The Daily 202: Iran tests Biden as he joins first international summit as president

After a campaign in which he promised to repair relations with allies and put diplomacy first, President Biden joined his first international summit on Friday: A virtual Group of Seven meeting in the lengthening shadow of escalating tensions with Iran.

After weeks of telephone calls with heads of state, the G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States — was Biden’s first proper gathering with world leaders, even if the pandemic kept them from meeting in person.

Shortly after his G7 appearance, Biden addressed the Munich Security Conference, saying that transatlantic relations had been “strained and tested” under Trump and promising to “earn back our position of trusted leadership.”

“We’re prepared to reengage in negotiations with the P5 plus one on Iran’s nuclear program,” the president said, referring to the framework that led to the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. “We must also address Iran’s destabilizing activities across the Middle East. And we’re going to work in close cooperation with our European and other partners as we proceed.”

Biden also underlined “democratic progress is under assault” around the world and singled out Moscow and Beijing as policy challenges that must be met with a united front.

“How the United States, Europe, and Asia work together to secure the peace and defend our shared values and advance our prosperity across the pacific will be among the most consequential efforts we undertake.”   

Biden urged allies to jointly confront “Russian recklessness,” citing its military actions in Ukraine and accusations of extensive hacking, and declared “the challenges with Russia may be different than the ones with China, but they are just as real.”

Biden had already taken some steps to reverse Trump’s approach to world affairs — announcing America’s return to the Paris climate agreement, for instance. But Iran is an altogether more immediate crisis, likely to test Biden’s commitments to rally allies and manage relations with China and Russia — promises at the center of his 2020 campaign’s foreign policy message.  

Since Trump quit the nuclear deal, Iran has steadily increased its atomic activities well beyond the limits laid out by the agreement, shortening the time it would take to build a nuclear weapon should it decide to do so. It has kept that going under Biden.

One major test will come next week, Iran’s self-imposed deadline for ending short-notice inspections of its activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. (Expect a diplomatic flurry over the weekend to keep that from happening).

Against that backdrop, the United States took steps last night to fulfill Biden’s campaign promise to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated by President Barack Obama, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. The president and his team have repeatedly said that Iran must return to compliance with the accord before Washington does. Iran has refused to do so until the United States lifts sanctions that have crippled its economy.

“The Biden administration took its first diplomatic steps toward reviving the Iran nuclear deal, saying Thursday that it would be willing to attend a meeting with Tehran and other world powers that signed the 2015 accord.

The meeting, proposed by the European Union, would also include Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain and would amount to a repudiation of the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Islamic republic. …

The Biden administration does not yet know if Iran would agree to meet, State Department officials said.”

The original parties to the nuclear deal were the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China — known as the “P5+1,” the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Berlin.

Asked whether Beijing and Moscow were supportive of Washington’s efforts, a senior State Department official told reporters on Thursday “the general posture has been positive” but acknowledged some tension.

“They have taken the position that they wanted the U.S. to take some steps in advance, and we’ve told them the U.S. shouldn’t need to take steps simply to get back to the table,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “Once we’re back at the table, all these issues will be up for discussion. “

And Biden has repeatedly called for strengthening and lengthening the terms of the deal, as well as addressing other Iranian activities in the region — like its missile program or support for militias in other countries. That approach is broadly popular with U.S. allies and partners, but it’s far from certain Iran agrees to broader talks when it has resisted the narrower, nuclear-focused discussion.

Biden’s G7 appearance comes as the United States has been at odds with key European allies on issues connected to Russia and China.

“European and Asian allies have welcomed Biden’s pledge to cooperate after Trump’s go-it-alone approach and occasional outright hostility to traditional allies. But, especially in Europe, leaders also have sought ways to rely less on the United States. Those leaders eye a potential return to isolationism under the next president, and were horrified by the ease with which Trump summoned a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in his name.”

Like Trump’s administration, the Biden team dislikes seeing allies embracing China’s Huawei telecommunications company. Like the Trump administration, the Biden team opposes completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany on the grounds that it would deepen European dependence on Russian energy. (One option already raising hackles in Congress is the possibility of finishing the project but attaching a provision under which Berlin would shut off the flow of natural gas in the face of any provocative action from Moscow. Critics argue that opening the spigot in the first place will reduce the development of alternatives that might be used in such a scenario).

Presidents are said to have a freer hand in foreign policy than on domestic matters, but the American agenda is far from invulnerable to global pressures. 

Texans will face another round of record low temperatures tonight and tomorrow morning. A hard freeze warning is under effect in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, CNN reports.

