Friday evening summary
That’s all from me tonight. Here are the highlights from what we covered:
- The 2020 Census, which was plagued with problems, might have undercounted population totals in several areas.
- Abortion rights are eroding in several states with a surge in new restrictive legislation. Anti-abortion advocates are hoping challenges to the new laws will enable the supreme court to reevaluate Roe v Wade.
- The transcript of a call between Rudy Giuliani and a top aide for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was published today, revealing more about how Trump and his allies pushed for an investigation on Hunter Biden.
- Senator Joe Manchin said he would not support a bill to grant DC statehood, quashing hopes that it would pass the sharply divided senate.
- Republican lawmakers wrote a letter criticizing a new education policy to teach more Black history
- Americans are sharply divided on election issues, with half hoping for more restrictions and the other pushing for easier access.
Thanks for reading along! See you next time.
Updated
An astounding 70% of Republicans polled by CNN still question that Biden was legitimately elected, even though there’s still no evidence of fraud. Half of Republicans surveyed also wrongly believe there is proof that the election was stolen.
70% of Republicans do not believe Biden won enough votes to become president, per new CNN poll. 50% of Republicans believe there's solid evidence (down from 58% at the start of the year). Overall, 3 in 10 Americans believe Biden wasn't legitimately elected https://t.co/yO4DqpWRfG pic.twitter.com/XB4crBWjDh
— Sam Levine (@srl) April 30, 2021
The poll, which surveyed more than 1,000 adults, shows that opinions have only shifted slightly since the beginning of the year, with 30% of respondents saying they do not believe Biden legitimately had the votes, down from 32%.
Surveys also showed that Americans are sharply divided on the biggest problems plaguing elections. Nearly half said the biggest issue is that voting rules aren’t strict enough and roughly the same number responded that the rules are too strict, stifling civic participation. These responses largely fell along party lines, with Republicans wanting more restrictions and Democrats fewer.
From CNN:
Democrats and Republicans are on opposite sides of nearly all of these measures. The only rule change that a majority in both parties say would make elections more fair is ensuring that in-person early voting is available outside of business hours and on weekends (79% of Democrats, 52% of Republicans say so). On others, there is a wide gap.
Republicans are calling on the Biden administration to shelve a new education policy proposal that increase Black history curriculum in schools across the country, Reuters reports.
In a letter released today, 39 Republican legislators, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, argued that the proposal to teach students more about both slavery and the ways in which Black Americans have contributed throughout the country’s history is too “divisive”.
“Americans do not need or want their tax dollars diverted from promoting the principles that unite our nation toward promoting radical ideologies meant to divide us” they wrote in the letter sent to education secretary Miguel Cardona.
From Reuters:
A spokesman for the U.S. Education Department said that institutions are acknowledging America’s “legacy of systemic inequities” and noted that the department welcomes comments on the proposal until May 19.
The lawmakers zeroed in on the proposal’s mention of the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project. The initiative, which traces U.S. history from the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in colonial Virginia, was a frequent target for former President Donald Trump, who sought instead to promote “patriotic” education.
Read more here:
Updated
The White House will soon have a new resident: The Bidens are adopting a cat.
“She is waiting in the wings,” said first lady Jill Biden about a cat joining the White House. pic.twitter.com/6OXvM08oNP
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 30, 2021
First lady Jill Biden shared the news on NBC this morning, with her husband at her side, saying that their dog Major, who has struggled with nipping, has already been preparing to meet his new buddy with extra training.
Major Biden did nothing wrong and this a preemptive tweet pardon for whatever he does to the Biden cat
— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) April 30, 2021
Read more about the new addition (and the history of first felines) here:
Manchin won't support bill to make DC a state
Senator Joe Manchin said today that he will not support legislation to make the District of Columbia the 51st state, making it more likely that the measure – which needs full Democratic support to pass – will fail.
His issue was with the legal protocol and not necessarily an opposition to DC statehood.
“If Congress wants to make DC a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment,” Manchin said during a Friday morning press call on the West Virginia MetroNews radio network. “It should propose a constitutional amendment and let the people of America vote.”
He sided with Republicans who, during debate in the House said even if it passed, the move would be challenged by the courts. “Every legal scholar has told us that, so why not do it the right way and let the people vote and see if they want a change,” Manchin said.
Soon after his comments, Eleanor Holms Norton, a delegate from DC and a nonvoting member of Congress responded with a statement.
The 23rd Amendment does not need to be repealed for #DCStatehood.
— Eleanor #DCStatehood Holmes Norton (@EleanorNorton) April 30, 2021
Congressional authority over the District affords several ways to work within the 23rd Amendment and give DC statehood.
