| | | |  | BY JOANNE KENEN | Presented by Ford Motor Company | With help from Renuka Rayasam and Myah Ward SHOT FELT ’ROUND THE WORLD — President Donald Trump uncharacteristically missed a rendezvous with posterity today. The first vaccines to prevent Covid-19 were administered in the United States. Trump had nary a photo op. It was a historic achievement, one that Trump forcefully embraced throughout 2020 (while also spurning basic public health measures like mask mandates that could have saved lives). Yet not only did the president choose not to preside over the initial vaccinations — his HHS Sec Alex Azar was on hand for the ceremonial first jab at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. — he also declined to even put out a statement. There was one wan Trump tweet. “First Vaccine Administered. Congratulations USA! Congratulations WORLD!” It was a historic day for other reasons, too. The U.S. death toll for the coronavirus passed 300,000. The Electoral College convened to certify Joe Biden as president-elect. And minutes after that news broke, Trump made a bid at upstaging Biden, tweeting that he had just accepted the resignation of Attorney General Bill Barr. But it would have been a historic day without any of those events. Trump could have taken a justly deserved victory lap. And it will be his successor who will take the blame if things go wrong a month from now. Some things will go wrong. That’s inevitable in anything as big and complex as an emergency national vaccination drive in the middle of pandemic. Little stuff can be put right. But a vaccine calamity would be another story. Such a calamity could take many shapes: A logistical morass in delivering millions of temperature-sensitive doses. An unforeseen (and, according to the top scientists who have looked at this, highly unlikely) manufacturing or safety problem. “It’s like a parachute — you have to get it right the first time,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “I’m concerned about the rollout. I lose sleep about it.” Still, today was a day for celebration, with or without Trump as cheerleader-in-chief. Health care workers — in some cases, that includes the unheralded heroes who do things like scrub and sanitize the Covid ICUs — began getting vaccinated in Washington, D.C., New York, Louisiana, Kentucky and a handful of other states. The health centers picked for the opening day publicized it, filmed it, celebrated it. In the coming days, more health care workers, and people who live in long-term care centers like nursing homes (and the people who take care of them), will get the shots. Public opinion polls are all over the place, but there are signs that some of the skittishness about the vaccine is receding. If the rollout goes as well as today did, public confidence should build. The vaccines, even rolling out by the millions in the coming weeks, won’t stop the pandemic right away. Neither will Biden’s inauguration, nor any new public health policies he unrolls. The pandemic is here for months to come. But early in the Biden administration, the vaccines will begin chipping away at the body count. They will start making a difference. The latest IHME model is predicting 25,000 fewer deaths with vaccines by April 1, Mokdad said. But still the toll is likely to be a half million deaths by April. (An IHME model released earlier this month had a more conservative estimate of potential lives saved.) Public health measures — masks, social distancing — will be important for months to come. Watch Azar’s update on Covid vaccine distribution.
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| Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out at jkenen@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @joannekenen and @renurayasam.
