How Biden got to yes on vaccine mandates

By Natasha Korecki and Tina Sfondeles

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Not long ago, just talking about the idea of vaccine mandates made the White House skittish. As president-elect, JOE BIDEN said Americans would not be required to get vaccinated, and he said in April it would be a “tough call” to require the vaccine for members of the armed forces. The White House didn’t even establish a vaccine mandate for its own staffers until last month, despite the shot being available to them early in the year.

White House aides knew full well that a sizable portion of the population it needed to convince to get vaccinated was not a fan of President Biden, personally, or the government, generally.

If that tough-to-crack population thought the establishment was trying to compel them to get a shot in the arm, vaccines would only be met with fiercer opposition, the thinking went.

Today, that concept is being turned on its head. The Biden administration is increasingly all in.

Federal employees. The military. All must be vaccinated – or submit to frequent testing. Education Secretary MIGUEL CARDONA said today he supports mandating the Covid-19 vaccine for teachers and other school staff, as California just announced it would do. JESSICA CALEFATI notes that Cardona’s stance on mandates has sharpened just since Sunday, when he urged teachers to do their part and get their shots voluntarily on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

A chunk of Corporate America has followed suit, including United Airlines just this week and, earlier, Wal-Mart and Disney. Today, Biden met personally at the White House with four business and university leaders who have mandated vaccines for their workforces. “The President asked each of these leaders to talk to their industry peers about this important step to share best practices and encourage additional action,” according to the White House readout of their meeting.

The mandate momentum isn’t a coincidence. The White House talked to an array of business interests – from the Chamber of Commerce to small businesses – before the president in late July announced the federal workforce vaccine requirements, a White House official tells us.

A red flag went up, the White House official said, when in those discussions, CEOs revealed they didn’t even know what percentage of their employees had been vaccinated. “They’d say ‘well, we don't know, we just encourage them to be vaccinated,” the White House official said. “It was very clear that that was a problem.”

One thing that’s made all of this easier: mandates have popular support. A new Morning Consult/POLITICO poll shows that a majority of voters support mandatory coronavirus vaccines. Most of those who oppose such a mandate are Republican.

BEN WAKANA, deputy director of strategic communications and engagement for the White House Covid-19 response team, said businesses were on board with the framework Biden laid out for federal workers last month, including requiring those to attest that they were vaccinated or else submit to regular Covid testing and mask wearing.

“I think what we did when we announced our protocols for the U.S. government was we gave people a framework, and you know it wasn't a one-size-fits-all framework,” Wakana said. “You can ask people to get vaccinated or test weekly, you can require vaccinations, you can take your own path.”

The surge in cases due to the highly contagious Delta variant seems to have been most effective in spurring action, though.

United Airlines CEO SCOTT KIRBY, one of the business leaders at this morning’s White House meeting, said earlier this week that he came around to vaccine mandates in part because of the rapid spread of the new variant.

“The tipping point for me was seeing the statistics that 97 percent of the people in the hospital are unvaccinated and over 99 percent of the deaths are amongst the unvaccinated," Kirby said in an interview Monday on NBC Nightly News. “That implies … it’s about 300 times more likely to die if you are unvaccinated than if you are vaccinated. And once you have that statistic in your mind, at least for me as a leader, there simply was no choice but to do the right thing for safety.”

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Another baseball-themed one today (hey, it is America’s pastime): In six of his eight years in office, President HARRY TRUMAN earned more money than any MLB player at the time. In 1949 and 1950, his annual salary of $100,000 matched the highest paid player at that time. Who was the player?

(Answer is at the bottom.)

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: An it’s-not-their-fault New York Times story by NEIL IRWIN that points out that the cost of many household items has risen faster than incomes for decades: “Administration economists, in a new paper, argue that new spending plans would diminish the pain of those price pressures, contrary to a standard narrative that more spending increases inflation risk,” Irwin writes. White House rapid response director MIKE GWIN retweeted the story. So did chief of staff RON KLAIN.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: About that inflation … we keep harping on it, and for good reason: it’s affecting millions of Americans, and it could scare away moderate Democrats from supporting Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending package. Washington Post economics correspondent HEATHER LONG tweeted out some of the most egregious price increases right now, including car rentals, up 73.5 percent; gas, up 41.8 percent; used cars, up 41.7 percent and dresses (some of us want to get out of our WFH gear), up 18.8 percent.

