The Daily 202: Biden next week will go big to his biggest audience yet

It’ll look different not just because of the social distancing, which also means lawmakers can’t bring the usual headline-stealing guests, but also because for the first time in U.S. history the two people seated directly behind him will be women — Vice President Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

It’ll sound different not just because of thinner applause (and boos) from a depleted crowd, but because giving it this late in his first year means Biden won’t just lay out his agenda — he’ll be able to brag about his accomplishments in a way his predecessors could not in February of their inaugural years in office.

Biden pushed through a $1.9 trillion stimulus package with only Democratic votes and has introduced a more than $2 trillion infrastructure package, both of which stand to remake large swaths of the economy. He has pledged to slash U.S. carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030 to fight the climate crisis.

While some early proposals have surrendered to political reality — internal Democratic dissent led him to nix, or at least postpone, efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour — Biden has unquestionably been ambitious.

“I did not expect him to be as big and as bold as he’s been,” House Democratic Whip James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, whose 2020 endorsement reinvigorated Biden’s campaign, told Bloomberg Businessweek.

White House aides have said since late last year Biden will be judged — by history and, well before that, by midterm election voters — based on his handling of the pandemic and the limping U.S. economy he inherited.

“He certainly recognizes this is an opportunity to speak directly with the American people — one of the highest-profile opportunities that any president has in their first year in office,” Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters yesterday.

Biden is likely to credit his broadly popular $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, and notably its direct payments of up to $1,400 to millions of Americans, while urging support for his roughly $2.3 trillion infrastructure package and his emerging American Families Plan — a package of largely popular benefits.

The administration envisions it will be “largely if not fully paid for with new tax increases centered on upper-income Americans and wealthy investors,” Jeff and Tyler reported.

Biden “will propose almost doubling the capital gains tax rate for wealthy individuals to 39.6%, which, coupled with an existing surtax on investment income, means that federal tax rates for investors could be as high as 43.4%, according to people familiar with the proposal,” they reported.

He could also do what most of his modern predecessors have done: Plead for bipartisan cooperation, even if (as I have written before) a cynic might describe that as a call to set aside ideological differences and do what the president wants.

While the GOP will deliver the usual rebuttal speech — this year, the job falls to Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the only Black Republican in the Senate — there will also be a response from Rep. Jamaal Bowman, (D-N.Y.) on behalf of progressives.

“It’s a balancing act. He’s already done a lot that I love. And he’s going to say a lot of things that I like, as well,” Bowman told NBC in an interview. “But if we relent, it doesn’t mean that what’s been going on so far is going to continue. It’s important for us as progressives to continue to push and continue to organize.”

As for Scott, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described the South Carolinian as “one of the most inspiring and unifying leaders in our nation” and underlined “nobody is better at communicating why far-left policies fail working Americans.”

In recent decades, with expanded viewing options and diminished attention spans, the traditional speech — don’t call it a State of the Union address until 2022, please — has lost much of its ratings, and consequently some of its luster.

Even with incredibly high stakes, the rote format invites lampooning — “my fellow Americans, I come before you tonight to speak in ringing tones and stare into the middle distance” is a favorite. And some past stunts could be grating, like bipartisan seating, which one wag described as the political equivalent of a comb-over in that it looks weird and fools no one.

But that recalls the definition of a cynic as a person who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The speech gets the president the largest audience he — any American politician, really — is guaranteed to get this year.

“It won’t represent or touch on the totality of every issue that’s a priority,” Psaki said. “Unless you want to sit through a seven-hour speech. Which I don’t think you do.”

Biden will travel to the U.K. and Belgium this June in his first overseas trip as president, the White House said. Biden will attend the Group of Seven summit in Cornwall from June 11 to 13, and he will also meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. After that, the president will travel to Brussels, where he will participate in the NATO summit on June 14.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny will end his prison hunger strike, following the advice of his doctors who warned he could soon die. “Navalny, who is serving a more-than two-year sentence, began his hunger strike [24 days ago] as a demand to see independent medical specialists of his choosing at his expense,” Isabelle Khurshudyan reports. 

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) will campaign for Michael Wood, a GOP congressional candidate in Texas who’s calling for the party to move past Donald Trump. “Kinzinger’s office confirmed the visit, which will take him into a special election for Texas’s 6th Congressional District, a part of the greater Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex that supports Republicans but backed Trump last year by just three points. Wood, a veteran and first-time candidate, has also received financial support from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and announced Monday that he had raised nearly $100,000 for the short special election campaign,” David Weigel reports. 

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched NASA’s Crew-2 to orbit, its third human spaceflight in less than a year. “Flying inside SpaceX’s autonomous Dragon spacecraft was an international quartet known as Crew-2: NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, as well as Thomas Pesquet of France and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan,” Christian Davenport reports. “Currently, SpaceX is NASA’s sole American human spaceflight provider. Boeing is months behind schedule in its efforts to win similar status.” 

