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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Gabrielle Canon (now) and Joan E Greve (earlier)

Reconciliation bill ‘almost there’ after Manchin’s demands to scale it back – as it happened

Jen Psaki in the press briefing room at the White House.
Jen Psaki in the press briefing room at the White House. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Evening summary

That’s it for me tonight. Thanks for spending the afternoon with us. Here are the highlights:

  • A suspicious substance sent to representative Ilhan Omar with a threatening note was found to be negative for dangerous toxins.
  • Without big changes in policy, climate pledges will continue to fall short – and that will cause calamity. The UN report warned temperatures are on track to rise above 2.7C. Read this piece from the Guardian’s Fiona Harvey for more:
  • Comments made to a Congressional subcommittee by Deborah Birx, a former leader in the Trump administration’s response to Covid, suggested that if the former president and his staff hadn’t been distracted by campaigning, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved.
  • Democrats released details of a new plan for a 15% corporate minimum tax that would affect companies that made more than $1bn in profits over a three year period.
  • Former Weather Underground member David Gilbert was granted parole after spending 40 years in prison.
  • Also, this happened:

Thanks for reading! Check back tomorrow for more live updates from the Guardian. Goodnight!

Updated

David Gilbert — a former member of the Weather Underground who served 40 years for his role as the getaway driver during a botched 1983 armored car robbery that left a guard and two police officers dead — was granted parole today and will be able to leave prison next month. Granted clemency by former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, Gilbert’s news was celebrated by his son, the progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, and supporters who have long fought for his release.

Gilbert and his wife, Boudin’s mother, Kathy, both members of the far-left anti-war activist group, were jailed for the robbery when he was just 14 months old. Kathy pleaded guilty and was released in 2003.

“I am so grateful to the Parole Board,” Boudin wrote on twitter. “I’m also grateful to everyone who has supported my father during his more than 4 decades behind bars.”

During the heist, Gilbert was unarmed and served as the getaway driver, but was still charged with robbery and murder. During his trial he argued that the group was righteously battling against US racism and imperialism.

“I’m thinking about the other children affected by my father’s crime and want to make sure that nothing I do or say further upsets the victims’ families. Their loved ones will never be forgotten,” Boudin continued. “And I am thinking of the other people inside who have worked so hard to transform their lives and hope one day to return home.”

Updated

Democratic minimum corporate tax plan gains support

Details from the Democratic minimum corporate tax were released today as part of a proposal for ways to fund the massive “Build Back Better” bill currently being negotiated.

Roughly 200 companies reporting more than a billion in profits annually for three years would be subject to the 15% minimum tax. The plan also includes provisions to preserve business credits, including housing tax credits and clean energy.

Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has already voiced support for the proposal, boosting its potential, according to CNBC. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who released the details of the plan, told reporters all 50 Democrats were on board, including Joe Manchin.

“This proposal represents a commonsense step toward ensuring that highly profitable corporations — which sometimes can avoid the current corporate tax rate — pay a reasonable minimum corporate tax on their profits, just as everyday Arizonans and Arizona small businesses do,” Sinema said in a statement, who added that she looked forward to continued discussions with the White House.

“The most profitable corporations in the country are often the worst offenders when it comes to paying their fair share,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden said in a statement. “Our proposal would tackle the most egregious corporate tax dodging by ensuring the biggest companies pay a minimum tax.”

Updated

Vaccines for kids ages 5 to 11 could be doled out as soon as next week, according to Chicago Department Health Commissioner Allison Arwady.

During a news conference Tuesday, Arward told reporters that “if everything moves as expected,” orders already placed by health centers across her state would be filled quickly.

Her comments followed the FDA’s advisers’ 17-0 vote to approve the reduced dose for children. She also said the vaccine would remain free and that kids can get the shot with their pediatrician, with an adult at a vaccine center, or at Walgreens. Soon, they might also offer them through schools.

“This is not going to be the hunger games,” she added. “I would like to reassure you that nearly 100,000 pediatric doses are tentatively scheduled to arrive in Chicago in the first week of pediatric vaccine alone,” noting that less than 210,400 qualifying children live in the city.

Updated

Deborah Birx, who helped lead the response to Covid for the Trump Administration, told members of Congress that hundreds of thousands more people died in the US because of the White House’s response to the pandemic, The Washington Post reports. And, she said, the presidential campaign was largely to blame.