MAKING IT PERMANENT — Biden has nominated ELIZABETH PRELOGAR, a veteran appellate lawyer, to become solicitor general on a permanent basis, JOSH GERSTEIN reports. Prelogar is a Harvard Law graduate and a former clerk to Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND during his tenure as a judge on the D.C. circuit court. She also served as a prosecutor on the staff of special counsel ROBERT MUELLER during his investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

BREAKTHROUGH ON ED NOMINEE — Biden’s pick for the No. 3 spot at the Education Department is moving forward in the Senate, after Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN dropped her opposition to JAMES KVAAL, citing “substantial reforms” to the federal student loan program that she says the administration vowed to make.

MICHAEL STRATFORD reports that Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER early Wednesday morning filed cloture on Kvaal’s nomination to be undersecretary of Education, the top official overseeing higher education and student aid.

The Senate agreed to take up the procedural vote on his nomination when it returns from recess in mid-September.

BLOWBACK FOR SBA PICK: Accusations of Islamophobia and and anti-Israel bias are bogging down the confirmation of DILAWAR SYED, who'd be the highest-ranking Muslim in the Biden administration if confirmed, writes NICHOLAS WU.

The Senate Small Business Committee has been unable to advance Syed’s nomination to fill the No. 2 post at the Small Business Administration, as Republicans criticize what they say is the veteran businessman’s association with an “anti-Israel” Muslim American group.

Religious advocacy groups, including several Jewish organizations, are crying foul. Particularly alarming to some Syed supporters is a June email circulated among Republican committee staff by an aide to Sen. JIM RISCH (R-Idaho), a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. The email notes Syed’s Pakistani roots and his membership on the board of EmgageUSA, a Muslim American nonprofit that "has taken very partisan positions" against actions by the Israeli government.

Democratic organizations prepare to defend the Biden agenda during August recess (CNN’s Dan Merica)

Biden’s pick to lead one of the top federal prosecutor’s offices could make history (NPR’s Jaclyn Diaz)

Taliban complete northeast Afghan blitz as more cities fall (AP’s Takeem Akhgar and Jon Gambrell)

He met virtually with Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO GREG ADAMS, Howard University President Dr. WAYNE FREDERICK, DESA Inc. CEO DIANE SUMTER and United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, who have all required vaccinations for their workforces. White House Coronavirus Response coordinator JEFF ZIENTS and deputy coordinator NATALIE QUILLIAN also attended.

Later, Biden delivered remarks in the East Room, where he acknowledged that many Americans are “feeling the pinch” of rising prices but argued his Build Back Better agenda will ultimately help lower costs for working families.

Then he addressed a virtual meeting of more than 1,500 mayors, governors and other local officials to tout the Senate’s passage of the bipartisan infrastructure package.

She had no scheduled events.

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As a woman of color, Fallon’s number one priority is to better herself through her education. And that means finishing her bachelor’s degree in business. At first, Fallon tried to go down the traditional route of working part-time. But she says it didn’t offer the flexible schedule that she needed.

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Before becoming administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, SAMANTHA POWER was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In that role, she drew inspiration from a pretty unsavory source — ROBIN WRIGHT’s character, the scheming, power-hungry Claire Underwod, in the Netflix series “House of Cards.”

"She made a fine U.N. ambassador on the 'House of Cards,'" Power told STEPHEN COLBERT during an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

That’s ... debatable. Underwood was recess-appointed, was undermined by Russian officials, struggled to implement a peace mission in the Jordan Valley, and bickered relentlessly with her husband, the president, who bemoaned at one point that he should “never have you made you ambassador.” Also, U.N. nerds say the depiction of the U.N. ambassador was overstated.

But Colbert homed in on another point. "She kills a lot of people on that [show], doesn't she?" he noted.

To which Power responded: "She does. That hasn't been my approach — yet."

JOE DiMAGGIO. According to New York Magazine, during his nearly eight years as president, Truman drew one of the largest salaries paid to any American of the era. In two of those years, he was tied with DiMaggio, whose $100,000 salary in 1949 and 1950 would remain a record until WILLIE MAYS was paid $5,000 more in 1963.

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Edited by Emily Cadei

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