Playbook PM: Manchin’s moment of truth

From: POLITICO Playbook - Monday Nov 01,2021 05:35 pm

Nov 01, 2021

By Eugene Daniels, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

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MOMENT OF TRUTH — Our Senate chief Burgess Everett, staking out the Most Important Senator’s office, writes in: “Everyone in the Capitol is waiting on JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.), who is expected to make a statement on the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better framework this afternoon. The number of cameras and reporters is growing by the minute. Manchin has not explicitly endorsed the framework — which he negotiated — but has said kind words repeatedly. His reluctance to officially endorse it was a key driver in progressives’ decision to continue holding up the bipartisan infrastructure bill.”

Manchin just announced he’ll speak at 2 p.m.

CNN’s Manu Raju (@mkraju) caught up with Manchin this morning: “‘I think I will clear up a lot of things sometime today,’ he told me: ‘I think there needs to be clarity on where everybody stands.’”

SIRENS FOR BIDEN — A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds that just “36% of Democrats and Democratic leaning independents say their party will have a better chance winning the White House with President JOE BIDEN at the top of the ticket.” That’s compared to 44% who want the party to go with someone else.

On the other side of the aisle, half of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents want former President DONALD TRUMP to rub in 2024 vs. 35 percent who have their eyes on other candidates.

SIRENS FOR DEMOCRACY:

•	75% of Republicans polled believe Trump’s lies that “real cases of fraud” changed the 2020 election results. (Further proof that the Big Lie has ingrained itself in the GOP about a year later.)
•	62% of Americans say they will trust the 2024 presidential results even if their gal or guy loses. 82% of Democrats agreed but just one-third of Republicans.
•	Here’s a head scratcher considering Trump’s election-rigging lies and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol: When asked which party is the biggest threat to democracy, 42% said Democrats and 41% said Republicans. Just 8% blamed both parties.

Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, put it this way: “When looking ahead to the 2024 presidential election, it is remarkable that a bedrock principle of democracy – that losing candidates and their supporters accept the results – is not held by nearly two in three Republicans who say they will question the results if their candidate does not win.”

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BIDEN ADDRESSED THE U.N. CLIMATE CONFERENCE in Glasgow, Scotland, today, using sweeping rhetoric to illuminate the existential threat of inaction: “We meet with the eyes of history upon us and profound questions before us. It’s simple: Will we act? Will we do what is necessary? Will we seize the enormous opportunity before us? Or will we condemn future generations to suffer? This is the decade that will determine the answer.” More from Nick Niedzwiadek

— Biden also apologized for Trump pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords.

HEARINGS OF THE DAY — In a potential boon for abortion rights proponents, Justices BRETT KAVANAUGH and AMY CONEY BARRETT had some skeptical questions about Texas’ near-total abortion ban in a pair of cases the Supreme Court heard today. Josh Gerstein and Alice Miranda Ollstein report that even “Justice CLARENCE THOMAS seemed troubled Monday that Texas may be overreaching in its defense of the abortion ban.” They also note the unusually fast pace of proceedings: This is the most quickly the high court has heard arguments in a case since the 2000 election case.

Good Monday afternoon.

TRIVIA TIME — On Friday, we asked: Who was the first president to visit the pope? The answer: WOODROW WILSON in 1919. This week, we had two winners: Rick Ahearn and Matt Davis.

ELECTION EVE

HERE COMES DONALD — Trump jumped into the Virginia governor’s race again today (whether GLENN YOUNGKIN wants him to or not): “[W]e get along very well together and strongly believe in many of the same policies,” Trump said in a statement, denying reports that the two were at odds. “Especially when it comes to the important subject of education.” He apparently was responding to a Lincoln Project ad buy targeted at Mar-a-Lago on Fox News.

WHY YOUNGKIN COULD WIN — WaPo’s Cleve Wootson Jr. interviewed two dozen voters in the Norfolk area and “found a profound sense of frustration that people haven’t seen benefits of Democratic control trickle into their lives or their wallets.” They complained of never-ending pandemic restrictions and congressional inaction; “the feeling that Democrats are defined by deadlock has set in. And they wonder if the president is soft.”

