| | |  | BY ELANA SCHOR | Presented by Gilead Sciences, Inc. | With help from Joanne Kenen and Margy Slattery THE INFRASTRUCTURE DOUBLE PLAY — President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan — which his party is touting as a massive boost to the U.S. economy writ large, beyond mere roads and bridges — is 19 days old, worth more than $2 trillion and only half outlined. The portion of the plan that the White House has christened the “American Jobs Plan” consists of proposals for broadband, clean water, transit and more. While it sits before Congress, it’s already sparked a lobbying bonanza and jostling among Democrats over how seriously to court GOP votes. The details of the second half — dubbed the “American Families Plan” and focused on child care, education and other home-centric priorities — are still under wraps. The second half is likely to emerge any day now as Biden prepares for his first address to Congress on April 28. But its delayed release complicates matters for congressional Democrats as they weigh how to push forward the president’s proposal. Should it be two bills along the lines of what Biden has started to outline, two bills with somewhat different structures, one massive measure that encompasses as much of Biden’s plan as possible, or an as-yet-unknown approach? Earlier this afternoon, the president held his second bipartisan meeting in two weeks with lawmakers he’s hoping to woo for his half-released plan. Democratic leaders already are setting unofficial benchmarks for bipartisanship and vetting different pathways to shepherd the entire package through the minefield-laden grounds of Congress. Republicans, meanwhile, have coalesced around a strategy of pushing back on the idea that the wide-ranging proposal really qualifies as infrastructure. All of this action has come without the second portion of Biden’s proposal clearly visible, and while the White House is reportedly eyeing tax increases for higher-income individuals — a red flag for Republicans — as an option to pay for the “families” portion of the plan.
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President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with a bipartisan group of members of Congress to discuss investments in the American Jobs Plan in the Oval Office at the White House. | Getty Images | It’s quite possible that by the time lawmakers hear about the “Families Plan,” they already will have settled on their own legislative strategies to steer some of its major provisions into law. House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.), for example, promised a full two weeks ago to make universal paid leave part of any infrastructure legislation his committee produces ( as Nightly first reported). Statements like Neal’s could portend a harder fight to fit other potential elements of Biden’s families agenda into whatever legislative vehicle(s) Democrats decide to use, as they weigh what’s possible with their razor-thin majorities. As much as Biden’s party wants to get its entire priority list into whatever bill gets written this spring, the reality is that some ideas will have to fall by the wayside. That’s not to mention the near certainty that pitching a tax increase on wealthy individuals will prove even more politically challenging for the White House than the 28 percent corporate tax rate Biden proposed 19 days ago — which Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has already cooled to. The White House has remained consistent in its depiction of its infrastructure proposal as two pillars of one plan , though press secretary Jen Psaki subtly alluded to the complexity in an April 1 preview of the second portion. Biden “will be speaking more in the coming weeks about how we can do more to help our caregivers, to help our — well, some of that was in this [first] package — but help address the needs of child care,” Psaki told reporters that day. While it’s too soon to say that Biden might have erred by waiting this long to release the second part of his plan, the confusion so far suggests he has a lot of work ahead of him. After all, one of the president’s top congressional allies already has suggested that Democrats split Biden’s proposal into two bills ... when the second part isn’t even public yet. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at eschor@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @eschor and @renurayasam.
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A message from Gilead Sciences, Inc.: Known to keep pushing. Decades of discovery lie behind every breakthrough. From HIV to viral hepatitis to today’s battle with COVID-19, Gilead scientists have been pushing boundaries for over 30 years. So that we can bring tomorrow’s life-changing therapies forward today. To know more, visit Gilead.com. | | | | | ‘PLAYING WITH MATCHES WHILE WRECKING THE FIRE DEPARTMENT’ — The last time the Justice Department challenged a bank merger was in 1985, around the time that compact discs and New Coke debuted. In the 36 years since, the United States has shed roughly 10,000 banks — some from bank failures, but most through acquisitions that banking regulators and antitrust prosecutors at the Justice Department have blessed. Critics say that has led to higher fees for consumers, reduced access to banking services and increased concerns about systemic risk to the banking system. Now, as Democrats in Congress push for an antitrust overhaul to restrain corporate power in tech, health care and agriculture, progressive lawmakers and economists also want the Biden administration to crack down on mergers in the banking sector, Leah Nylen writes. It’s setting up a clash with the banking industry, which has been lobbying for even less merger scrutiny. The issue is taking on greater urgency as some of the country’s biggest regional banks — PNC of Pittsburgh, Huntington Bank of Columbus, Ohio and M&T Bank of Buffalo, N.Y. — pursue major deals. “Bank regulators are playing with matches while wrecking the fire department,” said Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “The Wall Street megabanks are so large and powerful that banks across the country feel pressured to get bigger and riskier. These mergers are a symptom of a bigger problem — deregulation has left us with Wall Street banks that are too big and that take too many risks.”
