Biden looks to promote his plan to reduce gun violence, as he focuses on embattled pieces of his agenda.
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Daily Political Briefing
July 12, 2021Updated
July 12, 2021, 1:36 p.m. ET
July 12, 2021, 1:36 p.m. ETCredit…Samuel Corum for The New York Times
President Biden will meet at the White House on Monday with a group of federal and local leaders to promote his administration’s strategy to combat an alarming rise in gun violence, kicking off a week in which he will focus on trying to shore up several domestic priorities that are confronting daunting challenges in Congress.
Unveiled late last month, Mr. Biden’s plan largely encourages jurisdictions across the country to do what they can to bring down crime as hopes for federal legislation grow dim. It includes urging local agencies to draw on $350 billion in funds from his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package to support law enforcement. Mr. Biden has also directed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to more quickly revoke the licenses of gun dealers who fail to run background checks.
But as the White House seeks to combat a surge in violence — homicides rose 30 percent and gun assaults 8 percent in large American cities last year — the issue is politically freighted for Mr. Biden.
Republicans have accused him of being soft on crime. But as a presidential candidate, he declined to embrace calls from the progressive wing of his own party to defund police departments after police shootings of African Americans. And as president, he has called for more investment in law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Biden has called on Congress to pass measures that would close background-check loopholes, restrict assault weapons and repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from lawsuits, but there is little appetite for a bipartisan gun control effort. And David Chipman, Mr. Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, faces slim odds as his confirmation process drags on. Mr. Chipman, a two-decade bureau veteran, has a record of taking on the gun lobby in confrontational and unapologetic terms.
On Tuesday, Mr. Biden will travel to Philadelphia to promote another embattled element of his domestic agenda: He is scheduled to “deliver remarks on protecting the sacred, constitutional right to vote,” according to the White House.
After an expansive effort to overhaul the country’s voting laws failed in the Senate, the White House has turned to civil rights groups and advocacy organizations to try to ratchet up political pressure from communities that will be most affected by a Republican-led effort to roll back voting protections in many states.
Although Mr. Biden’s advisers say he is deeply committed to the issue, he is now focusing on finding ways forward that do not necessarily rely on Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is leading the administration’s efforts to expand voting rights, said last week that the Democratic National Committee would invest $25 million in voter outreach and litigation.
Such efforts would appear to fall far short of the changes and protections in the Democrats’ voting legislation. But despite holding several meetings with Democrats and civil rights groups, Mr. Biden, a Senate traditionalist, has avoided discussion on rolling back the filibuster, the legislative mechanism requiring a supermajority in the Senate that Republicans used to block the voting bill.
On Wednesday, Mr. Biden will turn to yet another domestic topic that needs his attention: a centrist infrastructure proposal that, after lengthy negotiations with Republicans, amounts to about 40 percent of what he had proposed to spend for broadband, electric vehicles and water infrastructure. Mr. Biden will meet at the White House with a bipartisan group of governors and mayors to highlight the particulars of the plan.
That proposal and a companion bill in which Democrats plan to address their other economic priorities will face difficult paths through Congress, given the party’s narrow majorities and the sheer ambition of the legislation.
Read moreCredit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
The Senate will return to Washington on Monday from a two-week recess facing a pile of complicated legislative work and key deadlines looming in the push to enact President Biden’s far-reaching economic agenda.
Democratic leaders have mapped out a monthlong sprint for senators, warning them to prepare for late nights, weekend work and even the cancellation of part of their beloved August recess to set up final passage of their priorities in the fall. The House does not return until next week, but will face a similar time crunch when it does.
Their goal is to simultaneously advance two hulking bills before the summer break: a bipartisan investment in roads, bridges, high-speed internet and other infrastructure projects; and a far larger and more partisan package that would include tax increases on corporations and the rich to fund an expansion of the social safety net and programs to fight climate change. If successful, the July sprint would set up Congress to pass both bills into law when it returns to work in September.
“We are proceeding on both tracks very well,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said on Sunday. “I was on the phone all weekend talking to all kinds of different people and legislators about moving forward on those tracks, as well as with the White House and the president, and we’re moving forward.”
But given the sheer ambition of the legislation — the two bills together could spend $3 trillion or much more — and Democrats’ narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, the task will not be easy. One or both bills could stall or fall apart as Democratic leaders try to placate both a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats who struck a rare bipartisan agreement on traditional infrastructure spending, as well as their more progressive Democratic members, who are pushing for a more ambitious package focused on education, child care, taxes, health care and the environment.