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A message from Ford Motor Company: Embrace Change. You don’t become a 117-year-old automaker in this country by refusing to change. The Ford Motor Company does not resist, deny or ignore change. We pledge to make our most iconic vehicles electric. To use 100 percent renewable energy across all global manufacturing plants by 2035. To stand for lower greenhouse gas emissions. To stand with Americans and for the planet. | | | | | READ THE FINE PRINT — Trump couldn’t make it any clearer: He needs his supporters to fork over cash for the all-important Georgia Senate runoff elections. “We MUST defend Georgia from the Dems!” he wrote in one recent text message. “I need YOU to secure a WIN in Georgia,” he said in another. “Help us WIN both Senate races in Georgia & STOP Socialist Dems,” he pleaded a few days later. There’s just one hitch: Trump’s new political machine is pocketing most of the dough — and the campaigns of the Georgia senators competing in the Jan. 5 races aren’t getting a cent., Alex Isenstadt writes. Trump’s aggressive fundraising blitz appears to be devoted to helping the party defend Georgia’s two Senate seats and, with them, the Senate majority. But the fine print shows that most of the proceeds are going toward Trump’s newly launched PAC, which he plans to use to fund his future political activities. Only a fraction is going to the Republican National Committee, which is investing $20 million into the runoffs. A stampede of political figures from both parties are emailing their donors with links to donate directly to the Georgia candidates, but the president is not among them. Trump’s fundraising ploy has rankled senior Republicans, who worry small-dollar donations are being redirected away from the runoffs. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has reached out to the White House and RNC to express its concern and to question the decision, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
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| | BIG SCOOPS IN TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: In the runup to Inauguration Day, president-elect Joe Biden's staffing decisions are sending clear-cut signals about his priorities. What do these signals foretell? Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter is breaking big news and analyzing the appointments, people and emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | HAPPY XMAS (BARR IS OVER) — Attorney General William Barr is leaving his position , a decision that follows months of complaints from Trump about the head of the Justice Department. Trump and Barr made a show of cordiality for the announcement, with Trump tweeting: “Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!” The attorney general’s last day will be Dec. 23. Trump had been frustrated with Barr’s handling of the Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances, along with his lack of engagement in the president’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Barr’s departure upends the leadership of the Justice Department at a sensitive moment in the transition of power to Biden’s administration, a further indication of Trump’s attempt to erode its independence in the waning weeks of his term.
| | TRUMP’S LAST STAND — Trump’s last gasp to overturn the Nov. 3 election results will come on Jan. 6, when the House and Senate are scheduled to gather in a joint session to certify Biden’s win in the Electoral College. A handful of GOP House members have said that they will challenge Biden’s victory, though they are unlikely to succeed. House Democrats unsuccessfully challenged election results in the recent past — including in 2001 and 2017, after candidates won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam talked to Congressional editor Ben Weyl over Slack today about how the day might go down. Jan. 6 is usually a rubber-stamp moment in the presidential election process. Do you expect it to be that way this year? Nothing can be easy these days, so the short answer is probably: No. Trump’s GOP allies on the Hill are likely to try to cause some mischief. All it takes is a single representative and a single senator to come together and object, and the rubber stamp gets paused. Any idea what the GOP is planning? Is leadership involved? So far it’s been limited to the rank-and-file in the House GOP. More of the Mo Brooks types than the Kevin McCarthys. But it wouldn’t ultimately shock me if McCarthy joined in; he was one of 126 House Republicans to sign an amicus brief backing the failed Texas lawsuit pushing the Supreme Court to overturn the election results. It’s not clear if any Republican senator will step forward, but Rand Paul and Ron Johnson have not ruled it out. If there is a joint House-Senate challenge, then lawmakers would debate the issue for two hours and then hold a vote. At that point, we expect the House and Senate to reject any challenge to Biden’s electoral votes. Democrats control the House and a few Senate Republicans have already said Biden won the presidency. But it would be a pretty remarkable moment and would really hammer home the GOP’s resistance to accepting the results of the election — and their loyalty to Trump. What are the odds that a challenge would be successful? I really do think it’s negative percent here. But this process will put a lot of GOP members in an awkward spot. Yes, definitely. I think there are probably a fair number of Republicans in the House and Senate who know Trump lost the election but have been going along with his legal challenges, or they’ve refused to speak up because they know Trump won’t succeed in overturning the election. But now they might actually have to make their stance official. They can’t dodge on a vote like this. It will be interesting to see how much loyalty Trump commands here. My guess is quite a bit. I am mostly interested to see how GOP leadership handles things. Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Liz Cheney in the House. Mitch McConnell, John Thune in the Senate. We’ve already seen there’s a big divergence with the House and Senate Republicans. Most GOP senators didn’t go anywhere near that Texas lawsuit, whereas it was strongly embraced by the House GOP. I expect to see that again to some extent.