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| | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING : The Biden administration is quickly approaching 100 days in office — has it delivered on its early promises? What tactics and strategies are being debated in West Wing offices? What’s really being talked about behind the scenes in negotiations with Congress on the infrastructure plan? Add Transition Playbook to your daily reads for details that you won’t find anywhere else that reveal what’s really happening inside the West Wing and across the executive branch. Track the people, policies and power centers of the Biden administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | — Pelosi defends Waters over her ‘get more confrontational’ remark to protesters: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came to Rep. Maxine Waters’ defense after criticism of remarks Waters made over the weekend in Minnesota that Republican lawmakers said stoked further violence. “No, absolutely not,” Pelosi said in response to a question about whether Waters (D-Calif.) incited violence with her comments. Pelosi added that there was no need for Waters to apologize. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said today that he would introduce a resolution to censure Waters for her comments. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, the jury began deliberations in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd. — Psaki defends administration’s messaging on refugee cap: White House press secretary Jen Psaki tried to rebut criticism of the Biden administration’s refugee admissions plan after its faltering rollout at the end of last week. Biden on Friday signed an emergency presidential decree that would keep in place the 15,000-refugee cap for the current fiscal year set by former President Donald Trump. Immigration advocates and refugee resettlement organizations quickly decried the decision as a betrayal of promises made by Biden to break from Trump’s hard-line policies, and the White House later responded by stating it would unveil an increase to the refugee cap by mid-May at the latest.
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| — CFPB targets debt collectors in bid to protect renters: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unveiled a rule cracking down on debt collectors to stop them from forcing renters from their homes during a nationwide eviction ban, as millions of Americans struggle with bills during the pandemic. The new rule requires debt collectors to notify tenants of their rights under the CDC’s moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent. The CFPB warned that debt collectors who evict tenants could face prosecution. The agency is issuing the new rule under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. — Yellen picks investor as Treasury climate czar, sparking backlash from the left: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen faced intense criticism from the left after naming a former private equity investor to be the department’s first-ever climate counselor , a high-profile position that will be key to the agency’s sweeping efforts to combat climate change. Yellen’s pick, John Morton, is returning to government after most recently serving as a partner at the climate-focused investment firm Pollination. He earlier worked in the Obama White House as senior director for energy and climate change at the National Security Council, and as a private equity investor with Global Environment Fund.
| | Nightly asks you: A New York Times headline turned viral meme posits that “you can be a different person after the pandemic.” How has the pandemic changed you? Use the form to send your answers , and we’ll include select responses in Friday’s edition.
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| | | | | BARING HER BICEPS — Another installment in our occasional series about what the Covid immunization drive looks like around the world. Health care editor-at-large Joanne Kenen emails Nightly: Beth Ann Wilmore is director of nursing at Mercy Community Healthcare, which has three centers in a small strip mall in Franklin, Tenn., outside Nashville, and a clinic farther south in Lewisburg. They take all comers — the uninsured, the underinsured, the poor, the poorer. Tennessee is Trump country, and it’s got its fair share of vaccine hesitancy. When Wilmore was offered a coronavirus vaccine early this year, she herself wavered. Like so many other Americans, she wondered if maybe the shots were developed a tad too fast. She wondered if she should hold off just a little while. But she had also seen plenty of Covid and knew what it could do. So she did her vaccine homework. “I learned what it does and doesn’t do in your body,” she said. Then, she rolled up her sleeve and got vaccinated. That experience — her empathetic understanding of the worry, her empirical understanding of the science — has paid off. When she encounters people who are nervous — friends, family, patients — Wilmore can talk them through it, getting them from fear to confidence, even gratitude. This past winter, some on Mercy’s staff were leery about getting their own shots. So Wilmore would walk around the nurses’ station, sharing what she had learned, showing them that she was doing fine. Not everyone got the shot, but over time more and more did. I recently checked back in with Wilmore by email. She said shots are more abundant in her region now, and there’s a pretty good equilibrium between supply and demand. She’s been a bit surprised by how many of the people coming into the clinic for their jabs are older. “Many of these folks have been eligible for a vaccine for a long time, but were more hesitant initially,” Wilmore wrote. She thinks what’s changing their minds is “seeing that people in their community are doing OK after being vaccinated over the last few months.” She does worry that the clinics will hit a wall of hesitancy, but Mercy is trying to stay a step ahead of that, by planning to distribute the vaccine not just at the clinics but at sites out in the community too, “where people feel safe and comfortable,” Wilmore says. She knows the immunization drive has a long way to go, but she’s steadily pushing forward: “I haven’t thought much about herd immunity. I am really focusing on taking care of as many neighbors as I can.”