•  Texas officials said that power was restored Thursday to about 2 million homes, leaving just over 300,000 without electricity. More than 13 million Texans were living under boil-water advisories, Arelis Hernández, Ken Hoffman, Abigail Hauslohner and Griff Witte report. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled the start of a congressional inquiry into the causes for the prolonged outage.
• The Arctic outbreak has disrupted the distribution of coronavirus vaccines. The storms caused slowdowns at two vaccine shipping centers in Memphis and Louisville, Lateshia Beachum reports.
• Biden spoke with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and offered federal support for the state. Biden planned to instruct federal agencies to look into any additional steps to support the state’s residents, according to the White House. (John Wagner)
• And we have the full rundown on Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) quickie round trip to Cancun below.

Coronavirus cases in the D.C. region are falling, but local officials say it’s too soon to ease most restrictions. The region’s seven-day average of new daily cases fell to the same levels as mid-November, Rebecca Tan, Gregory Schneider and Erin Cox report. Nonetheless, with an average of more than 3,000 new cases daily, experts say it’s still too early to lift major restrictions on social and commercial activity.

The United States officially rejoined the Paris accord. Now, world leaders expect the U.S. under Biden to prove its commitment to the issue after four years of being pretty much absent in international climate talks, the AP reports.  

• “A mass-casualty event every day,” by Karin Brulliard and a team of our colleagues: “An average of 3,100 people in the United States died of the coronavirus each day in January — one every 28 seconds.”
• “Gavel in hand, Bernie Sanders lays out an unabashedly liberal economic agenda,” by Mike DeBonis: “As the new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders has already played a key role in advancing Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, and he is now scheduling high-profile hearings on some of the nation’s most pressing challenges. For the first, set for Thursday, Sanders has summoned the chief executives of some of America’s best-known companies to testify about the wages they pay their employees — speaking alongside some of their own front-line workers.”
• Op-ed: “The Capitol rioters speak just like the Islamist terrorists I reported on,” by CNN’s chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto: “The similarities between domestic and Islamist terror groups are hard to avoid. Followers of both are drawn to a cause greater than themselves that gives them a shared identity and a mission to correct perceived wrongs, by whatever means necessary. At the core of this cause is a profound sense of victimization and humiliation.”

• “Texas was ‘seconds and minutes’ away from catastrophic monthslong blackouts, officials say,” the Texas Tribune’s Erin Douglas reports: “As millions of customers throughout the state begin to have power restored after days of massive blackouts, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the power grid that covers most of the state, said Texas was dangerously close to a worst-case scenario: uncontrolled blackouts across the state.”
• “How heirs to a fashion empire ended up sinking cash into scores of modest Florida homes,” by the Miami Herald’s Ben Wieder and Emily Mahoney: “”[I]t illustrates how the global super-rich move their money around the world, ever in search of new investment opportunities that can help diversify their portfolios.”
• “These families are stuck at home during covid, but they have plenty of places to go,” by  the Wall Street Journal’s Jaci Conre. “Ms. Benjamin took cues from commercial workspaces for the design of the girls’ area where she incorporated rectangular booths fitted with cushions. “The kids each have one where they can stretch out or sit up and do their schoolwork at writing desks positioned in front,” says Ms. Benjamin.”

• Bottle service: The president, upon arriving at his D.C. hotel, was offered a small bottle of Purell hand sanitizer as a server asked him whether he wanted his Diet Coke with or without ice.  A chilled tray of bottles awaited the Trumps and, according to directions clearly spelled out in a guidebook for staffers, pouring the soda took seven steps. The beverage had to be opened in front of the president, with a longneck-bottle opener h/ld by the lower third of the handle. The Diet Coke was also to be held by the lower third. “Repeat until POTUS departs,” the instructions read.
• When it came to ketchup for his well-done steak, Trump preferred miniature Heinz bottles. Servers were instructed to open the bottles in front of him to ensure that he could hear the seal make the “pop” sound.
• The hotel’s most notorious VIP was Rudy Giuliani, who had a regular table in the restaurant’s downstairs dining area that staffers referred to as his office. At one point, someone made it official and placed a plaque on the table reading RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI PRIVATE OFFICE.

• “I really want this in there but it just doesn’t look like we can do it because of reconciliation,” Biden told the bipartisan group during a meeting last week, a person in the room told Politico, referring to special budget procedures Democrats are using to ram through the package on a party-line vote. “I’m not going to give up. But right now, we have to prepare for this not making it.”
• That’s not going to cheer progressives, who are pushing to include the $15 hourly minimum wage hike in the package. The House will likely next week pass its own version of the stimulus measure, including the hike. The trouble will come in the Senate where the parliamentarian may say it doesn’t qualify for inclusion in the package under budget rules, and moderate Democratic Sens. like Joe Manchin III (WVa.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) don’t want it there anyway.
• At the governor’s meeting, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, one of four Republicans there, said he didn’t think the wage hike was directly related to the immediate problems caused by the pandemic.
• Biden shared roughly the same message in a CBS News interview two weeks ago, when he said he wants to include the wage hike in the stimulus “but I don’t think it’s gonna survive” because of Senate rules.