UNDER THE RADAR — Biden is endorsing ALLISON RUSSO at the last minute in a special election Tuesday for a congressional seat in Ohio, per NBC’s Henry Gomez. It’s a district Trump won by 14 points and GOP former Rep. STEVE STIVERS won by 27 points last year, but he writes that there’s been “a rush of late national interest in the race” as Democrats see it “as an under-the-radar pickup opportunity, or at least a chance to build on their gains with college-educated suburban women and independents.”

ALSO ON THE BALLOT — Voters in many towns and counties, primarily in the West, will weigh in Tuesday on ballot initiatives designed to bolster affordable housing stock, reports NYT’s Jennifer Steinhauer in Leadville, Colo. Among the measures (often aimed at tourists who are pricing residents out of town) are tax increases on short-term rentals or sales, restrictions on Airbnb and similar outfits, rent control, and new bonds to finance building. Progressives are backing many of the ballot initiatives, but the votes are also scrambling some traditional political lines — and money has poured into the contests.

— WSJ’s Joe Barrett looks at the Minneapolis ballot initiative that would replace the city’s police department, a proposal that has divided the city but represents one of the most tangible outcomes of last summer’s protests over GEORGE FLOYD’s murder.

BOOKMARK THIS: POLITICO’s live chat for Tuesday’s elections will be your one-stop shop for following the results.

JOIN TUESDAY FOR A TALK ON THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE AIR TRAVEL: As delegates descend on Glasgow for the COP26 global climate summit, reducing carbon emissions in the aviation sector will play a critical role in the progress of fighting climate change. Join POLITICO for a deep-dive conversation that will explore the increased use of sustainable aviation fuel, better performance aircraft, and other breakthroughs in to cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet broader sustainability goals. REGISTER HERE.

POLITICS ROUNDUP

SUNSHINE STATE SHINING ON THE GOP — Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS just barely won election three years ago, but now he’s looking like a juggernaut in the state. And desperate Democrats aren’t just worried about their ability to dethrone him; they also “fear that Florida’s days as a battleground state are over and that national donors will write off their candidates,” writes Gary Fineout from Tallahassee. Many more voters think their state is heading in the right direction than the country is, the Democratic field to take on DeSantis is fractured, and the governor has ramped up the culture wars to his advantage.

2022 WATCH — A new poll from a pro-HERSCHEL WALKER super PAC finds him way out ahead in next year’s Georgia Senate GOP primary, commanding 74% of the vote and even 61% of moderate Republicans, reports Natalie Allison. It’s evidence that the outcry over past domestic abuse allegations and other scandals hasn’t dented Walker among the party faithful. The poll

REDISTRICTING ROUNDUP — The Colorado Supreme Court has signed off on the state’s redistricting plan, enshrining a map that will likely provide four Democratic seats, three Republican seats and one swing district.

— Oklahoma’s Republican-led legislature put out a draft map of its congressional boundaries, which looks likely to prevent Democrats from repeating their upset 2018 victory near Oklahoma City anytime soon.

— Massachusetts’ Democratic-led legislature will put out draft maps this afternoon.

LEXICOGRAPHY — NYT’s Amy Harmon has a roundup of some the many terms and types of language newly coming into vogue on the left — from “BIPOC” to “Latinx” to “pregnant people” to calling libraries “sites of violence” — and the questions they’ve prompted not only among progressives but on the political spectrum writ large. The language, she writes, can be one way to advance real cultural change and mindset shifts; it can also be alienating or distract from more structural work. One notable finding: “BIPOC” is twice as popular among white Democrats as among non-white Democrats.

THE PANDEMIC

INCOMING — Biden’s big vaccine mandate — the OSHA rule requiring all big companies to vaccinate or regularly test their workers — is ready and will go into effect within days.

AWFUL MILESTONE — Covid-19’s global death toll has now passed the 5 million mark (and that’s just for reported/attributed deaths). More from National Geographic

BETTER MILESTONE — Administration officials announced at this morning’s pandemic briefing that the U.S. has now reached 70% of adults fully vaccinated and 80% with at least one dose.