| | HITTING THE BOOKS, AGAIN — Kids aren’t just months behind in their classes; they’ve also been cut off from a key support system during the pandemic. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, education editor Delece Smith-Barrow — who sat down with a group of education leaders from across the nation to talk about bold, new ideas for post-pandemic schooling — breaks down how we can get schoolkids back on track. This episode was produced as part of Recovery Lab, a new project from POLITICO about how to recover from the pandemic.
| | | | SUPER PROBLEMS — The U.K. government will put “everything on the table” to fight the European Super League soccer plan — but is sitting on the sidelines for now. According to London Playbook : “Last night, 12 of Europe’s top football teams — including England’s Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham — announced their intention to break away from the existing format of competitive football and form their own elite ‘European Super League.’ The move would restrict entry to outside clubs and have potentially devastating consequences for smaller teams excluded from the set-up, while acting as a huge money-spinning exercise for the largely overseas owners of the Super League sides. Politicians, fans and the rest of world football are already loudly condemning the plan.” British Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told MPs the proposal was “tone deaf” and against the spirit of the game. “Football is in our national DNA,” he told the House of Commons. “We invented it, we helped export it around the world, and it’s been at the heart of British life for over a century.” He added: “We will not stand by and watch football be cravenly stripped of the things that made millions across the country love it.” While Dowden said the government will launch a fan-led review of the sport, it will hang back for now in the hope that existing football bodies will work out how to block the plan, with government sanctions and other measures under discussion.
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| | | PLAYING FORTNIGHT — POLITICO Magazine senior editor Margy Slattery emails us: I’ve been thinking lately about the psychic space the Two-Week Window has come to occupy in our minds in the Covid era. In the early days of the pandemic, public health experts told us to quarantine for 14 days any time we thought we were exposed to the virus. When I had even a mild Covid scare — a close encounter with an unmasked neighbor, say — I’d mentally note the date, count 14 days out, limit my interactions even more than usual, and wait for the virus’ incubation period to pass before I could feel at ease again. When I got married this past July, my then-fiancé and I managed to bring together a few close family members for a small, masked ceremony. Despite all the precautions we took, and as lovely as the day was, a little pebble of worry stayed lodged in my mind until two weeks had passed without any of our family members getting sick. Only then did the wedding officially feel like a success; only then did I post a few photos on social media. No one wants to hold a super-spreader event. Now, the Two-Week Window has returned in a new form. A little more than a week ago, I got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I expected to have to wait at least two weeks to develop immunity. (Johnson & Johnson actually says you build more immunity over an additional two weeks — yes, that’s two Two-Week Windows.) Then, three days later, the CDC and FDA recommended pausing use of the J&J vaccine after six women who received it developed a rare but serious blood-clot disorder. With nearly 7 million J&J shots in Americans’ arms, I know my chances of being affected are exceedingly slim. Johnson & Johnson says there’s not even enough evidence yet to prove that the vaccine caused the clots. I haven’t experienced any of the symptoms associated with them. Still, all of the affected individuals are women between the ages of 18 and 48. They developed their symptoms between six and 13 days after their vaccines. I’m a 32-year-old woman, and I got the shot on April 10 — which means, yet again, I’m waiting two weeks before I know I’m in the clear. In a weird way, the Two-Week Window actually is a source of comfort, though. Once you hit it, you feel a sense of certainty that things are going to be OK, at least until the next scare. So, for now, I’ll keep measuring out my life in two-week spans. I’m nine days out from my shot, by the way. But who’s counting?
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A message from Gilead Sciences, Inc.: Decades of discovery lie behind every breakthrough. For more than 30 years, Gilead scientists have been pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. We’ve worked to advance the science that has unlocked therapeutics for HIV, viral hepatitis, and even COVID-19.
Today, Gilead therapeutics are at work, effectively providing treatment for millions. But we’re not stopping any time soon. We’re committed to the relentless pursuit of scientific discovery. To keep pushing to the next goal. To bring tomorrow’s life-changing therapies forward today. And then reach farther.
To learn more, visit Gilead.com. | | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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