This morning, Biden's transition team fully launched BuildBackBetter.com, and the top item on their list of "Day 1" priorities is a detailed plan to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, most of which we reported earlier this week politico.com/news/2020/11/0…
He promises to:
-Double the number of drive-through testing sites.
-invest in developing at-home tests (more on why we don't have those yet: politico.com/news/2020/10/2…)
-create a 100k person public health corps to help overburdened contact tracers
-use the Defense Production Act to eliminate ongoing shortages of protective gear for health workers
-develop clear national guidelines for schools/businesses reopening
-create a national online dashboard for people to see the virus' severity in their community
-If/when we have a vaccine, he pledges a $25 billion fund for manufacturing & distributing it.
And since a vaccine will only help if enough people agree to take it, here's how he'll address ongoing distrust/hesitancy:
But wait, there's more!
Biden's promises to:
-set up a COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Disparities Task Force.
-rejoin the World Health Organization
-push holdout governors and mayors to mandate masks, and require them in all federal buildings & on interstate transportation
-
But the pandemic is a *lot* worse now. Unlike earlier waves that were restricted to a handful of states, this one is nationwide. Just look at how many states have "uncontrolled spread" (dark red)
Convincing GOP govs to work with Biden on Covid won't be easy. Just this morning, SD Gov. Noem incorrectly attributed her state's huge surge in cases to more testing & praised Trump's approach of giving her the "flexibility to do the right thing." The state has no mask mandate.
A lot of this work will kick off tomorrow, when Biden will announce his transition's Covid task force. We scooped who will be leading it and what they'll be focusing on earlier this week --> politico.com/news/2020/11/0…
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Today is the day the Supreme Court debates the fate of the Affordable Care Act. Coverage for tens of millions of people is on the line. Arguments begin at 10am. politico.com/news/2020/11/0…
California's solicitor general opens by arguing that Obamacare's zero-dollar penalty for not buying insurance "doesn't harm anyone and it doesn't violate the Constitution." c-span.org/video/?471185-…
Oh wow, Clarence Thomas, who *never* talks during oral arguments, compares the Obamacare's individual mandate to face mask mandates during Covid, says that even if they carry no penalty they can have a "chilling effect."
NEW: The admin slashed 25% of the funding for the National Guard's COVID relief deployment in every state...except Texas and Florida, which will continue to receive full funding. @DemGovs accuses Trump of trying to "benefit his own political fortunes." politico.com/news/2020/08/0…
@DemGovs We asked the White House, the Defense Department, the National Guard, Texas, Florida and OMB for an explanation for why those states got more funding. None was provided. politico.com/news/2020/08/0…
@DemGovs Those states have the most current hospitalizations. HOWEVER, they don't have the most total cases, cases per 100k people or highest positivity rates. Since the Guard deals more w/ testing than hospitalizations, one Guard leader told me it makes no sense. politico.com/news/2020/08/0…
NEW: I obtained a recording of a recent call with top Trump admin officials discussing a June 24 "hard stop" for the 40k+ National Guard members who are the backbone of coronavirus testing/contact tracing/food delivery in many states politico.com/news/2020/05/1…
June 24 will mark 89 days since thousands of Guard members first went on federal deployment in March. Guard members qualify for key retirement and education benefits after 90 days. politico.com/news/2020/05/1…
The National Guard says the deployment could be extended in the next few weeks. But no official on the call raised that possibility. Instead, they talked about the need for a messaging strategy because states would have serious concerns. politico.com/news/2020/05/1…
BREAKING: A Texas judge appointed by George W. Bush just sided with abortion clinics who were challenging the state's order to halt abortions during the #covid19 pandemic. The state is banned from enforcing the order for the next couple week while the lawsuit continues in court.
The ruling comes at four other lawsuits are pending against other states that have moved to ban abortions as a "non-essential" surgery -- in Ohio, Iowa, Oklahoma and Alabama. More to come...
For more on how coronavirus has opened up a new front in the country's abortion wars, read our deep dive from last week: politico.com/news/2020/03/2…
BREAKING: The Trump admin just filed a proposal to rewrite the laws concerning the detention of immigrant children, undoing key protections from a decades-old settlement s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspect…
Among the changes, DHS will no longer release immigrant children to live with a sibling, grandparent or other relative, and will only allow release to a parent or legal guardian.
DHS also says they will treat any undocumented person they encounter who is younger than 18 years old and who does not have a parent in the country as "unaccompanied" and will transfer them to HHS for indefinite detention.
BREAKING: @ACLU says Trump admin is not allowing separated parents who were coerced into waiving their asylum rights to return to the U.S. to be reunified with their kids
@ACLU The @ACLU and the Trump admin will be back in court tomorrow afternoon. The vast majority of the hundreds of still-separated families can be swiftly reunified in their country of origin. At issue is a small number of parents who want to return and pursue an asylum claim.
@ACLU Also, the @ACLU argues that children who have a legitimate asylum claim have the right to have a parent with them as they go through the process.