Playbook PM: Americans back Biden’s vaccine mandates

From: POLITICO Playbook - Monday Sep 13,2021 05:40 pm

Sep 13, 2021

By Ryan Lizza, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

DEVELOPING — The Capitol Police arrested a white supremacist with knives in his truck near the DNC headquarters early this morning. DONALD CRAIGHEAD of Oceanside, Calif., allegedly had a bayonet and machete inside his pickup, which was adorned with a swastika and white supremacist iconography. Pics of the truck

The big four congressional leaders were all briefed late this morning on security preparations for the pro-Capitol insurrectionist “Justice for J6” rally planned for Washington on Saturday, when Capitol Police have warned that there’s the potential for further violence. Speaker NANCY PELOSI told reporters afterward that there’s “much better preparation” this time around. House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY said he doesn’t expect any Republican members of Congress to attend.

“Noticeably stepped-up security posture on Capitol Hill this morning ahead of Sept. 18 rally,” Burgess Everett noted.

Fencing around the Capitol will go up around Thursday or Friday, public safety officials announced.

NEW POLLING ON BIDEN COVID PLAN — In our new POLITICO/Morning Consult tracking poll of 1,997 registered voters, we asked a series of questions about vaccine mandates. Toplines … Crosstabs

Three-quarters of respondents said they received at least one shot, while one-quarter said they hadn’t had any vaccination yet, which tracks with the CDC’s latest numbers for all adults.

The main takeaways:

There’s a clear ideological divide when the mandate question is asked generically …

— Forty-one percent say that government mandates to receive a Covid-19 vaccine “violate the rights of Americans,” while 46% say such mandates “protect the rights of Americans.”

Despite that close divide, President JOE BIDEN’s specific mandate policies get higher marks …

— Requiring all employers with 100 or more employees to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations or weekly testing: 58% support, 36% oppose

— Requiring federal workers and contractors to get vaccinated for Covid-19, without an option to opt out through regular testing: 57% support, 36% oppose

— Requiring most U.S. health care workers to get vaccinated for Covid-19, without an option to opt out through regular testing: 60% support, 34% oppose

The 25 percenters are dug in …

— A quarter of the country seems committed to the anti-vax and anti-mandate cause. A quarter are unvaccinated, and roughly a quarter “strongly oppose” all four of the Biden policies we tested.

America’s ability to break the back of the pandemic will be determined by how long the 25 percenters hold out.

Good Monday afternoon. Your post-lunch must-read is this delightful Ruby Cramer dispatch for POLITICO Magazine on how DONALD TRUMP spent the 20th anniversary of 9/11 ensconced in an unusual melange of off-kilter remembrances, personal political pursuits, money-making opportunities and refusals to join other former presidents at somber events.

“The entire day,” Ruby writes, “was a rolling ‘alternate telecast,’ a parallel reality of Trump’s own devising.”

VALLEY TALK

— ALVARO BEDOYA will be Biden’s pick as the FTC’s third Democratic commissioner on the five-person panel, Axios’ Margaret Harding McGill reports. He’s a privacy advocate, Georgetown Law professor and Senate Judiciary alum.

— WSJ’s Jeff Horwitz is out with a stunning expose on Facebook’s XCheck, a secret program that exempts politicians and other prominent people from rules the company claims apply to everyone. It’s the first in a multi-part series based on internal company documents. The favoritism in Facebook’s white-listing practices allowed accounts to post, for example, false claims about vaccines, Trump and HILLARY CLINTON. “In describing the system, Facebook has misled the public and its own Oversight Board,” Horwitz writes without qualification. (Kind of hard to fight conspiracy theories when you are, in fact, creating a secret network of elites who exist above the rules!)

— The FEC has concluded that Twitter didn’t break the law when it blocked the spread of an unsubstantiated HUNTER BIDEN story last year (and infuriated conservatives), per NYT’s Shane Goldmacher. The decision hinged on determining that Twitter’s actions “had been undertaken for a valid commercial reason, not a political purpose, and were thus allowable,” Goldmacher writes, and it “is likely to set a precedent for future cases involving social media sites and federal campaigns.”