See my press release for full explanation: https://t.co/Hmb8hHHlFg
“No new state was admitted by constitutional amendment,” Norton, a former tenured professor of constitutional law, said. “All 37 new states were admitted by Congress, and there has never been a successful constitutional challenge to the admission of a state. The constitution commits admission decisions solely to Congress.”
Norton didn’t mention Manchin by name, but challenged his assertion that the 23rd amendment would have to be repealed before Congress could grant DC statehood.
“Those who make such an assertion are conflating a policy choice and a constitutional requirement,” Norton said.
Updated
Biden is forging his own path when it comes to North Korea, shifting away from strategies used by his presidential predecessors, the Associated Press reports.
“Our goal remains the complete de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula with a clear understanding that the efforts of the past four administrations have not achieved this objective,” Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Air Force One as Biden traveled to Philadelphia earlier today.
Psaki also said the administration had assessed US policy toward North Korea and, without revealing details of the review, said Biden’s strategy would fall somewhere between Trump’s and Obama’s but would differ from both approaches.
“Our policy will not focus on achieving a grand bargain, nor will it rely on strategic patience,” she said.
White House confirms it has finished its North Korea policy review.
— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) April 30, 2021
“Our policy will not focus on achieving a grand bargain nor will it rely on strategic patience," says @PressSec. pic.twitter.com/hG03qI309h
From AP:
The Biden administration also appeared to signal it is trying to set the stage for incremental progress, in which denuclearization steps by the North would be met with corresponding actions, including sanctions relief, from the U.S.
There was no mention of U.S. security guarantees for North Korea or a formal end to the Korean War, both of which had been demanded by the North and considered by the Trump team as part of a larger package.
More detail on Giuliani's call with the Ukrainians
A transcript from a 39-minute call between an aide for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Rudy Giuliani, who was serving at the time as Trump’s personal lawyer was released by BuzzFeed News today, shining more light on the conversation that happened three days before the infamous call that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Speaking to Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s then top foreign policy advisor and his current chief of staff, Giuliani reportedly pushed for the Ukrainians to investigate Hunter Biden and to do so publicly.
A select few quotes from the call, which led to the infamous Trump-Zelensky call 3 days later, have been published before. But in full, you can really see how Giuliani pushed Ukraine to open investigations that would favor Trump.
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 30, 2021
From BuzzFeed News:
“I have no interest in anybody not telling the truth or exaggerating,” Giuliani continued, according to a transcript of the 39-minute call. “All we need from the president [Zelensky] is to say: ‘I’m gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he’s gonna investigate and dig up the evidence that presently exists, and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election […] and then the Biden thing has to be run out.’”
More Giuliani: "If [Zelensky] could make some statement at the right time[…]that would clear the air really well. And I think it would make it possible for me to talk to the president [Trump] to see what I can do about making sure that whatever misunderstandings are put aside."
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 30, 2021
Igor Novikov, who was listening in on the call as an adviser to Zelensky, provided BuzzFeed with the transcript, which was also reportedly verified for BuzzFeed by both Ukrainian and US sources familiar with the call on the condition of anonymity.
“I was dumbstruck. My expectation was that this would be a ‘hello, nice to meet you’ kind of call, and instead I was witnessing Rudy dishing out crazy conspiracies and Yermak agreeing with them,” Novikov told BuzzFeed. “That was the exact moment when I realized that we were in big trouble.”
You can read the full transcript here.
Abortion rights are sharply eroding, according to a new report released today by research and advocacy organization, the Guttmacher Institute.
A total of 61 new restrictions enacted in 13 states in 2021 so far. Twenty-eight new laws restricting access to abortions were signed in 7 states in the last week alone.
“The current barrage of coordinated attacks must be taken seriously as the unprecedented threat to reproductive health care and rights that it is,” said Elizabeth Nash, principal policy associate on state issues for the Guttmacher Institute, which put out the report. “The year 2021 is well on its way to being a defining one in abortion rights history.”
Some of the new laws will be challenged in court. But, that could also play into anti-abortion advocates’ plans, as some conservatives would like to see the supreme court have a reason to revisit the Roe v Wade decision, ABC news reports:
Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established abortion as a right nationally, was further endorsed by the Supreme Court in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey and 2016’s Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.
Many of the other newly signed laws, however, may go unchallenged, including laws that, in practice, make abortion more difficult to access and require doctors provide medically dubious information.
Updated
Gabrielle Canon here signing on from San Francisco to take you through the rest of Friday afternoon’s politics news.
First up – there may be problems with the 2020 census. The Associated Press reports that officials in Washington DC are insisting there was an undercount after reported population totals came back much lower than expected. The issue is particularly problematic in light of DC’s push for statehood.