“I felt like the White House had gotten somewhat complacent through the campaign season,” she reportedly said. “I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30-percent-less to 40-percent-less range.”

Birx sits middle, among other members of the White House coronavirus task force
White House coronavirus task force members Fauci, Birx, Redfield and Adams listen to Trump during the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House in Washington
April 22, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Since Covid began spreading in the US more than 735,000 people lost their lives from the disease. According to Birx, roughly 130,000 might have been spared if the administration hadn’t been so distracted by trying to maintain control of the White House.

She also told lawmakers that Trump did not do everything he could to stop the spread of the deadly disease.

“I’ve said that to the White House in general, and I believe I was very clear to the President in specifics of what I needed him to do,” Birx said, according to the Post, which added that she could not be reached for comment on the remarks she made during the closed-door session.

Democrats agreed. “The Trump White House’s prioritization of election year politics over the pandemic response — even as cases surged last fall — is among the worst failures of leadership in American history,” subcommittee chair Congressman James Clyburn said in a statement.

From the Post:

Other former Trump officials have acknowledged that last year’s political fights were sometimes prioritized over battling the pandemic. Steven Hatfill, who served as a White House coronavirus adviser, told colleagues that Trump’s attempt to challenge last year’s election results also distracted from the virus response last winter, according to documents previously released by the subcommittee.

Updated

A new report from the UN released today warns of climate catastrophe should countries fail to make big changes. Current plans fall short of what’s needed to stave off the most disastrous impacts of climate change, which have already begun to affect people around the world. Without strengthened pledges, the report’s authors say, temperatures could rise beyond 2.7C.

The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey has more:

Tuesday’s publication warns that countries’ current pledges would reduce carbon by only about 7.5% by 2030, far less than the 45% cut scientists say is needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, the aim of the Cop26 summit that opens in Glasgow this Sunday.

António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, described the findings as a “thundering wake up call” to world leaders, while experts called for drastic action against fossil fuel companies.”

Only a fifth of economic recovery spending after the Covid crisis was devoted to curbing carbon, the report found, highlighting how the US was failing to “build back better”.

Read more here:

Updated

Hello live blog readers!

Gabrielle Canon here on the west coast, taking over for the afternoon.

A package containing a “suspicious substance” was left at the office of Rep. Ilhan Omar this afternoon, with an ominous message reading: “The Patriarchy will rise again. Merry f***ing Christmas” the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota confirmed on Twitter.

Capitol Police used on on-site test to determine the substance was negative for toxins but all the offices nearby were instructed to shelter in place, Politco reports.

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Gabrielle Canon, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • An advisory panel at the Food and Drug Administration recommended a lower dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for children aged 5 to 11. A committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to meet next week to discuss Pfizer’s application. If approved, the Pfizer treatment would be the first coronavirus vaccine made available to children in that age group.
  • The White House said Democrats are “almost there” in their negotiations over the reconciliation package. More Democratic lawmakers met with some of Joe Biden’s senior advisers this afternoon to continue the negotiations, as the president looks to get a deal before leaving for Europe on Thursday.
  • Progressive lawmakers are voicing concerns about the expected cuts in the reconciliation bill, which have been demanded by centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. “Support for a deal that does not adequately fund their priorities is not guaranteed,” progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar told Politico. Asked about progressives’ concerns that the bill has become too small, Psaki said, “Do they want to let the perfect be the enemy of the historic?”
  • Former Republican Senator Jeff Flake was confirmed by the Senate as the next US ambassador to Turkey. The Senate also confirmed Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Senator John McCain, to serve as the US representative to the UN agencies for food and agriculture, a role that carries the rank of ambassador. Flake and McCain were two of Donald Trump’s most vocal Republican critics during his presidency, and they both endorsed Biden in the 2020 election.

Gabrielle will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Making these decisions can be difficult and nerve-wracking, but they’re not made “when you know everything,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The question is when do you know enough.”

In this case, he said, the benefits of recommending the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine outweigh the risks, especially since myocarditis as a side effect tends to be less common in pre-adolescent children.

“Our kids are going to be dealing with this virus for many years to come,” said Jay Portnoy, professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. “Getting the vaccine is just the first step that they’re going to take towards being able to protect themselves.”

Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), highlighted the harms of the pandemic.