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 president’s 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.

THE RECONCILIATION BILL

— After House Ways and Means Dems’ initial proposal included no mention of changing the state and local tax deduction cap — a top priority for several moderate Dems who represent wealthy districts — the SALTies are getting salty. “‘I have been consistent for 6 months “No SALT, no deal.” I have spoken personally with the Chairman, the Speaker and Senator Schumer. I am confident that a SALT fix will be part of the final package,’ says Dem Rep. [TOM] SUOZZI after Ways and Means silent on state/local tax break,” CNN’s Manu Raju reported this morning.

— Taking a stand against climate change is in vogue in corporate America, but will the business world put their money where their mouth is? Green activists are warning the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers that they’ll face public repercussions if they don’t drop their opposition to Democrats’ $3.5 trillion bill, report Zack Colman and Anthony Adragna. That doesn’t seem to have scared the corporate lobbies much.

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

— Insider continues its series of staffer roundups with this breakdown of 52 players in Kamala-world, via Robin Bravender and Nicole Gaudiano. This one’s particularly notable since VP KAMALA HARRIS’ office has “no complete publicly accessible list” of its staff members, they write. Check it out for capsule biographies of everyone from old Harris hands to Gen Z-ers.

— A.G. MERRICK GARLAND announced new DOJ rules for the federal monitors that oversee state and local law enforcement agencies forced to implement reform, CBS reports.

— DHS departure lounge: Chief of staff KAREN OLICK has resigned abruptly, Alex Thompson and Daniel Lippman scoop.

CALIFORNIA RECALL ROUNDUP

— If California Gov. GAVIN NEWSOM survives his recall Tuesday, it will be largely on the back of the state’s women, reports Mackenzie Mays from Sacramento. Newsom has targeted women with messaging and policies on everything from pay equity to mask mandates, and latest polls show a major gender gap in voters’ recall intentions — the governor could sail through even if a narrow majority of men back his ouster.

— California Republicans have been hobbled by a hollowed-out state party apparatus and the base’s turn toward the hard right, writes NYT’s Jeremy Peters from Thousand Oaks. Lacking a top candidate with crossover appeal has made it difficult for them to broaden the recall effort enough to pull in the voters they need in still very Democratic California.

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

— Rep. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-Pa.) has spoken out strongly against the Capitol insurrectionists. But his close ties to fitness empresario JIM WORTHINGTON, who bussed hundreds of people to the “Stop the Steal” rally Jan. 6, have continued — including a fundraiser at Worthington’s house this spring. That’s according to a new story in Rolling Stone from Hunter Walker. Another anecdote from the article: The FBI arrived at Worthington’s house in January, and his girlfriend answered the door holding a weapon — while Worthington was at his office talking to Fitzpatrick.

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THE PANDEMIC

— The White House and the FDA are increasingly at odds with the CDC on Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, write Erin Banco, Sarah Owermohle and Adam Cancryn. We’re now just a week away from the Sept. 20 marker the administration set to start rolling out boosters more widely. But administration officials say the CDC is moving too slowly on sharing crucial data — and blindsiding other health officials by arguing for a more tiered approach to boosters based on vulnerability. “Science takes time,” a CDC official told our colleagues. “I don’t know how many times we have to say this.”

— It’s not just the CDC voicing booster skepticism, though. In a new review in The Lancet this morning, a group of American and international scientists concludes that the data doesn’t justify booster shots for the general public at this point. The authors include two top FDA officials who are leaving the agency this fall, partially over concerns that the Biden administration isn’t following the science on boosters. More from CNBC

— An economically desperate Las Vegas gambled big on reopening this summer, despite lackluster vaccine uptake — and, well, the house always wins. Megan Cassella went to Nevada for this deeply reported feature on the pandemic woes of a city whose fortunes depend on tourists, and which now finds itself at the nexus of the vaccination and economic debates roiling the nation.