From AP:
The confusion comes from the Census Bureau itself, which releases annual population estimates. Based on those estimates, Mayor Muriel Bowser told Congress earlier this month that the District’s population stood at 712,000. In 2018, Bowser even celebrated the birth of what was believed to be the 700,000th D.C. resident, and invited the newborn to her State of the District address.
“Either their estimates were off or the 2020 number is off, or they’re both off a little bit,” said Andrew Trueblood, director of D.C.’s planning department. “I would not be surprised if this was an undercount.”
It wasn’t just a problem in DC.
Texas, Florida, and Arizona all had lower population counts than anticipated, according to the Washington Post, likely due to an undercount of Hispanics resulting from the Trump Administration’s attempts to include a citizenship question. Former attorney general Eric Holder, who is now chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee told the Post that Trump’s handling was “shameful”. “I just wonder if it had the impact of suppressing the count,” Holder said.
The count was plagued with a series of obstacles from the onset, including underfunding, but the census was further complicated by both natural disasters and the Covid crisis.
Updated
Evening summary
That’s it for me. To recap, here’s what happened today:
- Congresswoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois will not run for reelection.
- Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois traveled to Texas to boost an anti-Trump Republican running for Congress.
- The Biden administration plans to impose travel restrictions for India effective Tuesday.
- The Department of Defense is cancelling all of its contracts on border wall construction.
Another reversal by the Biden administration from the Trump era. The Department of Defense is cancelling all contracts on border wall construction.
Big: DOD is canceling all contracts for border wall construction on the US-Mexico border that had used funds originally intended for military missions and functions. Under Trump, the administration dipped into Pentagon funds to build additional border barriers. pic.twitter.com/HeJ5RxOmOn
— Priscilla Alvarez (@priscialva) April 30, 2021
There’s internal disagreement among top White House and Biden administration officials over how to help the world with vaccinations.
Per The Washington Post:
The debate has reignited decades-old tensions in global health, pitting such influential figures as Pope Francis, who backs the patent-waiver proposal, against philanthropist Bill Gates, who’s opposed. It has also challenged U.S. officials who have prioritized this nation’s coronavirus response but know that the virus’s continued spread and mutation overseas will eventually pose risks to Americans.
The proposal was discussed last week by Anthony S. Fauci, a top coronavirus adviser to President Biden, and Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, who spoke about ways to help the developing world as it reels from a worsening crisis.
Fauci briefed Tai on the benefits of sharing technologies from companies that hold vaccine patents — a position that he supports, arguing that it would allow developing countries to rapidly produce their own vaccines, said people with knowledge of White House deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the conversations’ sensitivity. Tai separately told colleagues that she’s considered advocating to lift some patent protections but is still gathering information, said two of those people.
But other officials in the Commerce Department and the coronavirus task force warn that waiving the patents could backfire, including by handing trade secrets to international rivals. They also argue that allowing new manufacturers to compete for limited vaccine ingredients and expertise could hinder existing production, and that donating doses to countries in need would be more efficient.
The Associated Press has more information on the federal investigation into Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and former president Donald Trump’s lawyer.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities investigating Rudy Giuliani are seeking information related to a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was ousted from her job two years ago on orders of then-President Donald Trump, a lawyer for Giuliani said Friday.
Robert Costello confirmed via text message that a search warrant served this week on Giuliani made reference to Marie Yovanovitch, who as a central player in the first impeachment case against Trump detailed a smear campaign by Giuliani and other Trump allies that preceded her 2019 removal from the job. Costello said the warrant also referenced Ukraine’s former top prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko, who met with Giuliani and was also part of efforts to remove Yovanovitch from her position.
The fact that the warrant makes mention of Yovanovitch, and that it seeks communication between Giuliani and several Ukrainians, suggests authorities are attempting to determine whether Giuliani’s efforts to remove the ambassador were being done at the behest of Trump or of Ukrainians. That distinction matters because federal law requires anyone lobbying the U.S. on behalf of a foreign country or entity to register their work with the Justice Department.
Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing. The New York Times was first to report on the warrant’s reference to Yovanovitch.
More information on Marie Yovanovitch from my colleague Julian Borger here:
In a somewhat rambly speech, the president called for more funding for Amtrak.
Biden calls for new spending on Amtrak, suggesting it could lead -- as an example -- to faster trips from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, "a route that I imagine could be pretty popular on Fridays."
— Alex Wayne (@aawayne) April 30, 2021
Biden to impose travel restrictions on India starting Tuesday
More on the new travel restrictions for travel between the U.S. and India, via Reuters:
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to impose new travel restrictions on India starting Tuesday in light of the COVID-19 epidemic, barring most non-U.S. citizens from entering the United States, a White House official told Reuters.