After reaching an agreement to spend $579 billion in new money on infrastructure projects last month, the bipartisan group of senators spent much of the extended July 4 recess turning their framework into real legislation that they believe can with 60 votes in the Senate and pass the Democratic-led House. Key Senate committees are expected to begin moving parts of that bill this week, and Mr. Schumer has said he expects a vote by the full Senate before leaving in August. It remains to be seen if he can consolidate the votes needed to pass it.
Work on the other legislative package, which Republicans have signaled they will oppose, is progressing more slowly. Democrats are prepared to pass it using a budget maneuver known as reconciliation that would allow them to get around a Republican filibuster. But that means the party will most likely have no votes to spare in the Senate, and its moderate and progressive wings will have to reach agreement on what to include and how much to spend.
Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont progressive who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is pushing for up to $6 trillion in spending, and told The New York Times last week that a proposal by moderates to spend one-third of that or less was “much too low.”
Those differences will have to be resolved quickly. Mr. Schumer wants the Senate to hold a vote on a budget resolution mapping out the reconciliation spending before the Senate leaves town. Action in the House could follow.
Read moreVideoPeople in Cuba took to the streets to protest the country’s economic crisis and the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, in one of the largest demonstrations in decades.CreditCredit…Yamil Lage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Biden on Monday called on the Cuban government to heed the demands of thousands of citizens who took to the streets on Sunday to protest power outages, food shortages and a worrying lack of medicine.
“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “The United States calls on the Cuban regime to hear their people and serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves.”
Democrats and Republicans alike spoke out in support of the astonishing street demonstrations in Cuba, a country known for quashing dissent. Remarkable scenes emerged around the nation on Sunday, with thousands of Cubans taking to the streets in a surge of protests not seen in nearly 30 years.
Shouting phrases like “freedom” and “the people are dying of hunger,” protesters overturned a police car in Cardenas, 90 miles east of Havana. Another video showed people looting from a government-run store — acts of open defiance in a nation with a long history of repressive crackdowns on dissent.
Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, spoke out on national television on Monday, calling the demonstrations a consequence of an underhanded campaign by Washington to exploit peoples’ “emotions” at a time when the island is facing food scarcity, power cuts and a growing number of Covid-19 deaths.
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, invoked his family’s Cuban history in predicting the leadership of the island would resort to violence against protesters but would ultimately fall. “This regime has brutalized and denied freedom to generations of Cubans, forcing many including my family to flee or be murdered,’’ he said in a statement on Monday. He said the regime “will be consigned to the dustbin of history.’’
Representative Nicole Malliotakis, Democrat of New York, who is a daughter of a Cuban refugee, urged Mr. Biden not to return to “President Obama’s failed” strategy with Cuba, according to a statement from her office. Mr. Obama and the Cuban leader Raul Castro agreed to normalize relations in 2014, thawing travel and commerce restrictions, and leading to the removal of Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. “I hope this is the beginning of real change toward freedom and democracy on the island,” Ms. Malliotakis said.
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, also of Cuban heritage, issued a series of tweets on Sunday and Monday, calling on the Biden administration to warn the Cuban military not to fire on protesters.
The dark of night is when the regime in #Cuba carries out the abduction of leaders of the opposition to the evil socialist dictatorship
But this is a leaderless,grassroots & nationwide movement.
The anger has been building up for months & it’s just getting started. #SOSCuba
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 12, 2021
Inevitably, American politics also entered the picture. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, tweeted, “President Biden: freedom in Cuba needs you now. Don’t be AWOL.” And Mr. Rubio scolded a State Department official for saying the protesters were angry at rising Covid cases and a lack of medicine. That view is “ridiculous,” Mr. Rubio wrote, insisting that Cubans were primarily protesting “62 years of socialism, lies, tyranny and misery.’’
Read moreCredit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Half a year after the assault on the U.S. Capitol, the 2,000-member police force charged with protecting Congress finds itself at perhaps its biggest crossroads in its nearly two-century existence.
Its work force is traumatized and overworked as its ranks have been hollowed out by a flood of departures. The agency is facing possible furloughs as it teeters on the brink of running out of funding as overtime costs outpace its budget for salaries. It has been besieged by criticism by members of both parties for the stunning security failures that allowed the assault to occur. And on top of it all, its officers have become the target of conspiracy theories by Republican lawmakers who, following Mr. Trump’s lead, have suggested that a Capitol Police officer premeditated the killing of Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who was shot steps away from the door to the House chamber.
As the mob pushed its way through the Capitol’s Crypt on Jan. 6, Officer James Blassingame was slammed back against a stone column and nearly overrun. He saw hate in the eyes of the rioters, hoisting Trump flags and “Make America Great Again” hats, as they urinated on the walls where American icons have served and called him racist slurs.
