POLITICO Playbook: All eyes on Senate as AOC calls Dems ‘cowards’

DRIVING THE DAY
KEEP AN EYE ON THIS No final decision yet, but President JOE BIDEN is considering flying to Wyoming on Friday for the funeral of former Sen. MIKE ENZI, who died one week ago after a bike accident near his home. Enzi, who retired last year, overlapped in the Senate with Biden from 1997-2009. He was a conservative Republican but had a bipartisan streak, notably in his work on education with TED KENNEDY.
ANOTHER INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK All eyes are on the Senate again this week.
On Sunday night, a little past 9 p.m., the bipartisan infrastructure bill is BIF now BIB? finally hit the Senate floor.
Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER introduced the legislation with these momentous words: I call up the Sinema-Portman substitute amendment!
OK, maybe it doesnt read as momentous on the page, but we watched it live, and after weeks of delay and a comical weekend of Schumer repeatedly coming to the Senate floor and granting the bipartisan group more time it seemed like a big deal.
What Schumer is watching this week: The majority leader will soon make clear the details of the amendment process for the bill formerly known as BIF. There will be Republican amendments allowed, but smoke signals from Schumers office suggest this wont be an enormously generous process. One Democratic aide notes that Schumer has already allowed more amendment votes on legislation this year alone than the entire four years under McConnell/Trump.
Schumer wants the legislation wrapped up in a matter of days so he can move on to the budget resolution. Sens. SUSAN COLLINS (R-Maine) and JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) both said Sunday that it could be finished by Thursday.
What MITCH MCCONNELL is watching this week: Expect the minority leader to push loudly for an expansive amendment process. Hes been on a path to support the final bill, but process complaints could always serve as a handy reason to divert from that path.
What the White House is watching this week: Last week saw a growing divide between Democratic moderates and progressives over infrastructure, the $3.5 trillion budget resolution and eviction policy (more on that below). Progressives torched the bipartisan bill as all but useless when it comes to climate policy. One of the most well-known Democratic House members (ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ) all but called one of the most well-known Democratic senators (KYRSTEN SINEMA) a racist. Speaker NANCY PELOSI and the White House fought over the eviction moratorium.
The White House is hoping non-moderate enthusiasm for the bill rises this week. Several sources suggested that the best way for that to happen is to move onto the Democrats-only budget bill.
What well be watching:The bill is more than 2,700 pages and hasnt been read widely outside the group of senators and aides who wrote it. Inevitably, there will be land mines within it that explode on both left and right once its swept by the press and interest groups. And because the bill wont move in the House for weeks Pelosi says it has to be accompanied by the budget it could become a fat target as it sits in legislative limbo.
Sen. MIKE LEE (R-Utah) spoke for a long time on the Senate floor Sunday night after the bill was introduced. He opposes the bill, but boy was his criticism neutered though he was forceful about wanting an open amendment process. Will DONALD TRUMP, Sens. TOM COTTON (R-Ark.) and TED CRUZ (R-Texas) or right-wing media develop more antipathy for the legislation, or do they all save their fire for the fight over the reconciliation bill?
COMING ATTRACTION: Were told White House senior adviser NEERA TANDEN has been working on a Month of Action plan for the Biden administration in August to showcase the presidents accomplishments and agenda. More details soon.
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AOC CALLS DEMS COWARDS ON EVICTIONS With the lapsed moratorium on evictions now being treated by Washington as the latest political hot potato while millions are at risk, House Democratic leadership sent out a joint statement Sunday night calling on the White House and CDC to extend the protections, and declaring that action is needed and it must come from the Administration.
Heres the thing: the White House doesnt think it can do it without congressional approval. (It made that clear late last week by punting it onto Congress to-do list.)
But that explanation has done little to placate House progressives.
For the past several nights, the progressives led by Missouri Rep. CORI BUSH have protested the eviction bans lapse by sleeping on the Capitol steps. (FYI, a fact relayed to Playbook by a congressional aide: Bush and others have to sleep in chairs on the steps because of a law outlawing sleeping on the actual grounds of the Capitol.) And it seems like that demonstration was noticed by the West Wing: Were told the White House has been in touch with Bushs office since the sleep-in began.
But the progressives ire isnt just directed at 1600 Penn; neither the White House nor congressional leadership is acting with enough urgency in their eyes.
Bush told Playbook on Sunday evening: Everybody needs to be moving right now. Whoever gets this thing done first, great, but everybody needs to be moving on all cylinders. And so Im not going to stop saying that the White House and the CDC should move, because if they go ahead and do the order, you know, that gives us some time to get people in town.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called her fellow Democratic House members cowards who needed to come back into town and put their names next to a yes or no vote, or the White House needs to do a damn thing about [eviction moratoriums].At the end of the day, the emergency is here. And so we need to exercise all avenues.