The new restrictions are on the advice of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and are imposed “in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 case loads and multiple variants circulating in India,” the official said. A formal announcement is expected on Friday and the policy will take effect on Tuesday, May 4 at 12:01 am ET (0401 GMT).
Reuters first reported the expected travel restrictions.
Biden in January issued a similar ban on most non-U.S. citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa. He also reimposed an entry ban on nearly all non-U.S. travelers who have been in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe that allow travel across open borders.
The policy means most non-U.S. citizens who have been in one of those countries - and now India - within the last 14 days are not eligible to travel to the United States. China and Iran are also both covered by the policy.
The Indian Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment.
Second only to the United States in total infections, India has reported more than 300,000 new cases daily for nine days in a row, hitting another global record of 386,452 on Friday.Total deaths have surpassed 200,000 and cases are nearing 19 million - nearly 8 million since February alone - as virulent new strains have combined with “super-spreader” events such as political rallies and religious festivals.
Medical experts say real numbers may be five to 10 times higher than the official tally.
Other countries have imposed similar travel restrictions on India, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Singapore, while Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand have suspended all commercial travel with India.On Wednesday, the White House said the United States is sending supplies worth more than $100 million to India to help it fight the COVID-19 surge.
The supplies include 1,000 oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks and 1 million rapid diagnostic tests. The United States also has redirected its own order of AstraZeneca manufacturing supplies to India, which will allow it to make over 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the White House.
AIR TRAVELPermanent U.S. residents and family members and some other non-U.S. citizens are permitted to return to the United States under the order.
Nearly all travelers to the United States by air must show proof of a negative coronavirus test or recovery from COVID-19.
In recent weeks, the White House and U.S. agencies have begun holding conversations about how to eventually unwind the policy that bars travel to the United States from many parts of the world.
U.S. international air travel remains down 60% from pre-COVID-19 levels, while U.S. domestic air travel is down 40%, according to industry trade group Airlines for America.
U.S. airlines and travel groups have urged the White House to set benchmarks for the eventual loosening of restrictions.
Earlier today I blogged about the special election for the Texas 6th congressional District, which is attracting different factions of the Republican Party.
Well, a new radio ad accuses Susan Wright, a candidate and the widow of the late congressman Ron Wright, of killing her husband. Wright’s campaign has reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigations in regards to the ads.
NEWS - Texas GOP special election candidate Susan Wright has reached out to the feds after being the target of an 11th-hour robocall accusing her of "murdering" her late husband, Rep. Ron Wright
— Alex Isenstadt (@politicoalex) April 30, 2021
w/@allymutnick https://t.co/6aN1zP6Hkf
And here’s a response from Wright’s campaign.
Responses from Wright and her campaign: pic.twitter.com/YcHuO9CSz8
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) April 30, 2021
In Congress, Joe Biden’s nickname was “Amtrak Joe” because of how often he would ride the train between his homestate Delaware and Washington D.C. Today he’s set to celebrate 50 years of Amtrak service.
WATCH LIVE: President Joe Biden, once a regular Amtrak rider, is set to help the nation’s passenger rail system celebrate 50 years of service.https://t.co/oS9m9YKr5z
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) April 30, 2021
Updated
The Biden administration is moving to restrict travel from India as the country struggles to control the coronavirus from spreading.
NEWS from @kaitlancollins: A White House official tells CNN that on the advice of the CDC, the Biden administration will restrict travel from India starting May 4.
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) April 30, 2021
Even as the United States has gradually moved to the end of the coronavirus pandemic, the disease is still ravaging parts of south Asia. According to the Wall Street Journal:
India’s expansion of its vaccination campaign to all adults is stumbling badly, with many people saying they can’t book appointments and states reporting a shortage of vaccines.
As the country battles the world’s fastest-growing coronavirus surge, the South Asian nation is opening vaccination on Saturday to everyone age 18 and up, comprising some 900 million people. But many Indians, who have watched helplessly as friends and relatives fell ill from Covid-19 in recent weeks, won’t be able to get them.
“The vaccine rollout is already nightmarish,” said Dr. Amir Ullah Khan, research director at the Center for Development Policy and Practice, a think tank based in Hyderabad. “It is not a secret that we have run out of supplies.”
Another member of the Illinois congressional delegation, Adam Kinzinger, traveled to Texas recently to boost Michael Wood, “the only openly anti-Trump Republican competing on Saturday in a crowded special election for a seat in Congress.”