“Far from being spared from this harm of Covid-19, in the five-to-11 year-old age range, there have been over 1.9 million infections, over 8,300 hospitalizations (about a third of which have required intensive care unit stays), and over 2,500 cases of multisystem inflammatory disorder from Covid-19,” Marks said.

Nearly 100 children in this age group have died, making it the eighth leading cause of death in the past year for this group.

FDA advisers vote to authorize the Pfizer vaccine for children aged five to 11

Independent advisers for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11 — the first vaccine available for younger children in the US.

Of 18 members, 17 voted yes and one abstained.

Vaccines for children have been seen as crucial for protecting kids from the virus as well as slowing its spread, in addition to reducing the social and educational effects of school closing and attendance — and related economic concerns, such as caregivers’ ability to work.

The advisers weighed the vaccine’s effectiveness, the social and physical effects of the pandemic, and the potential risk of rare side effects like myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation.

Data from Pfizer-BioNTech indicate the vaccine is 90.7% effective at preventing symptomatic illness among this age group.

The benefits of vaccination “clearly outweigh” the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, FDA scientists concluded in an analysis, an assessment the independent advisers agreed with.

The Senate also confirmed former Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico as the next US ambassador to New Zealand.

And Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of the late Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, was confirmed as the US ambassador to Austria.

Like Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain’s nominations, the Senate confirmed Udall and Kennedy by voice vote, so they were effectively approved unanimously.

Jeff Flake confirmed by Senate as US ambassador to Turkey

Former Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona has been confirmed by the Senate to serve as the next US ambassador to Turkey.

The Senate also confirmed Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Arizona Senator John McCain, to serve as the US representative to the UN agencies for food and agriculture, a role that carries the rank of ambassador.

Both confirmations were done by voice vote, so senators did not have to cast individual votes on Flake and McCain’s nominations, effectively giving them unanimous approval.

Both Flake and McCain were some of Donald Trump’s most vocal Republican critics during his presidency, and they both endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Updated

The Congressional Black Caucus celebrated the progress in the reconciliation bill negotiations, after some of its members met with senior administration officials at the White House.

“We championed our priorities and are proud to see their inclusion in this reconciliation package,” CBC chair Joyce Beatty said in a statement after the meeting this afternoon.

“We know the stakes have always been high in defense of Black lives, so we pushed hard for HBCU funding, housing vouchers, enhanced Child Tax Credit and other key policies.”

Congressional Democrats are hoping to reach a deal on their reconciliation package by the end of the day tomorrow, according to CNN.

However, lawmakers still need to determine a path forward on expanding Medicare, filling the Medicaid coverage gap, establishing a national paid family leave program and addressing the climate crisis.

Joe Biden is set to leave on Thursday for a trip to Europe, and the White House is looking to reach a deal before the president departs.

Democratic lawmakers have now left their White House meeting on the negotiations over the reconciliation package.

Leaving the meeting, Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal expressed hope that Democrats can reach “an agreement in principle” before Joe Biden leaves for Europe on Thursday.

When asked whether an agreement would be enough to ensure progressive lawmakers’ support for the infrastructure bill, Jayapal told ABC News that she is hoping for votes next week on both proposals.

Several FDA advisers repeatedly pointed to the importance of vaccinating children in order to reduce cases throughout the country. Arnold Monto, acting chair of the advisory committee, acknowledged that the “very important topic” of child Covid vaccination “affects a lot of people”.

While it is not yet clear how well the vaccine keeps children from transmitting the virus, data among vaccinated adults show this is likely, and reducing the number of overall Covid cases through vaccination would help reduce spread.

But serious rare side effects like myocarditis may be “the principal concern people have regarding use of these mRNA vaccines and in children,” H Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine, said.

Matthew Oster, a medical officer for the CDC, differentiated between different types of myocarditis caused by the vaccine, by Covid-19, and by other causes. The rare cases of vaccine-induced myocarditis tend to be more mild than myocarditis caused by Covid-19, for instance, and patients usually return to normal “within a few days,” he said.

The FDA, in its scientific analysis, said the risks of Covid outweighed the risks of myocarditis.

FDA advisers weigh benefits and risks of Covid vaccines for young children

The Food and Drug Administration advisory committee is weighing the social, emotional, and physical risks of Covid-19 to children’s health against the risk of potential side effects like myocarditis, a swelling of the heart muscle.

