Joe Biden with House speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office on Friday. House Democratic leaders have said the chamber should be ready to pass relief legislation by the end of the month. Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/EPA
Joe Biden with House speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office on Friday. House Democratic leaders have said the chamber should be ready to pass relief legislation by the end of the month. Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/EPA
Democratic lawmakers are debating over how the direct cash payments in Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief package should be distributed.
The president has rejected calls from some Republicans to lower the size of the checks from $1,400 to $1,000.
“I’m not cutting the size of the checks,” Biden said today. “They’re going to be $1,400. Period. That’s what the American people were promised.”
But negotiations continue over who should receive the checks. Some moderate Democrats, including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have called for phasing out the checks at a lower income level.
The most recent round of stimulus checks were cut off for people making more than $99,000 a year, or couples that made above $198,000. [Biden] recommended the same threshold in his $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package. ...
Manchin wants no checks for individuals making more than $75,000 per year, or couples making $150,000, his office said. He wants the amount to start phasing down at $50,000 per person, or $100,000 per couple. ...
But some top Democrats don’t want to lower the eligibility level for checks.
Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who will be a key figure in crafting the reconciliation legislation, told NBC News he’s “not for changing the threshold” because that would exclude many Americans who are expecting relief.
‘The people who got two checks already are expecting a third on the basis of the pledges and what was said through the campaign,’ he said Thursday. ‘They have bills piling up, and they have difficulty paying their car insurance.’
In a talkshow interview, the party chair, Allen West, argued that: “Texans have a right to voice their opinions on [this] critical issue.
“I don’t understand why anyone would feel that they need to prevent people from having a voice in something that is part of the Texas constitution,” the former Florida congressman said of the Texas Referendum Independence Act. “You cannot prevent the people from having a voice.”
West is the latest Republican to come out in support of declaring Texas an independent nation. Last month, the state representative Kyle Biedermann confirmed that he will introduce the bill for a referendum as early as this week.
“Texit,” named after the British referendum to leave the European Union, refers to the process of Texas exiting the United States to become an independent, self-governing nation.
The endorsement drew intense backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Many took aim directly at Allen as party chair, continuing a slew of criticism that has been levied at him since first he took on the role in July.
Video shows Roger Stone with far-right militia group on January 6 - report
ABC News has obtained a video showing Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s former associate, interacting with members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, on the morning of the Capitol insurrection.
EXCLUSIVE: Video surfaces showing longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone flanked by Oath Keepers militia members hours before deadly U.S. Capitol siege. https://t.co/WLVbyiyfEjpic.twitter.com/6WFsceMI5Q
In the video, which was obtained and reviewed by ABC News, Stone takes pictures and mingles with supporters outside a D.C. hotel as Oath Keepers hover around him, one wearing a baseball hat and military-style vest branded with the militia group’s logo.
‘So, hopefully we have this today, right?’ one supporter asks Stone in the video, which was posted just after 10 a.m. on the morning of the rally. ‘We shall see,’ Stone replies.
It is not known to what they were referring.
Stone has maintained that he played ‘no role whatsoever in the Jan. 6 events’ and has repeatedly said that he ‘never left the site of my hotel until leaving for Dulles Airport’ that afternoon. He has also decried attempts to ascribe to him the motives of the people around him.
‘I had no advance knowledge of the riot at the Capitol,’ Stone on Friday told ABC News about the video. ‘I could not even tell you the names of those who volunteered to provide security for me, required because of the many threats against me and my family.’
Stone was previously convicted for lying to Congress in connection to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He was later pardoned by Trump during the former president’s final month in office.
House passes budget resolution, paving the way for coronavirus relief
The House has just passed the Senate-approved budget resolution, paving the way for the chamber to take up Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal in the coming weeks.
The House voted 219-209 along mostly partly lines to approve the resolution as amended by the Senate. Jared Golden was the only Democrat to vote against the measure.
The rule for S.Con.Res. 5 – Setting forth the congressional budget for the US Gov't for FY 2021 & setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for FY 2022-2030 was adopted by a vote of 219-209.
The resolution includes instructions to House committees on crafting parts of the relief legislation within the confines of reconciliation.
The reconciliation process will allow Senate Democrats to pass the relief proposal without any Republican support, and Biden indicated today that he was ready to move forward on the package with or without Republican assistance.
House Democratic leaders have said the chamber should be ready to pass relief legislation by the end of the month, if not sooner.
Greene after losing committee assignments: This is Trump's party
Adam Gabbatt
The Republican extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, fresh from being stripped of her committee assignments, seemed unrepentant on Friday morning, as she used a press conference to sum up the intertwining of the Republican party and Donald Trump.
“The party is his – it doesn’t belong to anyone else,” Greene told reporters in Washington this morning.
Greene was removed from the budget and education and labor committees last night, after a 230-199 vote in the House of Representatives.
Just eleven Republicans joined Democrats in ousting Greene, who faced discipline for past claims that space lasers had started wildfires, that mass shootings didn’t really happen, and for her support of assassinating Democratic politicians.
If onlookers expected Greene to be chastened, she didn’t appear to be, as she launched into her 20-minute conference outside the Capitol, where she rattled through a laundry list of traditional Republican grievances.
On Twitter, too, Greene seemed upbeat. “I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats (+11) are for giving some one like me free time,” Greene posted.
“In this Democrat tyrannical government, Conservative Republicans have no say on committees anyway. Oh this is going to be fun!”
The White House press briefing has now concluded. Here’s where the day stands so far:
The US economy added just 49,000 jobs last month, according to the latest jobs report. The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 6.3%, underscoring the slow rate of the US economic recovery as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
Joe Biden indicated Democrats would quickly deliver coronavirus relief with or without Republican support. “That’s my preference to work together,” the president said. “But they’re just not willing to go as far as I think we have to go.” Biden’s speech came hours after the Senate passed Democrats’ budget resolution, paving the way to pass the relief package without Republican support.
The defense department will send more than 1,000 active-duty troops to assist vaccine distribution. The White House coronavirus response team announced that the troops would first be sent to the mass vaccination sites in California next week.
Jen Psaki said the White House did not have a timeline for when his attorney general nominee, Merrick Garland, might be confirmed.
Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, refused to schedule a confirmation hearing for Garland while he was still in control of the panel.
Democrat Dick Durbin did not officially become chairman of the committee until Wednesday, when the Senate passed a power-sharing resolution to address the 50-50 split in the chamber.
Jen Psaki was asked whether Joe Biden would use the power of the bully pulpit to press teachers to return to the classroom, as some unions threaten to strike if its members are not vaccinated before schools reopen.
The White House press secretary said she rejected the premise of the question, arguing that teachers want to return to the classroom more than anyone.
“The president is absolutely committed to reopening schools. He wants them not just to reopen but to stay open,” Psaki said.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said today that the agency would soon release guidance on safely reopening schools, and Psaki noted the White House would defer to that.
Moments ago, Jen Psaki announced that Joe Biden would also share his conversation with an unemployed woman named Michelle with the American people tomorrow.
The press secretary said that the conversation, which will be shared on the White House’s digital channels, is part of Biden’s commitment to regularly communicating with the American people about the pandemic.
Psaki said the updates were in line with the “time-honored tradition” of presidents speaking directly to the country, in the vein of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” during the Great Depression.