Kinzinger is one of the most outspoken anti-Trump Republicans in the Republican conference. He’s set up an outside group to rally other likeminded Republicans. This trip to help Wood comes as he runs in the special election to succeed Congresswoman Ron Wright. Wright died of Covid earlier this year.
The Associated Press has more:
Yet Wood has also drawn financial and moral support from a handful of other Trump critics in Congress, including Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.; David Valadao, R-Calif.; and Peter Meijer, R-Mich. Like Kinzinger, all three voted to impeach Trump.
Kinzinger said he was drawn to Wood by the 34-year-old former Marine infantry officer’s political courage. Wood has been booed at Republican campaign events for saying that the GOP has devolved into a “cult of personality.” The first line of campaign literature he hands to voters declares, “The Republican Party has lost its way...”
In an interview, Wood, who earned two Purple Hearts for his service in Afghanistan and now runs a small business, compared Trump to a “less intelligent, lazy and disorganized” autocrat like Roman emperor Julius Caesar. He warned that freedom itself is at risk if Trump and what he stands for aren’t soundly rejected.
“I don’t want to go to Congress if I have to lick Donald Trump’s boots to get there,” he said.
Still, Kinzinger knows more than most just how difficult it will be to persuade Republican voters anywhere — never mind Texas — to turn against Trump. The congressman’s political operation recently commissioned polling that found the most sympathetic voters are what one aide called “unicorns” — Republicans who are moderate politically, don’t regularly watch Fox News, reject conspiracy theories and are highly educated.
It’s a pool of voters Kinzinger needs to grow if his effort will be successful in Texas and beyond as he eyes an aggressive role in the 2022 midterms.
Wood estimated that such voters may represent as many as 35% of those who decide Saturday’s special election. Sympathetic strategists suggest the number is probably much lower.
Updated
Congresswoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois announced her retirement today:
Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), House Democrats’ former campaign chief, announced Friday she would retire from Congress after this term.
“As I turn every corner on each decade of life, I take time to reflect and evaluate what my next chapter might bring,” she said in a statement. “That’s how, 10 years ago, I decided to run for Congress. And it’s why, today, I am announcing I will not seek reelection after completing this term.”
Bustos represents a district in northwestern Illinois that has shifted to the right. Former President Donald Trump won her district twice, and she won reelection by a narrower margin than expected in 2020.
Bustos isn’t just some back benching congresswoman. Democrats saw her past election as a blueprint to winning in the Trumpier parts of the country. When Bustos was chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during an uproar over diversity withing the House campaign organization.
In a time when Democratic control of Congress is only by the slimmest margins, Bustos’s departure from Congress after a rocky tenure marks the end of a congressional career that the party hoped would help build a new comfortable Democratic majority.
Updated
More on the breaking cat mews.
NBC asked how the Bidens thought things would go with Major, the first ever White House dog to come from a rescue shelter, who has been exiled to the family home in Delaware lately for training after having trouble adjusting to the busy White House and being involved in some biting incidents.
Jill Biden said that adapting to being around cats has been part of that training for Major. And it looks like the new cat will also be a rescue.
“That was part of his training. They took him into a shelter with cats,” she said.
Joe Biden interjected that, in fact, the Secret Service had taken Major in for that training.
“And he did fine,” Jill Biden said, laughing.
The Washington politeratti and press corps are on the edge of their collective seat waiting for the name.
The Clintons famously had young Chelsea Clinton’s black and white cat, unimaginatively named Socks, at the governor’s mansion in Arkansas, where Bill Clinton was governor, and then at the White House after he became president.
Socks memorably freaked out when Buddy, the Clintons’ new puppy, arrived.
Amy Carter had a Siamese cat called Misty Malarky Ying Yang and although George W and Laura Bush were famous for their scottie dogs Barney and Miss Beazley, they also had a jet-black cat called India who was a far more elusive presence at the White House.
In a comprehensive investigation by the Washington Post, the newspaper noted that although the first US president, George Washington, had a dog, the first White House cat is believed to have appeared when Abraham Lincoln was president.
Updated
Here’s purrrfect Friday news. Get ready for COTUS - cat of the United States.
Move over, mischievous Major, chow down on this, Champ.
As if enough fur didn’t fly in Washington politics, the Bidens are bringing a cat to the White House, first lady Jill Biden announced on Friday.
The forthcoming feline will join the family canines, old dog Champ and his friskier younger friend Major the rescue dog, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the near future.
In an interview on NBC on Friday morning, Jill Biden, sitting next to her husband, Joe Biden, was asked about speculation that a cat was being added to the White House menagerie.
“Oh, yes, that is true,” Jill Biden said. “He..”, she corrected herself: “She is waiting in the wings.”