“Legitimately, I did not think I was going to make it home,” Officer Blassingame, 40, and a 17-year veteran of the Capitol Police force, said in a recent interview.
He did survive, but the horrors of Jan. 6, when supporters of President Donald J. Trump violently breached the Capitol, had a profound effect on Officer Blassingame. He was injured in the head and back. He avoids certain hallways at the Capitol, struggles with feelings of guilt and routinely has flashbacks of fighting off the violent mob.
And his personal trauma mirrors a broader crisis within the U.S. Capitol Police, which is badly damaged, demoralized and depleted six months after the attack.
“We have people retiring like crazy; we have people quitting,” said Officer Blassingame, who filed a lawsuit with another officer against Mr. Trump for damages for their physical and emotional injuries. “I have friends of mine who have literally come in and quit. They don’t even have jobs.”
The agency says more than 70 officers have retired or resigned since the Jan. 6 attack, which cost the lives of two members of the force who battled the rioters: Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died from a stroke, and Officer Howard Liebengood, who took his own life. Officials say the departure rate is slightly higher than normal, but Gus Papathanasiou, the chairman of the of the Capitol Police union, said he believed the rate was far worse than was being disclosed.
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Top U.S. General in Afghanistan Hands Over Command
Gen. Austin S. Miller stepped down as commander of American-led forces in Afghanistan, as the United States prepares to end the 20-year-old war and as the Taliban has taken swaths of the country.
It’s important that the military sides set the conditions for a peaceful and political settlement in Afghanistan. We can all see the violence that’s taking place across the country. But we know that with that violence that what is very difficult to achieve is a political settlement. So again, what I tell the Taliban is they’re responsible too. The violence that’s going on is against the will of the Afghan people. And it needs to stop. This ceremony marks an important milestone in the transition of our involvement in Afghanistan. But it’s not the end of the story. It’s rather the end of a chapter. We will remain focused on four things over the course of the coming period. First, protecting our diplomatic presence in this country. Second, enabling the safe operation of the airport here in Kabul. Continuing to provide appropriate advice and assistance to Afghan national defense and security forces. And finally, as I’ve noted before, supporting our counterterrorism efforts.
Gen. Austin S. Miller stepped down as commander of American-led forces in Afghanistan, as the United States prepares to end the 20-year-old war and as the Taliban has taken swaths of the country.CreditCredit…Kiana Hayeri for The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The top American general in Afghanistan stepped down on Monday, a symbolic moment as the United States nears the end of its 20-year-old war and Taliban fighters sweep across the country.
At a muted ceremony at U.S. and NATO military headquarters in Kabul, Gen. Austin S. Miller ended his nearly three-year term as commander. His duties will be filled by two officials. Rear Adm. Peter G. Vasely, a former member of SEAL Team 6, will take charge of the security mission at the United States Embassy in Kabul. He will report to Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military’s Central Command, who will take over the broader military mission in Afghanistan.
“It’s important to me to say farewell,” General Miller said. The ceremony, which lasted less than an hour, was attended by high-ranking Afghan officials, including Abdullah Abdullah, who is leading peace negotiations. “Our job is now not to forget,” General Miller said.
General McKenzie, who arrived in Kabul on Monday, spoke afterward, assuring those present that the Americans were not abandoning the Afghan people in such dire times.
“It’s not the end of the story,” General McKenzie said. “It’s the end of a chapter.”
General Miller oversaw a military campaign aimed at keeping the Taliban at the negotiating table and the Afghan forces unified in the face of political uncertainty.
Despite thousands of airstrikes, increased civilian casualties and short-term tactical gains, it is unclear how successful the U.S. military effort was: The final agreement between the insurgent group and the United States in February 2020 clearly favored the Taliban, and the Afghan government was completely cut out of the deal.
The Taliban have seized control of more than 160 of the country’s roughly 400 districts in the last two months, and hundreds of Afghan troops have surrendered, giving up their U.S.-supplied equipment and fleeing, sometimes into neighboring countries. Key provincial cities in both the north and south are under siege, and Afghan government counterattacks have had limited success.
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Variants Threaten Global Economic Recovery, Yellen Warns
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Sunday that coronavirus variants could hinder the global economic recovery and called for a stepped-up effort to vaccinate the world’s population.