• “Ted Cruz maintains ties to right-wing group despite its extremist messaging,” by Beth Reinhard and Neena Satija: “A Post review of True Texas Project’s activities and social media shows that Cruz has continued to embrace the [right-wing] group, even as its nativist rhetoric and divisive tactics have alienated some other conservative elected officials. Cruz’s father, a frequent campaign surrogate for his son, spoke at a meeting of the group shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, at a time when the group’s leadership was defending the pro-Trump mob on social media… Cruz’s ongoing ties to TTP contrast with the group’s fraught relationship with much of the Republican establishment in Texas. The group has lashed out at Republicans it perceives as too moderate — including Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) and Gov. Greg Abbott — and has backed candidates against officeholders it once helped elect… James Riddlesperger, a political science professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, said Cruz appears to have ‘turned a blind eye’ to the group’s most extreme rhetoric. Many Cruz supporters would not view the group’s messaging as racist, he added.”
• “Senate committee to take up Biden judicial nominees in preview of potential Supreme Court fight,” by Ann Marimow and Paul Kane: “The Senate Judiciary Committee will take its first look next week at Biden’s initial batch of judicial nominees… Democratic lawmakers are moving quickly to review Biden’s nominees to take advantage of their slim majority in the Senate and begin to remake the courts with judges from diverse personal and professional backgrounds. All five nominees under consideration next Wednesday are people of color … The hearing featuring Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is up for the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, could be a preview of what she would face if she is eventually nominated for a potential vacancy on the Supreme Court.
• More: “Many senators are keeping an eye across the street, awaiting word whether Justice Stephen G. Breyer, 82, will step down. Democrats have not overtly pressured the court’s oldest justice to retire, but privately they are hopeful he will step aside for a younger liberal while the party retains a majority — one that could disappear in the 2022 midterms or through an untimely illness that relegates them to minority status.”
• “The United Nations is turning to artificial intelligence in search for peace in war zones,” by Dalvin Brown: “Over the past year, the United Nations has worked with the AI start-up Remesh on an algorithm that helped negotiate peace agreements across Yemen and Libya as the two nations grappled with ongoing civil wars and the coronavirus pandemic. The tool was deployed as a website link to stakeholders in embattled regions. It was designed to assess open-ended responses on the Internet from up to 1,000 people at a time and derive a consensus in near real-time. The software has helped the U.N. understand what groups in conflict zones are most concerned about during live discussions with political leaders.”

• “Kevin McCarthy’s gamble on a “Big Tent” GOP,” by Time’s Lissandra Villa: “Though he’s one of the most senior Republicans in the country, McCarthy has declined to articulate a clear vision for which direction the party should be headed. ‘This Republican Party’s a very big tent,’ he said after a closed-door conference meeting in February. … ‘Everyone’s invited in,’ McCarthy said. The ‘big tent’ doctrine is quintessential McCarthy. … But conversations with more than a dozen current and former House members, GOP strategists, Republican staffers and other party observers offer a portrait of a politician with a win-at-all-costs approach.”
• “Democrat Joe Manchin says there’s one GOP senator he’d endorse ‘in a heartbeat,’” by Politico’s Burgess Everett: “The West Virginia senator is backing Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s reelection bid in the face of a pointed challenge from Trump. … ‘People understand that they have a person that understands Alaska and has Alaska in her blood and in every part of her veins and every morsel of her body,’” he said.
• “U.S. drop in vaccine demand has some places turning down doses,” the Associated Press’s Leah Willingham, Heather Hollingsworth and Michelle R. Smith report: “Louisiana has stopped asking the federal government for its full allotment of COVID-19 vaccine. About three-quarters of Kansas counties have turned down new shipments of the vaccine at least once over the past month. And in Mississippi, officials asked the federal government to ship vials in smaller packages so they don’t go to waste.”

• The president touted the new jobs combating climate change could bring, including in “fields we haven’t even conceived of yet,” John Wagner reports. Biden also stressed the importance of ensuring that workers who “thrived in yesterday’s and today’s industries have as bright a tomorrow in the new industries.”
• John F. Kerry, Biden’s special envoy for climate, opened the second day of the summit by echoing the same themes. Fighting climate change “is going to create millions of high-quality, good-paying jobs around the world, especially in countries that seize this agenda,” Kerry said. “Today is going to be about that vision. We’re going to hear from governments, entrepreneurs, community and labor leaders about how they see the future.”
• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cast the climate challenge as a shared endeavor. “Pursuing a net-zero goal is not a zero-sum game,” he said. “We all benefit if we succeed at this. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s how interconnected we are and how capable we are of change.”
• Read continuing coverage of the climate summit on our liveblog.

• “The coal and power plant workers who built our nation can play a huge role in making America’s clean energy future a reality, and this report outlines just the first steps the Biden administration is taking to make sure they have those opportunities right in their communities,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said before launching the summit.
• The money, Steven Mufson reports, includes: $75 million funding opportunity to engineer carbon capture projects; $19.5 million in funding awards for critical mineral extraction from coal and associated waste streams; $15 million for geothermal energy research projects at West Virginia and Sandia National Laboratories.
• Notable: That money is likely to help bolster support from the Senate’s swing vote, Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

• “UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum said the joint effort would go toward research and development over the next five years,” Mufson reports. “Private investor and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said the mission would help vulnerable subsistence farmers suffering from the unpredictable nature of climate change. They are hoping that other countries will join the initiative.”