A POTENTIAL COMPROMISE? Rep. DEAN PHILLIPS (D-Minn.), a vice chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus who stopped by the protest, says an eviction moratorium through the end of the year is a non-starter for a lot of people, but that he sees common ground with the progressives in making sure renters are protected from eviction while at the same time making it easier for money to get directly to struggling landlords.
One late-in-the-game option being thrown around: Some House members are talking about pushing senators to add an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure bill to extend the eviction protections. But with no end date on its actual passage through both chambers, even that would leave millions of Americans at risk of eviction indefinitely.
BIDENS MONDAY:
10 a.m.: The president will receive the Presidents Daily Brief.
12:30 p.m.: Biden will arrive back at the White House after spending the weekend at Camp David.
1:15 p.m.: Biden and VP KAMALA HARRIS will receive a briefing on the pandemic and vaccine effort.
6:45 p.m.: Biden will speak virtually at a DNC fundraiser.
Press secretary JEN PSAKI will brief at 1 p.m. The White House Covid-19 response team and public health officials will brief at 4 p.m.
THE SENATE is in. THE HOUSE is out.
BIDENS WEEK AHEAD:
Tuesday: Biden will meet with Latino community leaders and deliver remarks about bolstering vaccinations.
Wednesday: Biden will meet with ERIC LANDER, science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, to discuss preparing for future pandemics.
Thursday: Biden will meet with Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community leaders.
Friday: Biden will receive his weekly economic briefing and head to Rehoboth Beach, Del., for the weekend.
STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What’s really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who’s up, who’s down, and who really has the presidents ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider’s guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won’t find anywhere else, subscribe today.
PLAYBOOK READS
PHOTO OF THE DAY: Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) runs past the Capitol as the sun sets on Sunday, Aug. 1. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images
THE WHITE HOUSE
DELTA DILEMMA Tensions rise within Biden team over mask reversal by Natasha Korecki, Eric Banco and Adam Cancryn: Top Biden officials note that breakthrough infections among the vaccinated are exceedingly rare, unlikely to be severe, and more likely to occur in crowded indoor settings. Theyve been openly frustrated by what they see as overly alarmed coverage of these cases.
Still, officials are increasingly worried about the ability of fully vaccinated individuals infected with Delta to spread it to others. There are also several lingering questions about Delta that the CDC is studying including whether and how asymptomatic individuals can transmit the virus raising questions about the risk posed by those choosing not to wear masks.
It all amounts to a grim political outlook for Biden. The White House had planned to be focused by now on the economy, jobs and infrastructure. Now, it is forced to confront questions about how schools would operate this fall on top of fear from housing advocates over the expiration of an eviction moratorium on Saturday, which came after the White House was slow to call for a legislative fix and which could, those advocates warn, further hamper the pandemic fight.
BIF BTS The quiet Biden-GOP talks behind the infrastructure deal,by WaPos Seung Min Kim: On the day President Bidens first attempt at a bipartisan infrastructure deal collapsed, he dialed up a Republican senator he saw as a potential negotiating partner for a renewed push. In that June 8 phone call, Biden told Sen. BILL CASSIDY (R-La.) that he wanted a public works agreement with Republicans in the neighborhood of $600 billion. More notably, Biden showed deep interest in provisions on energy resiliency that Cassidy had been working on for weeks.
The nearly four months of negotiations with Senate Republicans reflected a markedly different dynamic from Bidens push for emergency coronavirus relief earlier this year, when the presidents brief negotiations with Republicans were promptly eclipsed by Democrats moving on unilaterally to enact $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid. On infrastructure, Biden repeatedly made it clear in conversations with Republicans that he was serious about achieving a bipartisan deal, according to interviews with senators, congressional aides and administration officials.
TRUMP CARDS
GETTR DONE? Pro-Trump social network becomes safe haven for ISIS, by Mark Scott and Tina Nguyen: Just weeks after its launch, the pro-Trump social network GETTR is inundated with terrorist propaganda spread by supporters of Islamic State, according to a POLITICO review of online activity on the fledgling platform.
The rapid proliferation of such material is placing GETTR in the awkward position of providing a safe haven for jihadi extremists online as it attempts to establish itself as a free speech MAGA-alternative to sites like Facebook and Twitter. So far, GETTR has been the highest-profile pro-Trump platform launch, given the names behind it: JASON MILLER, former Trump spokesman, is its chief executive; and the site is partially funded by MILES GUO, the business partner of former Trump advisor STEVE BANNON.