We are vey concerned about the Delta variant and other variants that could emerge and threaten recovery. We are a connected global economy. What happens in any part of the world affects all other countries. We therefore recognize the importance of working together to speed the process of vaccination and have the goal of wanting to vaccinate 70 percent of the world’s population next year. We recognize that while a lot has been done to finance the purchase of vaccines, that with respect to logistics, both for vaccines, distribution, sending vaccines to areas where there is increasing infection to so-called hot spots around the world, therapeutics, P.P.E. and other things, that we need to do something more and to be more effective.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Sunday that coronavirus variants could hinder the global economic recovery and called for a stepped-up effort to vaccinate the world’s population.CreditCredit…Luca Bruno/Associated Press
After spending the weekend huddled in the halls of an ancient Venetian naval shipyard, the top economic officials from the Group of 20 nations on Saturday formally threw their support behind a proposal for a global minimum tax of at least 15 percent, Alan Rapaport reports from Venice for The New York Times.
Under the plan, each country will adopt new rules requiring large global businesses, including technology giants like Amazon and Facebook, to pay taxes in countries where their goods or services are sold, even if they have no physical presence there.
“After many years of discussions and building on the progress made last year, we have achieved a historic agreement on a more stable and fairer international tax architecture,” the finance ministers said in a joint statement, or communiqué, at the conclusion of the meetings.
The plan would be the most significant overhaul of the international tax system in decades, cracking down on tax havens and imposing new levies on large, profitable multinational companies.
The plan could reshape the global economy, altering where corporations choose to operate, who gets to tax them and the incentives that nations offer to lure investment. But major details remain to be worked out ahead of an October deadline to finalize the agreement and resistance is mounting from businesses, which could soon face higher tax bills, as well as from small, but pivotal, low-tax countries such as Ireland, which would see their economic models turned upside down.
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White House Memo
Credit…Tom Brenner for The New York Times
CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. — Even President Biden thought he had been ponderous.
“I know that’s a boring speech,” the 46th president said.
He had just finished a 31-minute-and-19-second address, filled with statistics (2,374 Illinois bridges), academic studies (on-site child care increases productivity), global gross domestic product comparisons (China used to be No. 9, but is now No. 2) and predictions of 7.4 percent economic growth (though “the O.E.C.D. thinks it could be higher,” Mr. Biden noted, referring to the not exactly electrifying Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.)
The president’s remarks on Wednesday, delivered to a friendly and respectful crowd of supporters at McHenry County College in this Chicago suburb, even included a reference to a legislative maneuver known as “reconciliation,” which Mr. Biden quickly admitted was a “fancy” Washington word.
As the president travels the country pitching his plan for spending trillions of dollars to reshape the American economy, he is facing a rhetorical reality that has long plagued many of his predecessors: There is a vast difference between explaining and inspiring, and Mr. Biden — who was recently called the “explainer in chief” by his press secretary — often struggles to reach the potential oratorical heights of the office he holds.
The White House is perfectly fine with Mr. Biden’s ability to turn down the political heat in Washington after four years of divisive rhetoric and chaotic governance. But like former President Barack Obama, who once delivered a 17-minute answer to a health care question, and Bill Clinton, who was forced to apologize to a late night comic for a dreadful convention speech, Mr. Biden can sometimes get lost in the minutiae.
To be sure, the president is not always boring. His passion and empathy can show through in his remarks, often punctuated by his trademark whisper for emphasis.
Still, the details of governing can be mind-numbingly tedious, and when the president starts a policy speech, what can seem like high-stakes drama to those inside the Washington Beltway often feels like the stuff of PBS documentaries to the rest of the country.
“There’s a loophole in the system called stepped up basis,” Mr. Biden explained in excruciating detail on Wednesday, laying out the case of a wealthy person who owes taxes on the sale of a stock. “If, on the way to cash it in, I get hit by a truck, God forbid, and died, it was left to my daughter, there would be no tax paid. It’s not inheritance tax. It was a tax due 10 seconds earlier!”
In Washington, criticism most often comes from across the political aisle. But on the subject of Mr. Biden’s penchant for pontificating, even his closest allies have been known to notice.
During one hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2005, Mr. Obama, then a young senator, grew exasperated during a lengthy monologue by Mr. Biden, then the panel’s top Democrat.
“Shoot. Me. Now,” Mr. Obama wrote to an aide as Mr. Biden spoke.
Read moreCredit…Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times
For much of the past decade, oil companies have been allowed to pump into the ground chemicals that, over time, can break down into toxic substances known as PFAS — a class of long-lasting compounds known to pose a threat to people and wildlife — according to internal documents from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The E.P.A. in 2011 approved the use of these chemicals, despite the agency’s own grave concerns about their toxicity, according to the documents, which were reviewed by The New York Times. The approval of the chemicals wasn’t previously publicly known.