Anchor Craig Melvin turned to Joe Biden and said: “Was this your idea, Mr President?”
The president looked like one who has had his patience tested, but affectionately, when he chuckled: “No. But it’s easy.”
More to follow!
“She is waiting in the wings,” said first lady Jill Biden about a cat joining the White House. pic.twitter.com/6OXvM08oNP
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 30, 2021
Updated
Health officials have concluded that a spate of bad reactions to vaccinations, including nausea, fainting and dizziness in five US states earlier this month was down to anxiety and not a problem with the shots.
The Associated Press brings this report:
Experts say the clusters detailed Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are an example of a phenomenon that’s been chronicled for decades from a variety of different vaccines. Basically, some people get so freaked out by injections that their anxiety spurs a physical reaction.
“We knew we were going to see this” as mass COVID-19 vaccine clinics were set up around the world, said Dr. Noni MacDonald, a Canadian researcher who has studied similar incidents.
The CDC authors said the reports came in over three days, April 7 to 9, from clinics in California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina. The investigation was based on interviews with, and reports by, clinic staff.
Many of the 64 people affected either fainted or reported dizziness. Some got nauseous or vomited, and a few had racing hearts, chest pain or other symptoms. None got seriously ill.
All received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and four of the the five clinics temporarily shut down as officials tried to sort out what was happening. Health officials at the time said they had no reason to suspect a problem with the vaccine itself.
Of the three COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S., only J&J’s requires just one dose. That probably makes it more appealing to people who are nervous about shots and might leave them “more highly predisposed to anxiety-related events,” the CDC report said.
Some of the sites advertised they were giving J&J shots, noted Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, who leads the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring work and is one of the study’s authors.
The CDC found that about a quarter of the people reporting side effects had similar things happen following past vaccinations.
The post-shot reactions differ from a very rare kind of side effect that led to a pause in administration of the J&J vaccine. At least 17 vaccine recipients have developed an uncommon kind of blood clot that developed in unusual places, such as veins that drain blood from the brain, along with abnormally low levels of the platelets that form clots.
Other types of side effects from the coronavirus vaccines are not unusual.
Updated
Afternoon summary
Here’s the lay of the land for today so far:
-
Joe Biden did a wide-ranging interview with NBC where he touched on immigration and race relations, among other topics. He responded to Senator Tim Scott’s recent criticism that Democrats portray the country as racist.
-
Mike Pence is dipping his toe back onto the public stage.
- Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming is facing growing antagonism from colleagues within the Republican party.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland is making dramatic changes at the Justice Department.
- The White House announced 100 million adults have been fully vaccinated.
Mark your calendars, the latest date for basically a full reopening, per Dr. Walensky.
CDC Director Walensky says she thinks July 1 (as set by New York) is a "reasonable" target for an essentially full reopening, if vaccinations and cases continue at the current pace
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) April 30, 2021
Dr. Anthony Fauci is now using his time during this briefing to address a New York Times article titled “Does It Matter if I Skip My Second Covid Shot?”
He ticked off survey data on hesitancy on taking the vaccines. Fauci is citing research in the New England Journal of Medicine showing far more protection for individuals who have received their second vaccine dose compared to those who just received their first.
“You do much better if you’re partially vaccinated but there’s a 36 fold difference if you get fully vaccinated,” Fauci said.
This is why it matters that you get both doses of Pfizer or Moderna, not just one: pic.twitter.com/ltBwwhbFCT
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) April 30, 2021
Updated
'Today 100m Americans are fully vaccinated'
At the White House Covid-19 Response team meeting just now Jeff Zients, the White House Coronavirus Response coordinator made it official.
“Today 100 million Americans are fully vaccinated,” Zients said just now. “That’s 100 million – nearly 40 percent of all adult Americans with protection from Covid-19 two weeks after their second shot.”
As of today, 100 million adults in the U.S. have received two vaccine shots, per WH COVID briefing
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) April 30, 2021
Updated
Here’s more from CNN on the 100 million adults being vaccinated:
President Joe Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients will announce during a briefing with reporters that the US is expected to hit 100 million at some point on Friday. The news comes as CNN reported that Biden’s coronavirus advisers are moving into the next phase of their response, from ramping up availability of Covid-19 vaccines to reaching those who have not yet gotten the shot.
White House officials have three overarching goals for the next 100 days: increasing accessibility, combating misinformation and assisting those without the resources to get vaccinated.
The US has administered approximately 237 million shots of the three Covid-19 vaccines as of Friday morning, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Biden administration doubled and surpassed its initial goal of 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in its first 100 days, reaching the 200 million benchmark on April 21. It has been racing to get shots in arms as variants spread throughout the country. The White House has poured resources into educating the American public about the safety and efficacy of the three Covid-19 vaccines that have received emergency use authorization by the US Food and Drug Association.
White House will announce 100 million adults are vaccinated
The Biden administration will announce that 100 million adults are now fully vaccinated. This is the latest benchmark the White House wants to tout and is eager to trumpet out.
The White House will announce a new milestone soon: 100 million adults in the US are now fully vaccinated, per a White House official. President Biden’s covid coordinator Jeff Zients is expected to say shortly that the US will reach that number today.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 30, 2021
It hasn’t always been in public view but major policy changes have been happening at the Department of Justice since Merrick Garland became attorney general. Via Axios:
Attorney General Merrick Garland is quickly negating the Trump administration’s law enforcement legacy, dismaying conservatives with a burst of aggressive reversals and new policies.
Why it matters: As a former prosecutor and respected federal judge, Garland’s devotion to the rule of law has always been core to his identity. That reputation has taken on new importance in his first 50 days on the job, after four years of allegations that Trump’s DOJ was improperly politicized.
- Attorney General Bill Barr played a central role in the Trump administration’s most high-profile controversies, from undermining the Russia investigation to intervening in the cases of indicted Trump associates to ordering the forcible clearing of protesters in Lafayette Square Park.
- DOJ’s broad authority also overlaps with many of the issues at the top of President Biden’s agenda, including restoring faith in government, promoting racial justice and police reform, and curbing gun violence.
Earlier in the week The Hill reported on Garland’s move to reverse a Trump-era policy on sanctuary cities:
Attorney General Merrick Garland has rescinded a Trump-era memo blocking so-called sanctuary cities from receiving funding from the Department of Justice.
A memo limiting $250 million in funding to local police departments if they didn’t agree to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials was issued by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 following an executive order by former President Trump.
Garland rescinded that in a memo signed two weeks ago, and a new memo obtained by Reuters Wednesday directs the Justice Department to reinitiate the process on any pending grants that would have required cooperation with immigration authorities.
“The Department informed grant recipients and applicants that they will continue receiving certain Department grants without making certifications,” the Justice Department writes on its community-oriented policing page.
“The Department will also cease giving priority consideration to grant applicants that accept conditions similar to those requirements.”
My colleague Ed Pilkington has an important story on Florida putting in place new restrictive voting provisions:
The Florida legislature has passed tight new voting restrictions, placing the crucial swing state at the forefront of a nationwide wave of Republican efforts to suppress turnout on the back of Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
The bill, which closely mirrors similar Republican ploys in Georgia and Michigan, is likely to make it more difficult for millions of voters to have their democratic say. The new barriers to voting are expected to particularly impact minority communities.
The next major US voting rights fight is here – and Republicans are aheadRead more
The legislation introduces a plethora of new hurdles to voting by mail in the wake of the surge in mail-in voting by Democrats in the 2020 election. It also imposes restrictions on providing water to citizens standing in line to cast their ballot.
In the Republican congressional world one of the biggest stories right now is the fraying relationship between Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming and various leaders of the House Republican Conference. She did herself no favors in that regard when she fist jabbed Joe Biden on Wednesday night (the horror of some bipartisan decorum!). Cheney responded to critics over Twitter about that:
I disagree strongly w/@JoeBiden policies, but when the President reaches out to greet me in the chamber of the US House of Representatives, I will always respond in a civil, respectful & dignified way. We’re different political parties. We’re not sworn enemies. We’re Americans.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) April 30, 2021
But the pitfalls for Cheney are deeper. The congressional newsletter Punchbowl News has more:
→ Cheney is losing support among senior House Republicans. Remember: McCarthy backed Cheney in her last tussle with the membership, while House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) stayed on the sidelines.
→ GOP lawmakers have told us having Cheney in leadership is becoming a problem for them back home. This is a dangerous position for any party leader to be in. When rank-and-file members start getting asked difficult questions about a member of their leadership by constituents -- in this case, over her continued feud with Trump -- that’s a big warning sign.
→ Republicans are complaining about her ability to run the GOP Conference’s messaging operation when she has been relentlessly promoting a message with which no one agrees.
→ We wouldn’t be surprised to see a Republican call for another snap vote on her leadership position.
Cheney allies, however, are sick of this criticism, and they point out that she just won re-election to her leadership post by a big margin.
Furthermore, they say that this entire new round of hand-wringing started when McCarthy went on Fox News Sunday last week and seemed to trip over his answer about his interactions with Trump during the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Wyoming Republican’s backers believe that McCarthy and other GOP lawmakers are uncomfortable with Cheney speaking truths about Trump.