• Biden made the announcement during the Group of Seven meeting this morning. The U.S. will initially send $2 billion in funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to be used by the Covax Facility, Emily Rauhala, Erin Cunningham and Adam Taylor report. The United States will release an additional $2 billion over two years once other donors have made good on their pledges.
• “Covax aims to get coronavirus vaccines to low- and middle-income countries that have been cut out of a vaccine race that’s seen rich countries snap up the majority of doses, leaving everyone else to wait,” the reporters write.

• This time, CNN reached out to the 16 Senate Republicans who face reelection next year on whether they back Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as leader. Only three responded, including Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who said he does.
• Donors are also avoiding taking sides publicly. Still, strategists see signs of trouble in 2022 and 2024 if the rift remains, the Hill reports. “Dem money’s going to flow; I think the worry will be some of the GOP money will sit on the sidelines, even the big establishment money, until Republicans get their act together,” a longtime GOP donor said.

• Thune criticized Republican activists and primary leaders for rushing to censure GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in the Senate impeachment trial, the AP reports.
• “If we’re going to criticize the media and the left for cancel culture, we can’t be doing that ourselves,” said the No. 2 Senate Republican who voted for acquittal and faces a reelection battle next year in deeply conservative South Dakota.

• The former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, has experience investigating and defending white-collar and organized crime cases, the New York Times reports. He will bolster a team under District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. that is investigating the Trump Organization.
• “The investigation by Mr. Vance, a Democrat, is focused on possible tax and bank-related fraud, including whether the Trump Organization misled its lenders or local tax authorities about the value of his properties to obtain loans and tax benefits,” the Times reported. “In recent months, Mr. Vance’s office has broadened the long-running investigation to include an array of financial transactions and Trump properties — including Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, various Trump hotels and the Seven Springs estate in Westchester County — as prosecutors await a ruling from the United States Supreme Court that could give them access to Mr. Trump’s tax returns.”

• Venture capitalist Imaad Zuberi was also fined $1.75 million and ordered to pay $15.7 million in restitution for falsifying records to hide his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. officials, NBC News reports. He previously donated to both Republican and Democratic politicians, including Hillary Clinton in 2015 and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in 2014.
• Prosecutors say Zuberi solicited money from foreign nationals and representatives of foreign governments by claiming he would use his influence in Washington to alter U.S. foreign policy. Officials have not revealed the source of the $900,000 he donated to the Trump inaugural committee.

“Most of them are so cold that their bodies are numb,” said the wife of a Texas inmate about the conditions he’s facing in prison during the freezing weather there. “A lot of them fear to fall asleep because they think they’re going to freeze. They don’t think they’re going to wake up.”

“Usually, it takes at least one full day in Cancun to do something embarrassing you’ll never live down. But for Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), it took just 10 hours,” writes Ashley Parker on the senator’s disastrous decision to go on vacation while his fellow Texans scrimped for water and heat.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg weighed in on Cruz’s trip. Cruz, Buttigieg suggested, should follow CDC guidelines and quarantine now that he’s back on American soil.

Flew-turn: Cruz landed back in his home state almost 24 hours after leaving, claiming he was just being a “good dad” and had simply gone abroad for a day to drop his children off at the beach. Reporters and Internet sleuths, however, soon found out the senator originally planned to spend the weekend in Mexico. Once back at home, Cruz conceded the trip was “obviously a mistake.” 

Cancun-gate earned Cruz, dubbed online Cancun Cruz and Flyin’ Ted, national and bipartisan scorn and was the perfect Twitter story. The Texas tea was even spilled among Heidi Cruz’s group chat friends known as “the lovelies,” including screenshots of messages in which Heidi Cruz tried to convince friends to join her at the Ritz Carlton in Mexico.

By the evening, a New York Magazine reporter noticed it appeared not all of the Cruz family got on a plane. Their dog, Snowflake, was left at home:

And this account was quickly created:

Conservatives are trying to shift attention from Cruz to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who faces more backlash over misreported nursing home coronavirus deaths. Last night, Donald Trump Jr., in an apparent reference to Cuomo, tweeted, “the hypocrisy of those trying to cancel Ted Cruz who have been totally silent on their Democrat Governor’s incompetence is telling.” 

Fox News, meanwhile, complained that CNN and MSNBC hosts “overwhelmingly” kept their focus on Cruz while “virtually ignoring” Cuomo’s woes, which appear to only be getting worse. New York State Assembly Republicans are forming an impeachment commission to “gather facts and evidence” on Cuomo’s “handling and subsequent cover-up of the COVID-19 crisis in nursing homes,” per the New York Post. 

Biden will head to Kalamazoo, Mich., today to visit a Pfizer manufacturing plant that is producing a coronavirus vaccine. 

Pelosi will join a news conference today at which members of Congress will denounce a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes and violence during the pandemic.

Trevor Noah said Ted Cruz threw his daughters under the bus for his actions: