme weather, which has intensified due to the climate crisis.
In a tweet, Biden said of his administration’s response to Hurricane Ida, “We’re working around the clock to ensure impacted areas have the support they need to recover and rebuild.”
I’m on my way to New Jersey and New York to meet with local officials and survey the damage from Ida. We’re working around the clock to ensure impacted areas have the support they need to recover and rebuild.
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 7, 2021
Another White House reporter asked Joe Biden whether he planned to meet with any of the Afghan refugees who have come to the US since the Taliban takeover.
“Well, they’re all over the country, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing some of them. And they’re welcome,” Biden said.
The US military evacuated more than 65,000 Afghans out of the country last month, and tens of thousands of them have already arrived in America.
Asked if he plans to meet Afghan refugees, President Biden: “They are all over the country. I’m sure I will be seeing some of them”. pic.twitter.com/lMJCXogkRw
— Raquel Krähenbühl (@Rkrahenbuhl) September 7, 2021
Joe Biden is now en route to New Jersey and New York, where he will tour neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Ida and deliver remarks on hurricane preparedness.
President Biden getting on Air Force One for his trip to survey Ida storm damage in NJ/NY. pic.twitter.com/ZNLFyFTDuD
— Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) September 7, 2021
The president took a couple questions from reporters before boarding Air Force One. Asked what he wants to see on his trip today, Biden said, “I’m hoping to see the things we’re going to be able to fix permanently with the bill that we have in for infrastructure.”
Another reporter asked Biden how he will get all congressional Democrats on board with his infrastructure proposals, as progressives and centrists argue over the price tag of the $3.5tn spending package.
The president replied with a quote from the musical “Annie”: “The sun’s going to come out tomorrow.”
Congress will return from its summer recess later this month, and some Democrats are already gearing up for a political fight – with each other.
Democratic lawmakers are looking to pass their $3.5tn spending package, after the House and the Senate approved the blueprint for the budget bill last month. The ambitious legislation encompasses much of Joe Biden’s economic agenda, including proposals to expand access to affordable childcare, invest in climate-related initiatives and broaden Medicare coverage.
But to get the bill passed, Democrats will first need to reach an agreement on the cost of the legislation. Centrist Democrats, including Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, have expressed concern about the bill’s $3.5tn price tag, while progressives have indicated they will fiercely oppose any attempt to cut funding in the proposal.
With his entire economic agenda hanging in the balance, Biden will need to convince the two fractious wings of his party to come together and pass a comprehensive spending package. And given Democrats’ extremely narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate, there is virtually no room for error.
Despite warning signs of intra-party friction over the cost of the budget bill, congresswoman Suzan DelBene, who chairs the centrist New Democrat Coalition, said the House’s focus right now should still be on the content of the legislation.
“I think discussion of a number is more distracting when the focus really needs to be on, what is the substance going to be of this legislation?” DelBene told the Guardian. “If we have strong legislation the people support, I think we can find the path forward.”
During his trip to New Jersey and New York, Joe Biden will underscore how the climate crisis is affecting average Americans.
“President Biden will highlight how one in three Americans have been impacted by severe weather events in recent months, and that no one is immune from climate change,” a White House official told CNN.
“He will speak about the economic impacts of extreme weather, while driving home the urgent need for key investments to fight climate change and in resilient infrastructure, critical investments included in the President’s Build Back Better agenda.”
Biden’s trip comes as Congress prepares to return from its August recess and take up the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Democrats’ $3.5tn spending package, which the president has argued will make the country better prepared for extreme weather events.
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As they sifted through the wreckage of their childhood home in Mount Airy, Louisiana, members of the Robinson family were hunting for memories.
They came in the form of a dozen family photo albums, somehow preserved amid the rubble. There was nothing much else to salvage as most of the house was destroyed. It had been in the family for generations, built and preserved with toil and hard work.
Judy Robinson, 70, had raised her two children here, working as a plant operator at a nearby Marathon Oil refinery and then living on income support as a retiree.
Her daughter, Gayle Robinson, struggled as she watched Judy’s reaction to seeing home for the first time since Hurricane Ida struck seven days ago.
“I have never seen her look how she looked,” she said, outside in the oppressive heat. “Confused. Lost for words. It’s like someone threw a grenade into the house.”
As cable news channels pivoted away from Ida’s destruction in south-east Louisiana over the weekend, the storm only a week into history, thousands of people, including the Robinson family, were still coming to terms with a new reality.
Biden to tour New York and New Jersey neighborhoods affected by Ida
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Joe Biden will travel to New York and New Jersey today to tour neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Ida, which hit the US last week.
The president will receive a briefing on hurricane response from local leaders in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, and tour a neighborhood in Manville, New Jersey, before delivering remarks in Queens, New York.
Biden’s visit comes after the hurricane caused widespread flooding in the New York metropolitan area, leading to at least 50 deaths from Virginia to Connecticut.
The president is expected to deliver remarks on his administration’s efforts to prepare for and respond to hurricanes, which are becoming more intense and more common due to the climate crisis.
While touring hurricane-impacted Louisiana last week, Biden said, “Hurricane Ida is another reminder that we need to be prepared for the next hurricane and superstorms that are going to come, and they’re going to come more frequently and more ferociously.”
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