— The nation’s large school districts aren’t where the administration wants them to be on public health measures for reopening safely this fall. Although mask requirements are widespread, vaccination mandates for staff and regular testing of the unvaccinated haven’t been as widely adopted, according to data tracked by the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education. More from the NYT

— In a similar analysis, WaPo’s Yasmeen Abutaleb, Laura Meckler and Valerie Strauss take a broad view on the Delta variant’s stress test for American schools this fall. And, citing data from Burbio, they find that “a quarter of the nation’s 200 largest school districts are ignoring the agency’s number one recommendation to mandate face masks.”

CLIMATE FILES

— The electric vehicle revolution has arrived in Normal, Ill., where the company Rivian has produced an economic boom over the past few years, reports NYT’s Noam Scheiber. In some ways, it’s an exemplar of how the green transition can create jobs while saving the earth — the kind of grand “both/and” vision that Democrats tout in their climate plans. Now Normal, scarred by past cycles of boom and bust, is asking: Can the good times hold?

— A new plan to use sustainable alternatives for jet fuel looks like a major step forward on climate for both the Biden administration and industry. NYT’s Hiroko Tabuchi digs into the details and finds that it could really be as valuable as it looks — or it could be actively harmful: “Scientists’ concerns center on the complicated calculations that go into assessing the true climate-friendliness of biofuels.”

AFGHANISTAN FALLOUT

— As Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN readies for two-high profile hearings on the Hill this week, Nahal Toosi takes a look at how the crisis in Afghanistan has placed the Democratic foreign policy star under “a level of criticism he’s rarely, if ever, endured. … And it’s about to get worse.” And it’s not just from Congress — Nahal got her hands on internal State Department staffer comments like “This was worse than the blind leading the blind” and “There’s a lot of anger. This amount of suffering didn’t have to occur.”

— Statistic of the day: Between one-third and one-half of the Pentagon’s spending since Sept. 11 has gone to for-profit military contractors. That’s according to the latest study from Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy.

— NYT’s @julianbarnes: “DNI Haines says Afghanistan not the greatest terrorism threat. Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Iraq higher on the list of threats, she says.”

BREYER RETIRE WIRES

— Supreme Court Justice STEPHEN BREYER is continuing to make the media rounds for his new book, “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics,” which he would much prefer discussing instead of liberal calls for his retirement. But this is a politics newsletter, so here we are. “It isn’t really true that I was born on Pluto and don’t know what’s going on in the world. I think I do,” he told WSJ’s Jess Bravin over soup at his home in Cambridge, Mass.

PLAYBOOKERS

MEDIA MOVES — Maxine Joselow is now anchoring WaPo’s new The Climate 202 newsletter. She most recently was a reporter at E&E News. Announcement … Liz Skalka will join HuffPost as a politics reporter covering the GOP. She previously was Ohio politics writer for The Blade.

TRANSITIONS — Ryan Zamarripa is now a senior professional staff member on the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth. She most recently was special assistant to the U.S. Trade Representative. … Natasha Dabrowski is now press secretary for AmeriCorps. She previously was comms director and senior adviser for the New Democrat Coalition. … Katie Byrd is now press secretary for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. She most recently was comms director for Georgia A.G. Chris Carr. …

… Adam Farris has joined Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) legislative team handling tax and trade. He most recently was legislative director for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), and is a State Department alum. … The Republican Governors Association is adding Adam Scheidler as creative director, Meredith Schellin as creative content director and Brendan Miller as senior videographer. Scheidler is a partner at TAG Strategies and an NRSC alum. Schellin previously was digital director for the House Ways and Means Committee. Miller previously was a videographer for the NRSC.

WEDDING — Benjamin Halle, deputy public affairs director at DOT, and Becca Nathanson, senior domestic policy adviser for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and the Senate Finance Committee, recently got married in Colorado. They met when they were both working for Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). Pic … Another pic

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