The dangers of the virus are clear, said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

“Far from being spared from this harm of Covid-19, in the five-to-11 year-old age range, there have been over 1.9 million infections, over 8,300 hospitalizations (about a third of which have required intensive care unit stays), and over 2,500 cases of multisystem inflammatory disorder from Covid-19,” Marks said.

Nearly 100 children in this age group have died, making it the eighth leading cause of death in the past year for this group.

Children between five and 11 have one of the highest case rates of any age group, accounting for about one in ten of all Covid cases in the country. They’re also the most frequently affected by MIS-C, an inflammatory disorder that affects organs.

Children are “at least as likely” to be infected as adults, said Fiona Havers, medical officer at the CDC. But at the same time, cases among kids are more likely to go unnoticed, according to seroprevalence data.

More congressional Democrats are headed to the White House this afternoon to continue the negotiations over the reconciliation package and the infrastructure bill.

A White House official told the press pool, “This afternoon, the chairs and a number of members of the Tri Caucuses, Women’s Caucus, and Equality Caucus are coming to the White House for meetings with senior staff on [the Build Back Better agenda].”

The Tri Caucus refers to the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).

Updated

“I’m a train guy,” Joe Biden said yesterday in New Jersey, while talking about his infrastructure plans. He also repeated a familiar story about an Amtrak conductor who Biden says congratulated him during his vice-presidency for logging more miles riding the train home to Delaware than by flying on Air Force Two.

Handily, the Associated Press has published a fact-check of that familiar tale. With a few edits from me, it goes like this:

By his own accounting, Biden’s Amtrak miles over the years surpassed his Air Force Two miles after the conductor who supposedly informed him of the fact, Angelo Negri, had died. Moreover, Negri retired about two decades before the conversation Biden claims to have had with him while boarding a train.

In short, the tale as Biden spins it is wrong. Negri was dead by the time Biden logged 1.2 million miles on Air Force Two.

Biden also refers to a train ride he made to Delaware when he was vice-president and his mother was sick and dying. He says it happened shortly after he had flown 1.2 million miles, spurring Negri’s comment.

Biden has also indicated that it all happened around his “fourth or fifth year” as vice-president to Barack Obama, or 2012-13. In Scranton, Pennsylvania last week, though, Biden suggested it was in his seventh year as VP, which would be 2015.

In any event, Biden’s mother, Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan Biden, died in 2010.

It’s plausible that Biden logged 1.2 million train miles as veep by early 2016, based on accounts by Biden and David Lienemann, his official photographer. But Negri retired in 1993 and died in May 2014.

Biden made Amtrak trips between Washington and his home in Delaware on most days as a senator when Congress was in, so he could help raise his sons. The Amtrak round trip is 220 miles or 354 kilometers, not over 260 miles as Biden has described it.

It is well possible that Biden had warm conversations with Negri, and his stepdaughter told CNN the two were friends. It’s also possible Biden spoke with another Amtrak conductor in 2015 or 2016. But Biden distorts the timeline in a way that makes the story false.

Nonetheless, he’s been telling it, with variations, with more frequency as he pitches his infrastructure plan, drawing criticism from conservative groups.

In May, asked to square the facts, White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she wasn’t familiar with the details.

A Georgia Republican who compared rules on mask-wearing against Covid-19 to the Holocaust and another who said Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol on 6 January behaved like “normal tourists” have been fined for failing to wear masks on the floor of the House.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who apologised for the Holocaust comparison in June, and Andrew Clyde, who made his claim about the rioters in May, were fined by the House ethics committee on Monday.

The House mask mandate was introduced last year, lifted in June then re-applied in July, to Republican protests.

First offences merit a warning, second offences attract a $500 fine and subsequent offences are fined $2,500.

Greene had already been fined twice for failing to wear a mask. On Monday, she said: “I’m taking a stand on the House floor because I don’t want the people to stand alone.”

Clyde did not immediately comment.

Full story:

Manchin: 'I don't know where the hell I belong'

Amid speculation that he might choose to leave the Democratic party and become a Republican, Joe Manchin told an interviewer earlier today: “I don’t know where the hell I belong.”