The records are among the first public indications that PFAS, long-lasting compounds also known as “forever chemicals,” may be present in the fluids used during drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
In a consent order issued for three chemicals on Oct. 26, 2011, E.P.A. scientists pointed to preliminary evidence that, under some conditions, the chemicals could “degrade in the environment” into substances akin to PFOA, a kind of PFAS chemical, and could “persist in the environment” and “be toxic to people, wild mammals, and birds.”
There is no public data that details where the E.P.A.-approved chemicals have been used.
But the FracFocus database, which tracks chemicals used in fracking, shows that about 120 companies used PFAS — or chemicals that can break down into PFAS — in more than 1,000 wells between 2012 and 2020 in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Wyoming.
Nine of those wells were in Carter County, Okla., within the boundaries of Chickasaw Nation. “This isn’t something I was aware of,” said Tony Choate, a Chickasaw Nation spokesman.
The approvals took place during the Obama administration. The Biden White House has made addressing PFAS a top priority, said Nick Conger, an E.P.A. spokesman, for example by proposing a rule to require manufacturers and importers of PFAS to disclose more information on the chemicals, including their environmental and health effects.
Read moreCredit…Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Republicans moved a step closer to passing legislation to overhaul the state’s voting system on Sunday, brushing aside fierce opposition from Democrats to gain approval from key committees in the House and the Senate after marathon weekend hearings.
Hundreds of Texans had flocked to the Capitol for the hearings on the bills, which Republicans in state legislatures across the country have been pushing as an effort to impose new restrictions on voting in the wake of former President Donald J. Trump’s defeat.
Republicans in Texas say the restructuring is necessary to improve voter integrity, but the Democrat-aligned opposition is fighting what they call an unprecedented campaign to suppress voting.
“This is the single greatest coordinated attack on democracy in our lifetimes, and perhaps in the life of this country,” said Beto O’Rourke, a former U.S. representative and candidate for president, who has taken a lead role for Democrats on the voting issue and was at the Capitol for the hearing.
But Senator Bryan Hughes, the Republican chairman of the State Affairs Committee, opened a hearing on Saturday by declaring that the legislation was designed to create a “better election process that’s safe and accessible.”
The voting bills would ban 24-hour voting and drive-through voting sites, increase the criminal penalties for election workers who run afoul of regulations, limit what assistance could be provided to voters and expand the authority and autonomy of partisan poll watchers, among other provisions.
The committee votes came just days into a 30-day special session, adhering to Gov. Greg Abbott’s timetable for swift action on the legislation, which he has called a priority for his administration. The full 31-member State Senate is expected to vote on its bill as early as Tuesday. The 150-member House is also likely to take up its own version of the measure this week.
Beverly Powell, a state senator from the Fort Worth suburbs who voted against the bill in committee, said Senate Democrats were planning “many” amendments during the floor debate and might try to introduce an alternative bill.
Mr. Abbott, a Republican, called the Legislature into the special session on Thursday, after Democrats blocked the bill in late May with an 11th-hour walkout from the Capitol that denied Republicans a quorum.
House and Senate Democrats have vowed to do what they can to kill the legislation a second time, though their options are limited. They have hinted that they are prepared to stage another walkout or possibly taking the more extreme step of fleeing the state.
Read moreCredit…Andrea Merola/EPA, via Shutterstock
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Sunday that she was concerned that coronavirus variants could derail the global economic recovery and called for an urgent push to vaccinate more people around the world.
Her comments, made at the conclusion of a gathering of the finance ministers of the Group of 20 nations, came as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus was driving outbreaks among unvaccinated populations in countries such as Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Portugal.
“We are very concerned about the Delta variant and other variants that could emerge and threaten recovery,” Ms. Yellen said. “We are a connected global economy. What happens in any part of the world affects all other countries.”
Many cities and countries have started to declare victory against the pandemic, easing restrictions and returning to normal life. But Ms. Yellen warned that the public health crisis was not over.
She said that the world’s top economic officials had spent much of the weekend in Venice discussing how they could improve vaccine distribution, with the goal of getting 70 percent of the world inoculated by next year. Ms. Yellen noted that many countries had been successful in financing the purchase of vaccines, but that the logistics of getting them into people’s arms were falling short.
“We need to do something more and to be more effective,” she said.
The spread of variants has started to dampen optimism about the trajectory of the recovery. Analysts at Capital Economics said last week that they planned to lower their economic growth outlook for the year to below 6 percent.
“The divergence across economies is intensifying,” Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the I.M.F., said on Saturday. “Essentially, the world is facing a two-track recovery.”
The I.M.F. executive board approved a plan last week to issue $650 billion worth of reserve funds that countries could use to buy vaccines and to finance health care initiatives.
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