| | |  | BY RENUKA RAYASAM | With help from Joanne Kenen
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With reporters spaced out due to the pandemic, Biden holds the first news conference of his presidency in the East Room of the White House. | Getty Image | THE QUESTION WE WOULD HAVE ASKED — President Joe Biden’s first press conference was memorable mostly for what didn’t happen: no questions about the pandemic and no gaffes. “His aides and allies are relieved that he got through this one hour without any huge slip ups,” POLITICO White House correspondent and associate editor Anita Kumar, who attended the press conference, told Nightly over Slack today. “But some of them also think he doesn’t get a fair shake.” Anita and I chatted about how Biden’s press conference differed from Trump’s and the pandemic question that she would have asked. This conversation has been edited. Do Covid protocols differ in the Biden White House compared to the Trump White House? There are big changes. First of all, the Biden White House limits the number of journalists allowed into the White House each day. The Trump White House didn’t do that. Second, every journalist is tested each day if they’re coming into the building or even doing a live hit from outside the building. The Trump White House required tests only of those who were in the “pool,” which means they’d be closer to the president. Today, at the news conference, the White House allowed only 30 socially distant reporters. Is it a challenge for reporters that Biden is more boring? Everywhere I go people — journalists and non-journalists — ask me that question! I can say this: It’s different, very different, covering Joe Biden. The tweets are gone, the abrupt firings are gone, the public feuds are (mostly) gone. But the White House is always busy. I’m busy all the time even with Joe Biden. Biden wants to be talking about coronavirus and how he’s tackling it. But other things, like the border and mass shootings, are getting in the way. Some things don’t change with the president. This is how the White House is. What would you have asked Biden if he had called on you today? I had six questions ready to go, based on a conversation this morning among members of our White House team. I had questions on immigration and guns, the filibuster, Afghanistan and the Capitol attacks. I also had one on the pandemic: “After the passage of the American Rescue Plan, schools are getting money to reopen and teachers are being vaccinated. The CDC recently changed guidelines that students can be 3 feet apart instead of 6 feet apart. If by the fall, schools are not opened five days a week in non-hybrid form, would you consider that a failure?” Biden’s presser in 180 seconds: See the highlights from the president’s first press conference below.
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| Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Another non-Covid medical mystery. Reach out with news and tips at rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
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| | SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TO JOIN AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION : Power dynamics are shifting in Washington and across the country, and more people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is a new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy, and power in America. Get fresh insights, scoops, and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country, and hear from new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out on this new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | | | | THE NEXT VACCINE RACE — Precautions aimed at tamping down the coronavirus helped nearly eradicate last year’s flu season — but that could backfire by making it harder to develop effective vaccines for next winter’s flu, Jasmine Hilton writes. The hospitalization rate for the 2020-21 flu season was just 0.7 per 100,000 people, the lowest it’s been since the CDC began collecting such data in 2005. Measures such as social distancing, wearing masks and staying indoors likely helped hold pediatric flu deaths to just one last flu season, compared to 196 in the 2019-20 season. Public health experts are relieved that the United States avoided a “twindemic” of a strong flu season during a spiraling Covid-19 outbreak. But the low levels of flu have left experts with a much smaller pool of data used for predicting which flu strains will predominate next winter — raising the odds that the 2021-22 flu vaccine will be less effective than normal. Once doors start opening again and people start venturing out without taking a year’s worth of Covid-19 precautions, it’s possible there could be new strains of the flu circulating that were not anticipated, said Cody Meissner, an infectious disease specialist and pediatrician at Tufts Children’s Hospital who also serves on the FDA vaccine advisory panel.
| | — Tech faces latest grilling in Congress: A congressional reckoning is coming for Silicon Valley, lawmakers told the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter at a hearing focused on a rising tide of misinformation and extremism. The House Energy and Commerce hearing drilled into criticisms about ills including Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy, racial hatred and the use of multiple online platforms by the extremists who attacked the Capitol in January. Some lawmakers expressed frustration at not getting direct answers about who should bear the responsibility for online toxicity. — Manchin pushes Dems for voting rights compromise to avoid killing filibuster: In a lengthy statement today, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) urged fellow Democrats to take a bipartisan approach rather than try and jam through a massive reform package on party lines. — Pelosi to California Dems: Don’t run in Newsom recall: Pelosi’s comments offered powerful reinforcement to Newsom’s early efforts to prevent fellow Democrats from running in a recall that’s all but certain to go before voters later this year. — FEC greenlights campaign spending for bodyguards: After nearly three hours deliberating and updating drafts of the ruling, the commission said members of the House and Senate may spend campaign dollars to hire security personnel when they are not being protected by Capitol law enforcement on the Hill. — Senate overwhelmingly votes to extend small business rescue: The Senate voted 92-7 in favor of legislation that would delay the PPP’s loan application deadline to May 31 from March 31, sending the bill to Biden for his signature following House passage last week.