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| | | | | Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. After the news of hackers from a foreign nation-state breaching multiple federal agencies, we dive into the POLITICO archives tonight to share this adaptation of cybersecurity reporter Eric Geller’s Aug. 20 article, “ Biden prepping to ramp up U.S. cyber defenses — while keeping some Trump policies”: Biden’s team is quietly drafting plans to bolster U.S. defenses against the hacker armies of Russia, China and other adversaries — and drawing support from former cyber officials of both parties. But some veteran policy hands who have spoken with the Democratic nominee’s dozens of cybersecurity advisers say their big hope for a Biden administration is a better organized, more sustained focus on threats like election interference and cybercrime. They don’t expect a total uprooting of Trump’s policies, which in the cyber arena have been mostly nonpartisan. Biden himself has endorsed a handful of Trump-era cyber decisions, including a directive that gave the military greater authority to hack the United States’ adversaries. He would most likely reverse other Trump moves, such as the elimination of a key White House cybersecurity post. And Biden has pledged to “impose substantial and lasting costs” on any country that interferes in U.S. elections, in contrast to Trump’s repeated scoffing at the evidence that the Kremlin did just that in 2016. Cybersecurity has mainly been a below-the-radar issue for Biden’s campaign, but the former vice president’s team is quietly gathering advice from three to four dozen private-sector cyber experts and former officials from the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. Dozens of corporate cyber executives also took part in a Biden campaign fundraiser in July.
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UPS employees move one of two shipping containers containing the first shipments of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine inside a sorting facility at UPS Worldport in Louisville, Ky. | Getty Images | | | CLIFF’S EDGE — “We heard anecdotal stories about people cutting up pills just to be able to make it through a month because they can’t afford their medication. There’s been reports of an uptick in shoplifting because people are stealing food and baby items.” Rebecca Rainey starts the latest POLITICO Dispatch with some bleak images of many Americans. Things could get worse: Several federal unemployment programs are set to run out the day after Christmas. Even if lawmakers do come to a deal this week and renew the programs, antiquated state systems would still cause missed checks across the country. Rebecca explains why we ended up at the edge of an unemployment cliff.
| | | | HOLLAND HUNKERS DOWN — The Netherlands will go into total lockdown as of Tuesday , with all but essential shops closing, as well as schools, museums, gyms and hairdressers. In a televised speech this evening, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the country will shut down until at least Jan. 18. “We realize how intense this is, certainly just before Christmas,” Rutte said, adding that “2020 is a year of mourning, loss and sorrow for many people.” People are urged to stay home as much as possible and to avoid visitors, with no more than two allowed per day apart from at Christmas, when people can meet a maximum of three guests.
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| | HAPPENING TUESDAY - CONFRONTING INEQUALITY IN AMERICA TOWN HALL : The pandemic-induced recession has put over 40 million Americans at risk of foreclosure and eviction and caused a steady decline in Black homeownership. What solutions need to happen to make housing more inclusive and fair? Join POLITICO for its fourth town hall in the series "Confronting Inequality in America.” Our latest town hall explores "The Housing Gap" and will convene policymakers, lawmakers, advocates and mortgage industry leaders to discuss various approaches for eliminating housing inequality as we begin to recover from the Covid-19 recession. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | |
| | | COME ON DOWN! Nightly’s Tyler Weyant writes: Today brought us America’s favorite quadrennial, high-stakes game show, The Electoral College. And, after a tough contest that took a little longer than usual, the winner is … Joe Biden! As he speaks to the nation tonight, Johnny, tell him what he won! — The next president will receive the large and ever-expanding pandemic, with statistics breaking records every day , and scores of Americans dead. He might, though, be aided a bit by .... — A brand new vaccine! It’s an incredible scientific accomplishment that has come far earlier than projections indicated. But hesitancy on vaccinations remains substantial, causing health officials to forcefully come out and defend the swift approval process for the shots. — Don’t forget the brand-new government agency hack! Well, it’s not all that new. Early indications from the nation-state level hack of Treasury and Commerce show the compromise may have started in June. — Looking for something for your family? It’s the Hunter Biden investigations, a burgeoning headache for a soon-to-be Biden Justice Department! As always, the winner of The Electoral College receives far more than that, but we can put the rest in a gift certificate for your political capital. Tune in again on Jan. 6, 2021, for our next episode, when a joint session of Congress meets to certify the vote. And don’t miss the second season in 2022: The Midterms, when voters will tell us just what they thought of how Biden and his party handled his prizes.
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