Joe Manchin.
Joe Manchin. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

The Democratic senator from West Virginia currently belongs at the heart of most things in Washington, given his place with Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona as a key vote in a 50-50 chamber controlled by their own party via the vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Manchin is either a moderate Democrat or a conservative one, depending on who you ask. Hint: progressives think he’s a conservative and regularly damn him for it. The notion that he might switch parties, thereby joining every other major elected official from his state and either giving the Republicans the Senate or, as an independent, continuing to hold the balance of power, is a persistent one on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

Today, amid tense negotiations over the fate of Joe Biden’s spending and infrastructure plans, Manchin appeared at the Economic Club of Washington DC.

His interviewer, the billionaire David Rubenstein (see here and here and here), asked: “Have you ever thought my life would be easier for you if you shifted to being a Republican?”

“Every day,” Manchin said, “every day.”

Referring to a report from David Corn of the leftwing magazine Mother Jones which said Manchin was considering a switch and “has an exit plan”, Rubenstein said: “And somebody had said recently that people have approached you about doing that? So that just might be easier for you to do that?”

Manchin rejected the Mother Jones report last week, telling reporters it was “bullshit, bullshit spelled with a B, U, L, L, capital ‘B’”. But he also said he had offered to change his party if he was causing problems for other Democrats.

“I said, me being a moderate centrist Democrat – if that causes you a problem, let me know and I’d switch to be independent,” he said last Thursday.

On stage with Rubenstein, he said: “Oh, [it would] be much easier. My goodness. Is that the purpose of being involved in public service, you think? No, I’ve never, I’ve never thought from this … What I’m telling you now is who I am.

“Do you think by having a ‘D’ or an ‘I’ or an ‘R’ [next to my name] is going to make me change who I am? I don’t think the Rs will be any more happier with me than the Ds are right now. OK, I mean, that’s about as blunt as I can put it, so I don’t know where in the hell I belong.”

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • The White House said Democrats are “almost there” in their negotiations over the reconciliation package. Press secretary Jen Psaki said Joe Biden will welcome more Democratic lawmakers to the White House this afternoon to continue the negotiations, as the president looks to get a deal before leaving for Europe on Thursday.
  • Progressive lawmakers are voicing concerns about the expected cuts in the reconciliation bill that have been demanded by centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. “Support for a deal that does not adequately fund their priorities is not guaranteed,” progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar told Politico. Asked about progressives’ concerns that the bill has become too small, Psaki said, “Do they want to let the perfect be the enemy of the historic?”
  • An advisory panel at the Food and Drug Administration met to discuss Pfizer’s application to make a lower dose of its coronavirus vaccine available to children aged five to 11. If the application is approved, the Pfizer treatment will become the first coronavirus vaccine authorized for American children in that age group.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

House majority leader Steny Hoyer said a deal on the framework of the reconciliation package could come “in the next few hours,” per Politico.

But that prediction should be taken with a serious grain of salt, given that Democrats still need to reach an agreement on significant portions of the legislation, including climate initiatives and the paid family leave program.

And even if a deal is reached, it’s unclear whether progressives will immediately get on board with the changes demanded by centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Joe Biden will meet with more Democratic lawmakers today to continue their negotiations.

At least five former Trump staffers speaking to Capitol attack committee - report

At least five former Trump administration staffers are speaking to the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, according to a new report.

CNN reports:

According to five former Trump aides, counsel for the committee has emailed or texted them directly to ask whether they are interested in coming in to talk to the congressional investigators, often looking for context on what happened inside the West Wing before the insurrection on January 6.

While several people have voluntarily sat down with the committee, others have declined the committee’s request or not responded at all. The outreach has ranged from junior-level staffers to more seasoned officials.

The outreach is not necessarily because the committee believes the staffers were involved in what happened that day. But the investigative staff appears to be trying to glean more context on what was happening inside the West Wing before, during and after the attack, according to the sources.

The report comes as Donald Trump and at least one of his former advisers, Steve Bannon, have pushed back against the select committee’s subpoenas.

The House voted to hold Bannon in criminal contempt last week for defying a subpoena, and the justice department is now considering whether to prosecute him over the matter.

Biden blocks Trump's second attempt to shield documents from Capitol attack committee

Joe Biden has blocked another effort by Donald Trump to shield White House documents from subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.

According to Reuters, White House counsel Dana Remus said in a letter yesterday to the National Archives, “Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified.”

Trump has attempted to block the committee from receiving subpoenaed documents by claiming executive privilege. However, as a former occupant of the White House, Trump needs Biden’s cooperation to exert executive privilege, and the current president has refused to offer assistance in the matter.