| | Nightly asks you: Have you gotten vaccinated? Or are you struggling to sign up on your state’s website? Are you still ineligible? Tell us your vaccine story on our form , and we’ll include select responses in Friday’s edition.
| | GETTING SHOTS TO THE IRON RANGE — Mike Holmes returned home to the Iron Range of northern Minnesota in the mid-1970s. By 1979, he was CEO of Scenic Rivers Health Services. Forty-one years and 11 months later, he still is. These days, he oversees six community clinics in a sparsely populated, rural area roughly the size of New Jersey, where he’s working on getting shots in arms. So far, so good, he told POLITICO’s health care editor at large Joanne Kenen. Scenic Rivers started vaccinations in mid-January. Since then, they’ve done around 7,500 injections, a mix of first and second doses. They didn’t wait for patients to come to them. They reached out by telephone to eligible patients, first those over 75, then those over 65. Internet is spotty — or nonexistent. Many patients are elderly and live at or below the poverty line. “We’ve got limited broadband access, and cellphone signals kind of die six or 10 miles outside these small towns,” Holmes said. The nearest retail pharmacy is a good 90 miles away. “We are the only medical access point for this population,” he said. Scenic Rivers generated randomized lists of patients and began dialing. Appointments filled up. When they had the capacity, they started taking eligible people who weren’t Scenic Rivers patients. Now the clinics are vaccinating patients under 65 with conditions like diabetes, culling a priority list from electronic medical records. Few people declined when their phone call came. A few people traveled as much as 200 miles. Among the staff, there was some initial hesitancy. Some had been sickened by the coronavirus during this past year. But a higher share at Scenic Rivers was inoculated compared to health workers in many other places, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation-Washington Post survey. About two-thirds of the Scenic River staff accepted the shot, a number that has gradually climbed. Despite some lingering vaccine resistance, most people are now “able to see hope” for an end to the pandemic, Holmes said. “It’s been a huge burden on family relationships.” He knows of what he speaks. “There’s nothing better than a big squeeze hug from my four-year-old grandson,” he emailed Joanne soon after their conversation. “Although one from my son is just as good.”
| | LE SUPERMAN — Listen to Emmanuel Macron’s entourage talk about the French president’s handling of the coronavirus, Rym Momtaz writes, and you might come away thinking he’s Superman. Or Clark Kent. Or both. There’s the Macron who, according to his advisers, boldly brushed off the predictions of French epidemiologists and decided based on his own reading of scientific studies to brave the third wave without imposing harsh lockdowns. Then there’s the Macron who, like the average, powerless spectator, is frustrated with the sluggish vaccination rollout and routinely gets angry with subordinates for not pushing through his policies fast enough. With the next presidential election just over a year away, Macron’s aides and advisers have been playing off both music sheets, trying to convince French voters that their president is the most capable option for shepherding them through the crisis — but is simultaneously not to blame for any of the failings taking place along the way. It’s a delicate trick to pull off — one not made easier by Macron’s penchant for centralized decision-making and his habit of putting himself at the center of the narrative.
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| | | ‘HUNGER GAMES’ — It was a scene right out of “The Apprentice.” Trump was headlining a fundraiser on Wednesday night at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla. But before the dinner began, the former president had some business to take care of: He summoned four Republican Senate candidates vying for Ohio’s open Senate seat for a backroom meeting, Alex Isenstadt writes. The contenders — former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, former state GOP Chair Jane Timken, technology company executive Bernie Moreno and investment banker Mike Gibbons — had flown down to attend the fundraiser to benefit a Trump-endorsed Ohio candidate looking to oust one of the 10 House Republicans who backed his impeachment. As the candidates mingled during a pre-dinner cocktail reception, one of the president’s aides signaled to them that Trump wanted to huddle with them in a room just off the lobby. What ensued was a 15-minute backroom backbiting session reminiscent of Trump’s reality TV show. Mandel said he was “crushing” Timken in polling. Timken touted her support on the ground thanks to her time as state party chair. Gibbons mentioned how he’d helped Trump’s campaign financially. Moreno noted that his daughter had worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign. The scene illustrated what has become a central dynamic in the nascent 2022 race. In virtually every Republican primary, candidates are jockeying, auditioning and fighting for the former president’s backing. One person familiar with what transpired in Wednesday evening’s huddle described it as “Hunger Games,” an awkward showdown that none of them were expecting.
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