VINDMAN SPEAKS ABOUT THAT PERFECT CALL What I Heard Trump Say on His Perfect Call,by Alexander Vindman in The Atlantic, adapted from his forthcoming book, Here, Right Matters: An American Story ($26.99): I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I knew that [RUDY] GIULIANI had been publicly pushing the false Biden story. And Id been disturbed to hear [GORDON] SONDLAND suggest to Ukrainian officials that if Ukraine pursued certain investigations, Zelensky would get a White House visit.
Still, for all my long-running concerns about Trumps approach to Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, and for all of my immediate concerns about how this call with [VOLODYMYR] ZELENSKY might go, I had refused to imagine that I would ever hear a president of the United States ask a foreign head of state to, in essence, manufacture compromising material on an American citizen in exchange for that support. The president was brazenly involving not only himself but also Attorney General [BILL] BARR, as well as his personal attorney Giuliani, in a wholly improper effort to subvert U.S. foreign policy in order to game an election.
CONGRESS
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN Democrats call on McCarthy to apologize after he said it will be hard not to hit Pelosi with gavel, by WaPos Amy Wang: Democrats immediately denounced [House Minority Leader KEVIN] MCCARTHYs remarks as misogynistic, disgraceful and no laughing matter, especially given that Pelosi was a target of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
A threat of violence to someone who was a target of a #January6th assassination attempt from your fellow Trump supporters is irresponsible and disgusting, DREW HAMMILL, Pelosis deputy chief of staff, tweeted Saturday. Several Democrats demanded that McCarthy apologize, while others including Reps. ERIC SWALWELL and TED LIEU of California said McCarthy should resign, linking such rhetoric to the political violence that was on display Jan. 6.
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POLICY CORNER
WELFARE DEEP DIVE Welfare rolls decline during the pandemic despite economic upheaval, by WaPos Amy Goldstein: The number of Americans receiving financial help through the nations welfare system ebbed last year, even as economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic gripped the nation.
Overall, parents and children receiving help through TANF decreased slightly from nearly 1.94 million recipients just before the pandemic to fewer than 1.935 million in December, according to federal figures. The number of people receiving food assistance or relying on Medicaid, the public health insurance for the poor, rose sharply. And pandemic relief packages adopted by Congress included stimulus payments and an expansion of unemployment insurance.
CLIMATE CONUNDRUM A Brain Drain Among Government Scientists Bogs Down Bidens Climate Ambitions, by NYTs Coral Davenport, Lisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle: From the Agriculture Department to the Pentagon to the National Park Service, hundreds of jobs in climate and environmental science across the federal government remain vacant. Scientists and climate policy experts who quit have not returned.
Recruitment is suffering, according to federal employees, as government science jobs are no longer viewed as insulated from politics. And money from Congress to replenish the ranks could be years away. While the Biden administration has installed more than 200 political appointees across the government in senior positions focused on climate and the environment, even supporters say it has been slow to rehire the senior scientists and policy experts who translate research and data into policy and regulations.
PANDEMIC
WHO INFLUENCES THE INFLUENCERS? To Fight Vaccine Lies, Authorities Recruit an Influencer Army, by NYTs Taylor Lorenz in Los Angeles: Fewer than half of all Americans age 18 to 39 are fully vaccinated, compared with more than two-thirds of those over 50, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And about 58 percent of those age 12 through 17 have yet to receive a shot at all.
To reach these young people, the White House has enlisted an eclectic army of more than 50 Twitch streamers, YouTubers, TikTokers and the 18-year-old pop star OLIVIA RODRIGO, all of them with enormous online audiences. State and local governments have begun similar campaigns, in some cases paying local micro influencers those with 5,000 to 100,000 followers up to $1,000 a month to promote Covid-19 vaccines to their fans.
AMERICA AND THE WORLD
PULLOUT FALLOUT Taliban advances into major Afghan cities for first time in two decades, by WaPos Susannah George and Aziz Tassal in Kandahar, Afghanistan: Taliban fighters launched rockets Saturday at airports in Kandahar and Herat, two of the countrys largest cities and busiest economic centers. The attacks mark a potential turning point in the Afghan conflict. Previously, clashes were largely confined to the countrys rural areas or smaller cities contested by the militants. Large-scale conventional attacks on Kandahar and Herat, the second- and fourth-largest cities in the country, have the potential to endanger millions more civilians.