Trump also filed a lawsuit last week in another effort to block the select committee from gaining access to the subpoenaed documents:

Senate budget committee chairman Bernie Sanders has reiterated his view that the reconciliation package must include proposals to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

“Any serious reconciliation bill must include real Medicare negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the cost of prescription drugs,” Sanders told reporters on Capitol Hill.

The progressive senator described the drug price provisions as a top priority for him, adding that an expansion of Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing coverage is similarly important to him.

Joe Biden has indicated the final version of the reconciliation package will likely not include the Medicare expansion, and Democratic leaders have reportedly discussed punting on drug price policies until next year.

Sanders’ comments may intensify concerns that progressives will not support the scaled back version of the reconciliation bill, which has been demanded by centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Don't let 'the perfect be the enemy of the historic,' White House says of reconciliation talks

Jen Psaki faced questions over whether Joe Biden is concerned about some of his proposals, including 12 weeks of paid family leave, likely being cut from the reconciliation package.

Asked whether Biden would sign a bill without a paid leave program, the press secretary said, “I’m not going to litigate that from here.”

Psaki emphasized that Biden understands the “realities of governing” with very narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate, and she praised the “historic” investments in the reconciliation package.

Directly addressing progressives who may reconsider their support for the reconciliation package depending on what the final version of the bill looks like, Psaki warned that the alternative is nothing.

“Do they want to be a part of the largest investment in early childhood education in history? Do they want to make healthcare more affordable and accessible? Or do they want to let the perfect be the enemy of the historic?” Psaki said. “And that’s what we’re talking about right now in these negotiations.”

Another reporter pressed Jen Psaki on whether Joe Biden will be able to push for significant climate policies at the Cop26 conference if he has not yet reached a deal on the reconciliation package.

The press secretary acknowledged that it would be Biden’s “preference” to go to the United Nations conference with a deal on the reconciliation bill, which is expected to include a number of climate provisions, although some of them have been scaled back due to demands from Joe Manchin.

“It would be his preference, yes,” Psaki said. “But it is also important to note that we have made a significant amount of progress, and we are almost there.”

The press secretary emphasized Biden and Democratic congressional leaders are “on the verge of passing a bill that is the largest investment in addressing the climate crisis in history”.

“And of course global leaders take note of that, too,” Psaki said.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has now taken over the briefing, and she provided some details on the negotiations over the reconciliation package and the infrastructure bill.

Psaki noted some more Democratic lawmakers will be at the White House today to continue the discussions about the two bills.

Pushing back against concerns that Joe Biden is leaving for Europe later this week, during a key stage of the negotiations, Psaki said, “There are phones on Air Force One and also in Europe.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan noted that this week will mark the fourth meeting between Joe Biden and Pope Francis.

The meeting comes as some Catholic leaders have suggested that Biden should be denied communion for his views on abortion.

Sullivan would not comment when asked whether the pope and Biden will discuss abortion when they meet in Vatican City on Friday.

Biden is 'on track' to enact robust climate policies despite concerns, Sullivan insists

A reporter asked national security adviser Jake Sullivan whether Joe Biden’s credibility will be diminished if he arrives for the Cop26 climate change conference without having enacted significant climate policies in the US.

Biden’s reconciliation package was initially expected to include the most robust set of climate proposals in US history, but many of those provisions will likely be scaled back or eliminated due to demands from centrist Senator Joe Manchin.

“I think you’ve got a sophisticated set of world leaders who understand politics in their own country and understand American democracy and recognize that working through a complex, far-reaching negotiation on some of the largest investments in modern memory in the United States, that that takes time,” Sullivan said.

“So I don’t think that world leaders will look at this as a binary issue - is it done [or] is it not done? They’ll say, ‘Is President Biden on track to deliver on what he said he’s going to deliver?’ And we believe one way or the other, he will be on track to do that.”

I spoke to the Guardian’s climate reporter Oliver Millman about the high stakes of the Cop26 conference for our Politics Weekly Extra podcast last week:

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is holding her daily briefing, and she is joined by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who is previewing Joe Biden’s upcoming trip to Europe.

Biden will leave for Europe on Thursday to meet with Pope Francis in Vatican City, participate in the G20 summit in Rome and attend the Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow.