Cheney seems to see this fight as being much bigger than staying in the leadership. She sees it as a battle for the soul of the party.
And, by the way, don’t expect Cheney this weekend at the NRCC event. She isn’t going.
More on Joe Biden’s wide ranging interview with NBC. He also touched on the “ongoing problems” at the southern border. Biden lay blame with his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Biden described the on going issues as a “powerful mess”:
In an exclusive interview airing Friday with TODAY show co-anchor Craig Melvin, Biden said his administration inherited “one god-awful mess at the border” from former President Donald Trump. He said it’s the result of “the failure to have a real transition — cooperation from the last administration, like every other administration has done.”
After the November election, Biden said that he dispatched his transition team to meet with the officials leading the major departments across the government.
“The two departments that didn’t give us access to virtually anything were the immigration and the Defense Department,” said Biden, who added that his team didn’t know until he was sworn into office that Trump had fired many people from those departments and they were “understaffed considerably.”
But the sitting president refrained from calling the issues a crisis:
Biden declined to call the border situation a crisis. He also acknowledged that his administration has struggled to reunite the children and families who had been separated under Trump policies.
“We don’t know yet where those kids are,” he said. “We’re trying like hell to figure out what happened. What happened to that child when he got separated? Where’d they go? Where are they?”
Somewhat of an aside: this morning the White House sent out a press release with the subject line: “ICYMI: Number of children held in Border Patrol facilities drops 84% since peak last month”
POTUS, to @craigmelvin, about the White House effort to reunite families deliberately separated by Trump at the border: “We're trying like hell to figure out what happened. It's almost like being a sleuth. And we're still continuing to try like hell to find out where they are.”
— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) April 30, 2021
Updated
Former vice-president Mike Pence has begun to reenter the public sphere. On Thursday Pence delivered a speech in South Carolina (an early primary state in presidential elections).
Pence, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, touted some of the policy victories of Donald Trump’s administration. But the former vice president to Trump made no mention to the rift he has had with the former president in the final days of that administration. He also did not mention the 6 January mob riot incited by the president.
Here’s CNN’s writeup:
“In 48 months, the Trump-Pence administration achieved the lowest unemployment, the highest household incomes, the most energy production with the most pro-American trade deals, the most secure border and the strongest military in the history of our country,” he said.
And here’s more from the Associated Press:
“We’ve got to guard our values ... by offering a positive agenda to the American people, grounded in our highest ideals,” Pence told an audience of several hundred at a Columbia dinner sponsored by a conservative Christian nonprofit that lobbies for what it considers to be “biblical values,” such as heterosexual marriage. “Now, over the coming months, I’ll have more to say about all of that.”
The choice of South Carolina for Pence’s post-administration debut has definite political overtones, helping him develop exposure for a potential 2024 presidential bid. The state holds the first presidential primaries in the South, and candidates of both major parties typically spend more than a year in the state ahead of those votes, introducing themselves and trying to secure support.
Biden: 'I don't think the American people are racist'
Good morning, blog readers, Daniel Strauss here. Let’s get started.
In a new interview with NBC Joe Biden pushed back on the idea that the United States is an inherently racist country. Those comments by Biden came after Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, in a rebuttal to Biden’s address to Congress on Wednesday, said “hear me clearly: America is not a racist country. It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”
Scott’s argument seemed to lay down a marker for where Republicans wanted to debate Democrats on the state of race relations in America. In the new interview released Friday, Biden didn’t fully disagree.
“No, I don’t think the American people are racist,” Biden said in the interview. “But I think after 400 years African Americans have been left in a position where they’re so far behind the eight ball in terms of education, health, in terms of opportunity.”
The back and forth comes as Republicans in the Senate get ready to urge the Department of Education to halt a rule that draws on the New York Times’ 1619 project. Here’s more from Politico’s Playbook newsletter:
EXCLUSIVE: MCCONNELL LEANS INTO THE CULTURE WARS — Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL and 37 GOP senators will call on the Education Department today to stop a proposed rule that invokes the 1619 Project — the latest turn in the culture wars.
The Biden administration — citing the ongoing reckoning over race and the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on African Americans — has proposed updating American history curricula to more fully flesh out the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans.
The lightning rod for Republicans? That the proposal specifically mentions the 1619 Project, which several prominent historians have criticized — particularly its suggestion that the American Revolution was fought to secure slavery. In a letter, McConnell and the other senators will blast the administration for putting “ill-informed advocacy ahead of historical accuracy.”
“Americans do not need or want their tax dollars diverted from promoting the principles that unite our nation toward promoting radical ideologies meant to divide us,” the letter reads. “Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil.”
Updated