ORIGINAL SIN — Lauren Gardner chronicles the failure to include pregnant people in the earliest wave of Covid-19 vaccine trials — and how their absence created uncertainty about the vaccines that eventually bloomed into a potent branch of vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories. Now some experts are “pressing the medical establishment to learn from the Covid-19 experience by including pregnant and breastfeeding people in the earliest studies of new shots and treatments.”

POLICY CORNER

WHO’S AT DEFAULT — Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN is breaking with Democratic leaders and signaling that the party may have to raise the debt ceiling without Republican support, per a new interview with WaPo’s Jeff Stein . (He wins for best dateline of the week: SOMEWHERE OVER THE ALPS.) Yellen blasted Republicans for their intransigence but said Democrats would ultimately need to take the responsible course of action: “If Democrats have to do it by themselves, that’s better than defaulting on the debt to teach the Republicans a lesson.”

HAPPENING TODAY — Affordable Care Act open enrollment launches today, offering a test for the Biden administration of whether the pandemic relief bill’s expanded subsidies will drive coverage levels higher, reports WSJ’s Stephanie Armour. It’s a particularly politically potent question as Democrats negotiate over including an extension of those subsidies in the reconciliation bill.

JUDICIARY SQUARE

SCOTUS WATCH — With the justices back in person, the Supreme Court has made some changes to its format to try to limit excessive interruptions, NYT’s Adam Liptak reports. The new hybrid model involves “supplementing the familiar free-for-all questioning with a round of optional one-at-a-time questions, proceeding in order of seniority, once per lawyer” — and Justice CLARENCE THOMAS, newly loquacious after a decade-long silence from the bench, now seems slotted to ask the first questions in almost every case. The changes in part result from a study that found female justices were interrupted more often.

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BEYOND THE BELTWAY

THE NEW ECONOMY, PART I — By now we’ve all heard about the wave of early retirements that has helped upend the labor market during the pandemic. WaPo’s Andrew Van Dam reports on a new twist: “Many of these retirees also opted to put off claiming Social Security benefits, an exclusive Washington Post analysis shows. By delaying their benefits, these retirees can expect to collect higher monthly checks in the future.” Experts say the trend could be due to enhanced aid from the federal government during the pandemic, as well as rising stock and home prices.

THE NEW ECONOMY, PART II — The New Yorker’s Sarah Stillman has a deep exploration of a new kind of itinerant worker: the climate disaster chaser. These people travel around to help clean up after floods, wildfires, tornadoes and more, often in dangerous conditions and with insufficient protections. In following the laborers around the country and reviewing thousands of pages of documents over the past year, she writes, “I found more than two thousand credible claims of harm to workers, including instances of fatal or injurious working conditions, stolen wages, assaults, and labor trafficking.”

PLAYBOOKERS

CNN’s Rene Marsh has written a new children’s book inspired by her experience losing her 2-year-old son to brain cancer, and what she found the library to be missing.

SPOTTED at Adam Green’s second Politics and Puns Halloween party and costume contest: Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, Tammy Haddad, Nizam Ali, Megan Apper, Andrew Bates, Jeff Lomonaco, Ali Vitali, Francesca Chambers, Alexi McCammond, TJ Ducklo, Ian Millhiser, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Kevin Cirilli, Raquel Krähenbühl, Lachlan Markay, Shaunna Thomas, Kalindi Winfield, Mari Urbina, Lauren Maunus, Kunoor Ojha, Tanushri Shankar and Rex Willis.

MEDIA MOVE — Steve Contorno is joining CNN as a reporter covering Florida politics. He most recently was political editor for the Tampa Bay Times, and is a Chicago Sun-Times alum.

TRANSITIONS — Megan Evans is joining the National Skills Coalition as senior government affairs manager. She most recently was government relations manager for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. … Katie Peters is joining FanDuel as SVP for public policy. She most recently has been SVP for public policy and government relations at Live Nation.