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Joe Biden’s Cabinet Choices and Other Roles in His Administration
The president says he wants a government as diverse as America when he enters the White House. Here are some of his choices from the executive branch.
USA TODAY
Sanders says Democrats will pass relief package through reconciliation
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Said Democrats will adopt a back-up plan “as soon as possible” through budget reconciliation rather than full legislation.
Fiscal reconciliation is a form of law that specifically governs changes in government spending, revenues, and the federal debt ceiling. While limited in the scope of policies it can include, reconciliation bills are immune to obstruction by 60 votes in the Senate, meaning only 51 Democrats are expected to sign on to pass the legislation.
“I don’t know what the word compromise means,” Sanders said of Republicans’ calls to work together on a bipartisan package in the Upper House. “I know there are more working families living in economic despair today than at any time since the Great Depression.
“What we cannot do is wait weeks and weeks and months and months to move forward,” Sanders said of the need for immediate relief from the coronavirus.
As the new chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders will have a pivotal role in determining federal spending allocations and priorities for the next Congress. A coronavirus stimulus package proposed through the budget reconciliation would give the first signs of how Sanders will use the new role.
President Joe Biden has proposed a $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief program that would further stimulate state and local governments, small businesses and help build a more robust vaccine deployment infrastructure, among other elements of big list.
The proposal has been criticized by many Republicans and some Democrats for being too big and not focused enough.
“We’re going to do it. But we’re going to do it to protect ordinary people, not just the rich and powerful,” Sanders said.
– Matthew Brown
Rubio and Romney take contrasting positions ahead of Trump’s second impeachment trial
Republican senators have publicly differed in their assessment of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. The Senate trial comes after the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for inciting a mob of his supporters who stormed and ransacked the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn the presidential election results of November.
Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, was receptive to the president’s impeachment.
Romney, the only Republican senator to vote to convict Trump in his first Senate impeachment trial, has indicated he is ready to vote to re-convict Trump given the gravity of the charge against the former president .
“There is no doubt that the impeachment article sent by the House suggests ungodly conduct, but we have yet to hear from either the prosecution or the defense,” Romney said on Fox News Sunday.
“I believe that what is alleged and what we have seen, which is an incitement to insurgency, is an impenetrable offense,” Romney told CNN. “If not? What is?” He asked.
Other GOP senators have taken a more skeptical view of the trial.
“Well, first of all, I think the trial is stupid,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Said on “Fox News Sunday”. Rubio argued that it would be “arrogant” for the Senate to condemn Trump after he leaves office, and that if the former president “bears the blame” for the Capitol uprising, it is wrong to “wake up” the controversial.
“All I’m saying is we have some really important things to work on,” Rubio said, saying impeachment was an obstacle to unity. “It will be bad for the country, it really will be,” said Rubio.
Romney expressed a different point of view on Fox News, arguing that “if we are to have unity” there must be “accountability” for the wrongdoing of all actors, including Trump.
In recent days, other senators like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Have claimed that Trump’s impeachment will “destroy” the Republican Party. Sen. John Cornyn of R-Texas threatened that a post-presidential impeachment of Trump would ultimately result in the impeachment of Democratic presidents like Barack Obama.
Conversely, Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Have also expressed their openness to impeaching Trump.
– Matthew Brown
Poll: Americans are positive on Biden’s COVID-19 response, ability to unite the country
Americans broadly support President Joe Biden’s response to the coronavirus and his prospects for bringing the nation closer, according to a recent ABC News poll.
Sixty-nine percent of Americans approve of Biden’s plans to fight the coronavirus pandemic, while 57% believe Biden can follow through on his promise to unite a divided America.
Notably, 40% of Republicans also approve of Biden’s early response to the coronavirus, signaling a bipartisan honeymoon that could help the president implement his more ambitious plans to fight the virus. Ninety-seven percent of Democrats and 70% of Independents support Biden’s first steps to contain the pandemic.
After taking office on Wednesday, Biden imposed a mask-wearing warrant on federal property, issued orders to speed up the distribution of vaccines and personal protective equipment, and issued an order requiring international travelers to be tested negative for COVID-19 before they could enter the United States.
On Sunday, Biden signed executive orders that simplified the delivery of stimulus checks and extended federal food aid programs.
Eighty-one percent of Americans support the executive order requiring masks on federal property. Fifty-five percent of Americans also supported Biden’s overturning of Trump’s travel ban from several Muslim-majority countries, as well as his halt to construction of the border wall on the southern border with Mexico. Sixty-five percent of Americans support Biden’s decision to reinstate the Child Arrivals Deferred Action Program, or DACA, for undocumented youth.
Republicans overwhelmingly oppose Biden’s end of each of these measures, indicating that the president’s bipartisan honeymoon on the coronavirus response could have its limits in a hyper-polarized country.
Unity was the central theme of Biden’s inauguration. “We stop the screaming and turn down the heat. Without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury,” Biden warned during his speech. “Unity is the only way forward.”
Seventy-one percent of those polled who heard Biden’s speech found it convincing, according to the ABC News poll. But nearly a quarter (24%) said they were deeply skeptical of its ability to bridge the country’s divisions.
– Matthew Brown
Arizona GOP censors Cindy McCain, Jeff Flake and Doug Ducey
The Arizona Republican Party passed three resolutions on Saturday censuring top Republicans: Gov. Doug Ducey, former Senator Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain.
It was another sign of the party’s movement to the right.
The party censured Ducey over his decision to impose emergency rules during the pandemic as the GOP said “restrict personal freedoms and force compliance with unconstitutional decrees.”
He said McCain, who endorsed President Joe Biden, “supported globalist policies and candidates” and “condemned President Trump for his criticism of her husband and misplaced behavior in relation to the results. real presidential elections “.
And he said Flake had “condemned the Republican Party, rejected populism, and cast the interests of the American people over globalist interests.” The party suggested Flake join the Democrats.
Sara Mueller, Ducey’s political director, accepted censorship in the process.
“These resolutions are of no consequence, and the people who support them have lost what little moral authority they once had,” she said.
– Ronald J. Hansen, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Republic of Arizona
Trump weighed in on acting AG dismissal to pursue unfounded election fraud allegations
During his final weeks in office, then-President Donald Trump weighed in on a plan to oust Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with a loyalist in the Justice Department when Rosen took over. refused to prosecute Trump’s unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, a person familiar with the matter. says USA TODAY.
The source who is not authorized to comment publicly said the plan, which Trump ultimately scrapped, prompted key remaining justice officials to threaten a massive resignation.
“Until the very end, the pressure never stopped; the pressure was real,” said the source, describing Trump’s efforts to coerce federal prosecutors into a campaign to overturn President Joe’s election Biden.
The plan, first reported by The New York Times, involved replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump had appointed as head of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and who was subsequently chief of Acting of the Civil Division.
Had the effort been continued, Clark, who previously raised concerns about electoral fraud within the department, would have been able to act on Trump’s behalf to challenge the election results in Georgia, where the president previously had put pressure on state officials.
– Kevin Johnson and Sarah Elbeshbishi
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