Sullivan pointedly noted that neither Chinese President Xi Jinping nor Russian President Vladimir Putin will be attending the G20 summit, saying the US and Europe will be “driving the agenda” in global policy.

Biden participates in US-ASEAN summit skipped by Trump

Joe Biden virtually joined the US-ASEAN summit this morning, marking the first time in four years that an American president president has attended the conference.

Addressing the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Biden emphasized the importance of the partnership between their countries and the US, amid concerns about China’s growing influence in the region.

“The relationship between the United States and ASEAN is vital, vital for the future of all one billion of our people,” Biden said at the beginning of the summit.

“Our partnership is essential to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, which has been the foundation of our shared security and prosperity for many decades.”

No American president has participated in the US-ASEAN summit since 2017, when Donald Trump attended the conference. Trump did not participate in the summit for the rest of his presidency, per Reuters.

As centrist Senator Joe Manchin criticizes proposals to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage in the reconciliation package, Democratic leaders are reportedly considering punting on healthcare issues until next year.

The Washington Post reports:

The infighting over health care also prompted Democratic leadership this month to consider a plan to delay some of the party’s health agenda to next year, including a plan to repeal a Trump-era ban on prescription drug rebates, hoping that election-year deadlines would force lawmakers to seal deals that are currently proving elusive, said three people with knowledge of the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

But further delays could backfire with patients and at the polls. Many Americans say that the cost of health care remains their top voting issue, and that reforms like lowering prescription drug prices are desperately needed. Backers of other popular measures like boosting home care and reducing the cost of health plans sold through ACA marketplaces are also jockeying for their inclusion in the package.

The expected changes to the reconciliation package’s healthcare provisions will also likely further anger progressives like Senate budget committee chairman Bernie Sanders, who has made Medicare expansion to hearing, vision and dental coverage one of his top priorities.

The Food and Drug Administration advisory panel will discuss the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine only. The proposed dose for children is 10 micrograms, or one-third the adult dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Moderna on Monday released promising early results for its vaccine in children aged six to 11, but that trial is still ongoing.

Looking at all of the scientific evidence, the advisers will make recommendations to the FDA on this lower dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. While the FDA is not required to follow the advisers’ recommendations, the agency usually does.

If advisers for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommend the vaccine in a meeting next week, it would be rolled out quickly to children five and older across the country, marking a crucial development in the US response to coronavirus.

Last week, almost 118,000 children tested positive for Covid, with a total of more than 1 million new cases among kids in the past six weeks, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. At least 584 US children have died from Covid.

In addition to protecting children from Covid-19 and its long-term effects, vaccination can also help protect those around them.

“We will not be able to get out of this pandemic without vaccinating children – both for their own sake and for the sake of having overall protection,” Dr Saad Omer, an infectious disease epidemiologist and director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, told the Guardian earlier this month.

FDA weighs coronavirus vaccine for children aged five to 11

Today, advisers for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will consider Pfizer-BioNTech’s application for their Covid-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11.

If it is authorized, it would be the first vaccine available for younger children in the US.

The advisory committee will discuss the vaccine’s effectiveness and the potential risk of side effects like myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation, before making a recommendation to the regulatory agency at the end of the day.

Data from Pfizer-BioNTech, released on Friday, indicate the vaccine is 90.7% effective at preventing symptomatic illness among this age group.

The benefits of vaccination “clearly outweigh” the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, FDA scientists concluded in an analysis also made public on Friday.

Progressives raise concern about potential reconciliation deal with Manchin

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Democrats appear to be closing in on a deal over their reconciliation package and the bipartisan infrastructure bill, after months of negotiations.

Centrist Senator Joe Manchin, who met with Joe Biden in Delaware over the weekend, said yesterday that he believes a deal could be reached this week on a framework of the reconciliation bill.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer also told reporters that the reconciliation bill talks have come down to three or four issues.

Chuck Schumer speaks to reporters following the Senate Democrats weekly policy lunch.
Chuck Schumer speaks to reporters following the Senate Democrats weekly policy lunch. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

However, reports of the potential framework are angering progressives, who worry their top priorities will not be funded in order to appease Manchin and fellow centrist Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

“Progressives are troubled and deeply concerned with the cuts we’re seeing reported,” progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar told Politico.

“They are saying their votes need to be earned. And support for a deal that does not adequately fund their priorities is not guaranteed.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

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