IRAN LATEST U.S., Britain, Israel blame Iran for fatal drone strike on oil tanker; Tehran denies responsibility, by WaPos Kareem Fahim and Shira Rubin in Istanbul
POLITICS ROUNDUP
DEM DIVISIONS IN OHIO SPECIAL ELEX Special election ignites battle over who is welcome in Black caucus,by Ally Mutnick, Maya King and Heather Caygle: SHONTEL BROWN the chosen candidate of the [Congressional Black Caucus] would honor the rich history of the group, not be someone who fights against it while trying to make a name for themselves, CBC Chairwoman JOYCE BEATTY (D-Ohio) said while campaigning in the district Saturday with other top Black lawmakers. Left unsaid but implied with all the subtlety of a fire alarm: NINA TURNER, Browns opponent in Tuesdays Democratic primary, would be her opposite.
The outcome of the race will hint at which faction has the upper hand in the party ahead of more primary brawls to come next year, but it will also address a broader question: How the 50-year old Congressional Black Caucus, one of the oldest and most powerful groups in Congress, will evolve as a new class of Black lawmakers emerges one that is more eager to enact sweeping liberal policies and less willing to defer to seniority.
ALSO: Ohio Race Highlights Rift Between Sanders, Clyburn Wings of Democratic Party, by WSJs Eliza Collins
STILL AT IT Our brother Paul Gosar backed Trumps lie and betrayed America. Has he no shame? by Dave, Jennifer and Tim Gosar for NBC: In 1954, the Boston lawyer JOSEPH WELCH famously asked Wisconsin Republican Sen. JOSEPH MCCARTHY, At long last, sir, have you left no sense of decency? It was a question that marked the beginning of the end for McCarthys madness, and the senator died a disgraced and despised opportunist.
We now ask our brother, Rep. PAUL GOSAR, that same question. Although his colleagues in Congress and others in the media seem to only recently be paying attention, we have been aware of his unhinged behavior for years. We are therefore not surprised to see him heading down a very similar path to McCarthy’s. Related viewing: Gosars siblings take us behind the scenes of 2018s most brutal attack ad
DESSERT
NOT FAR FROM P-TOWN Obama plans birthday bash amid COVID concerns, by Axios Sarah Mucha: Former President [BARACK] OBAMA is hosting a 60th birthday bash for himself and hundreds of guests on Marthas Vineyard this coming weekend amid heightened public health concerns locally and nationally about the COVID-19 Delta variant.
A person with knowledge of the Obama party protocols said all guests will have to be COVID-tested, although they didnt say when, where or what proof they would have to offer. One person with connections to Obamaworld said there were 475 confirmed guests including friends, family and former aides and 200-plus staff planning to work the party. Pearl Jam was set to play, and one local hairdresser had been retained to style the hair of a band member. STEVEN SPIELBERG also was expected.
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PLAYBOOKERS
SPOTTED: Manchins houseboat, Almost Heaven, going around the Wharf on Saturday night while grilling aboard. Pic
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK Amy Shuart is now head of U.S. government affairs at Onfido. She most recently was staff director for House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee.
TRANSITIONS Ryan Galisewski is now a trial attorney for the Department of Justices Tax Division. He most recently was counsel for House Oversights Economic and Consumer Policy Subcommittee. Michael Richards is joining the Chamber Technology Engagement Center as director of policy. He previously was deputy chief of staff/legislative director for Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.). James Liska is joining the Brookings Institution as a program manager for public policy education programs, in partnership with Washington University in St. Louis. He previously led the congressional student engagement program at The Washington Center, and is a John Larson and Soapbox Consulting alum.
WEDDING Brandon Steinmann, district director for Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) in The Woodlands and a Hill alum, and Jessica Hart, a DOJ and Ted Cruz alum, got married recently at Laguna Gloria in Austin, Texas. They met in New York City while on a Texas Lyceum trip with other legislative staff and friends. Pic
WELCOME TO THE WORLD Emily Michael, legislative director for Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and a John McCain and Andy Harris alum, and Adam Buck Buckalew, founder of alb solutions and a longtime Hill staffer, welcomed Nora Catherine Buckalew on Tuesday at GW Hospital. PicAnother pic
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser NYTs Matthew RosenbergBrian MontgomeryLaura Nasim Fox News Rich EdsonGigi Sohn RNCs Nick BallasPeter MihalickCaitlin Huey-Burns of CBS Emily GershonSarah BittlemanHayley Brower of Sen. Mark Warners (D-Va.) office Camille GalloDavid EiselsbergGeneva KropperAustin Laufersweiler of the Partnership for Public Service (3-0) Kevin WallingJeff Ballou Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights Michael ManganielloDennis Prager retired Army Col. Jack H. JacobsBrynn Barnett former Reps. Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.) and Dan Boren (D-Okla.) former Treasury Secretary John Snow NBCs Dylan Dreyer Michelle White of Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolaks office
Send Playbookers tips to [email protected]. Playbook couldnt happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross.
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