• Israel pledged to no longer burn coal in 2025 “barring unforeseen circumstances.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced that, by the end of this decade, renewable energy will provide more than one-third of Israel’s electricity, John Wagner reports.
• Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen detailed some of her country’s big plans to achieve a 70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. “Imagine that you are flying across the North Sea. Hundreds of wind turbines appear on the horizon. As you get closer, you spot an island, an island creating clean electricity, clean fuels, green innovation for millions of European households,” Frederiksen said. “That’s our Danish vision of the world’s first energy island. … Denmark will soon make it a reality.”

• “Washington’s history of backing out or failing to ratify climate commitments now jeopardizes widespread support for Biden’s just-announced plans,” Politico reports. “The Chinese government … has been particularly scathing. ‘The U.S. chose to come and go as it likes with regard to the Paris Agreement,’ Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, implying that America may be offered forgiveness for its Paris Agreement backflips, but it cannot also expect applause for setting a 2030 target.”

• “… it’s uncertain how much more ground Xi is willing to concede — and under what circumstances,” Gerry Shih reports. “Although the United States, Japan and Canada on Thursday unveiled tighter new greenhouse gas emissions targets for 2030, Xi — as well as another key figure, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — refrained from new commitments.”
• “Environmental groups say they were disappointed because Xi has staked out significant long-term goals to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 — but has not yet presented clarity about how to get there. Xi’s reticence at the summit could be driven by domestic considerations, said Li Shuo, senior adviser at Greenpeace East Asia.” “It’s precisely because it’s a U.S.-organized event that China might have been more hesitant to put more offers on the table,” Li told Shih.
• “Li said the next venue for a potential Chinese announcement could be the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26 — a multilateral, rather than Biden-led, forum to take place in Glasgow in November.”

• “Biden will propose almost doubling the capital gains tax rate for wealthy individuals to 39.6% to help pay for a raft of social spending that addresses long-standing inequality, according to people familiar with the proposal,” Bloomberg News reports. “For those earning $1 million or more, the new top rate, coupled with an existing surtax on investment income, means that federal tax rates for wealthy investors could be as high as 43.4%. The new marginal 39.6% rate would be an increase from the current base rate of 20%.”
• “A 3.8% tax on investment income that funds Obamacare would be kept in place, pushing the tax rate on returns on financial assets higher than rates on some wage and salary income, they said… The proposal could reverse a long-standing provision of the tax code that taxes returns on investment lower than on labor.”

• That is according to a new Post-ABC News poll, Scott Clement and Emily Guskin report, which also found “some skepticism of how Biden has handled the issue, with 42 percent of Americans saying he is doing ‘too little’ to reform police practices in the country, while 32 percent say he has done the right amount and 15 percent say he has done ‘too much.’”
• “Nearly half of Black Americans and Democrats say Biden has done too little on this issue, a significant break from their typical lopsided support of his actions on other fronts.”

“She didn’t even have a chance to live her life or make decisions” said the great-grandmother of Ma’Khia Bryant, the teenager fatally shot by a Columbus police officer on Tuesday. “Justice was not done.” 

“The border turned out to be a better attack on Biden than even Republicans thought,” Politico’s Anita Kumar reports: “After weeks of traveling to the border, writing letters, drafting memos and calling for investigations, Republicans are readying an even more aggressive plan to feature Biden’s policies in campaign ads and mailers in states across the country. GOP officials say the border — alongside the resistance to reopening schools during the pandemic — offer[s] them the greatest political opportunities so far in Biden’s young presidency. ‘It’s going to be a massive issue … in the midterms,’ said Republican strategist Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump. ‘Biden clearly made a number of deals with progressives in his party but progressives in his party don’t necessarily represent the swing voters and working class blue collar voters all around the country.’” 

Case in point, this tweet by Texas Republican Gov. Abbott: 

Former president George W. Bush revealed to People magazine that he wrote in Condoleezza Rice’s name in the 2020 presidential election. Folks on both sides of the aisle weren’t impressed.

And a Cruz video went viral last night after he was stopped by a student near the Capitol, who asked him for a selfie — and then followed up with a question about his infamous trip to Cancún, Mexico. Cruz, laughing awkwardly, rushes away from him. 

The Washington Post reviewed multiple data sets and studies to show the scope of these purchases, which have drawn the attention of critics who worry the practice will dampen innovation and hurt consumers.

Harris will visit New Hampshire to resume the promotion of Biden’s $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure package. She will hold a “listening session” in Plymouth on broadband access at 11:55 a.m. and will later visit a union hall in Concord at 2 p.m. before giving a speech on the plan at 2:40 p.m. 

Biden will receive the weekly economic briefing today at 1:45 and will participate in a virtual Department of Defense senior leaders conference at 2:45 p.m. 

During Biden’s climate summit, British Prime Minister Johnson said his approach to combating climate change was not “bunny hugging,” and he insisted that green policies could be an economic opportunity. Activist Greta Thunberg, who loves to troll politicians on Twitter, changed her bio:

And Seth Meyers examined why Republicans are freaking out about D.C.’s statehood bid: