Celebrating Passage of the Stimulus Bill with Democrats, Biden Says It ‘Changes the Paradigm’

With a Rose Garden celebration, Biden takes a victory lap.

Video
bars
0:00/1:30
-0:00

transcript

Biden Celebrates the Passing of Covid-19 Relief Bill

During an event in the Rose Garden on Friday, President Biden celebrated the passing of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill that will help revive the economy stunned by the pandemic.

“Now, it’s been a long and difficult year in America. We’ve lost so many, in so short a time, but finally, hope is on the horizon and help is on the way.” “Our diversity is our strength. Our unity is our power. And in this bill, our diversity to protect everyone in our country, to end the disparity in access to everything that the bill presents.” “I promise the American people, and I guess it’s becoming an overused phrase, that help was on the way. But today, with the American Rescue Plan now signed into law, we’ve delivered on that promise. And I don’t mean I’ve delivered, we delivered. For the first time in a long time, this bill puts working people in this nation first. It’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact. [applause] Well you saw what trickle-down does. We’ve known it for a long time, but this is the first time we’ve been able to since the Johnson administration, and maybe even before that, to begin to change the paradigm. This time — it’s time that we build an economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out, the middle out. [applause] And this bill shows that when you do that, everybody does better, the wealthy do better. Everybody does better across the board.”

Video player loading
During an event in the Rose Garden on Friday, President Biden celebrated the passing of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill that will help revive the economy stunned by the pandemic.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

One day after President Biden gave a televised address promising that his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan would help lift up an economy stunned by the coronavirus pandemic, he entered the Rose Garden to a standing ovation from an audience of Democrats.

“It changes the paradigm,” Mr. Biden said about the legislation as he listed its various benefits for low- and middle-class workers. “For the first time in a long time, this bill puts working people in this nation first.”

Since the plan was passed with no Republican support, the signing celebration was billed as a “bicameral” but not “bipartisan” event, as Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, described it to reporters on Thursday.

Ignoring the political division in Washington and the Republicans who had denigrated the relief plan as wasteful and too progressive, a group of Democratic leaders who couldn’t point to unity across the aisle instead tried to direct the public’s attention to comity within their own party.

“Our unity, on behalf of all of the American people, is what made this such a triumph,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said before Mr. Biden spoke.

“We Democrats made promises,” Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, said. “We said if we gained the Senate, kept the House and elected the president, we would finally get things done and get us out of this Covid crisis. And we are on the road to success.”

But Mr. Biden acknowledged the thin margins that exist for Democratic leadership. He congratulated Mr. Schumer on guiding the “controversial” piece of legislation through an evenly divided Senate, and also House leaders for doing the same with a slim majority.

The event amounted to a victory lap for a White House that has rolled out a media blitz to hail the largest federal infusion of aid to the poor in generations. And it will be part of a campaign by Democrats to sell the landmark legislation to people who are politically opposed to it. Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Jill Biden, the first lady, are among the figures who will soon travel around the country to promote the particulars of the plan.

The legislation substantially expands the child tax credit and increases subsidies for health insurance. Restaurants will get financial help, and state governments will get an infusion of aid. Among its many other provisions, the plan provides some $130 billion to assist in reopening schools.

“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country,” Mr. Biden said to reporters who had gathered in the Oval Office on Thursday, “and giving people in this nation, working people, the middle-class folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance.”

Mr. Biden has also encouraged Americans to receive vaccines and practice social distancing. On Thursday evening, he said that he would use his executive authority to require states to make all adults eligible for the vaccine by May 1, with a broad goal that Americans could gather together to celebrate the Fourth of July.

A survey of Republicans shows 5 factions have emerged after Trump’s presidency.

Image
Supporters of former President Donald J. Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., last month.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The Republican Party in the era following Donald J. Trump’s presidency is comprised of five “tribes” that have ranging affinity for the former president and different desires when it comes to seeing him continue to lead the party, according to a new survey by Mr. Trump’s former pollster.

The survey of 1,264 voters, who are registered Republicans or identify as Republicans, is the first comprehensive one conducted about G.O.P. voter sentiment since Mr. Trump left office, and as he considers running again in 2024. It was conducted by the Republican polling firm Fabrizio and Lee — which worked for Mr. Trump in his 2020 campaign but does not any longer.

The former president “still wields tremendous influence over the party, yet it is not universal or homogeneous,” the pollsters wrote in their summary. “We found that there are clear and distinct ‘tribes’ of Trump supporters within the G.O.P. and, not surprisingly, a small Never Trump group.”

Those “tribes” were identified as “Trump Boosters,” “Die-hard Trumpers,” “Post-Trump G.O.P.,” “Never Trump,” and “Infowars G.O.P.” The latter group, among other things, was described as viewing QAnon conspiracy theories favorably and believing in many of them.

According to the data, some 57 percent of Republicans polled said they would support Mr. Trump in an election again. That’s a strong majority, but nowhere near the job approval that he enjoys among all Republicans polled, which was 88 percent.

Among the groups, according to the survey, there were some distinctions in terms of how they viewed Trump.

The group identified as “Die-hard Trumpers” — supporters of the former president who would back him in a hypothetical primary regardless of who else was running but who don’t believe in QAnon conspiracy theories — comprised 27 percent of the Republican voters surveyed. Another 28 percent comprised the “Trump Boosters,” Republicans who said they approve of how Mr. Trump did his job, but only a slight majority of them support him being the nominee again, and they are more supportive of the Republican Party than Mr. Trump personally.

The “Never Trump” Republicans comprised 15 percent of the Republicans surveyed. Another 20 percent were described as “Post-Trump G.O.P.,” who like Mr. Trump but want to see someone else as the party’s nominee.

The “Infowars G.O.P.” voters, named for the conspiracy-laden news outlet that was founded by Alex Jones, comprised 10 percent of the voters surveyed, far from a majority but a significant enough portion of voters that, in a multicandidate primary, could play a factor. Only 13 percent of all the voters surveyed believed in QAnon conspiracy theories, the poll showed, but 69 percent of the “Infowars G.O.P.” voters backed those theories.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

After making big promises in his prime-time address, Biden faces pressure to follow through.

Image
President Biden’s promise of a return to a semblance of normalcy by the Fourth of July depends on the American public continuing to wear masks, maintain social distancing rules and getting vaccinated.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Having used a national address Thursday night to offer Americans hope — and the tantalizing promise of a Fourth of July with friends and family — President Biden now faces a pair of logistical challenges that may shape the arc of his presidency.

First, he must use the power of the government he leads to administer the coronavirus vaccine to most of the country in less than four months. To do that, he will have to press the limits of a public health system that has not faced a pandemic of this magnitude in more than a century.

At the same time, Mr. Biden needs to ensure that his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan delivers on the promise of its name — to bolster the economy, provide emergency cash for the unemployed, enable students to return to classrooms and restart the businesses that will allow people to return to work.

If he can do both, the president will most likely be rewarded by a weary public that is eager to cast off the heavy burdens that the pandemic has placed on their lives. In his speech, the president was explicit about his belief that his administration would meet those challenges.

“It’s never, ever a good bet to bet against the American people,” he said as he concluded. “America is coming back.”

But Mr. Biden’s speech was a risky moment for a new president who faces real challenges ahead, any of which could undermine the public’s confidence in his ability to govern and create openings for Republicans.

His promise of a return to a semblance of normalcy by the Fourth of July depends, as he made clear during the speech, on the American public continuing to follow the rules: wearing masks, maintaining social distancing rules and getting the vaccine when it is available to them.

But there is already evidence that it may not be that easy. The recent decision by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to abandon the state’s mask mandate was just the latest example of how deeply torn the country remains over following onerous restrictions. The more states that follow Texas’ lead, the harder it will be for Mr. Biden to make good on his promise.

Despite the president urging Americans to get vaccinated, a portion of the public remains deeply suspicious about the vaccines. Even if Mr. Biden can make doses available to every adult American by the end of May, as he has promised, he may still fall short if too many people refuse it.

The president has also in effect taken responsibility for ensuring that the vaccine makers can deliver the hundreds of millions of doses they have promised on tight time frames, avoiding more of the glitches and missed deadlines that slowed the early portions of the rollout.

In his speech, the president practically begged Americans not to be afraid of vaccines that have already been given to millions of people around the country. “Talk to your family, friend, your neighbor,” he implored. “We need everyone to get vaccinated.”

“Because even if we devote every resource we have,” he added, “beating this virus and getting back to normal depends on national unity.”

Finally, Mr. Biden faces a political challenge that could undercut his efforts to make people feel like the economy is working again.

Mr. Biden pushed the American Rescue Plan through Congress with not a single Republican vote. That gives his adversaries little reason to hope for its success and ample motivation to publicize its failures.

The White House has said it will mount an all-out public relations campaign over the next several weeks aimed at making sure that the American public understands what the legislation will do for them: direct payments, unemployment benefits, extra money to care for children and help for schools, businesses and local governments.

The stimulus package encompasses a complex array of programs that will have to be enacted quickly across a host of government agencies. The White House is eager to avoid the kinds of breakdowns that plagued the small business assistance program last year, when crashing computer systems and opaque rules created logjams and inequities that marred the program’s initial stages.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Thursday that people could begin seeing deposits in their checking accounts as soon as this weekend.

But administration officials have quietly acknowledged that some of the money in the American Rescue Plan will not be spent for months or even longer. And they have indicated a desire to find someone to oversee the vast effort — a clear sign they recognize the danger if they stumble amid a need to move quickly

The most important question for Mr. Biden may be: Will Americans be patient?

Japan, India, Australia and the U.S. agree to work together to combat cyberattacks and the coronavirus.

Video
bars
0:00/0:53
-0:00

transcript

U.S. Will Partner to Expand Global Vaccine Supply

On Friday, the Quad, which includes the United States, Australia, India, and Japan, held a virtual conference where the four countries agreed to join together to expand global vaccine supply.

And we’ve launched an ambitious new joint partnership that is going to boost vaccine manufacturing and — for the global benefit — and strengthen vaccinations to benefit the entire Indo-Pacific. We’re establishing a new mechanism to enhance our cooperation, and raise our mutual ambitions as we address accelerating climate change. We’ve got a big agenda ahead of us, gentlemen, as you well know. But I’m optimistic about our prospects. The Quad is going to be a vital arena for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. And I look forward to working closely with all of you in the coming years.

Video player loading
On Friday, the Quad, which includes the United States, Australia, India, and Japan, held a virtual conference where the four countries agreed to join together to expand global vaccine supply.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden’s first meeting with leaders of Japan, India and Australia — a newly formed group of democracies called “The Quad” — focused on two threats that have hit all four nations: taming the coronavirus and responding to broad cyberattacks from Russia and China.

In a briefing for reporters on Friday, Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said the four nations agreed to join forces in producing vaccines for the Indo-Pacific region, combining “Indian manufacturing, U.S. technology, Japanese and American financing, and Australian logistics capability.” They agreed to deliver up to 1 billion doses to the Association of South East Asian Nations, or ASEAN — but they said they might not reach that goal until the end of 2022. That suggests that the race in vaccinating some of the world’s most populous regions may not have wide reach for another year-and-a-half.

The four leaders also created an emerging technology group to set standards in key technologies in which China is attempting to cement a leading role — starting with 5G communications — and to come up with common strategies to deal with rising cyberattacks. “These groups will deliver results,’’ Mr. Sullivan said, saying the leaders would meet in person by the end of the year.

Pressed on the recent attack on Microsoft Exchange systems, a breach of tens of thousands of corporate and government networks that was only made public 10 days ago, Mr. Sullivan said the United States has not yet reached a formal conclusion about who was responsible for it — though Microsoft has said it was a Chinese government-backed operation.

“I do pledge to you that we will be in a position to attribute that attack at some point in the near future, and we won’t hide the ball on that,’’ Mr. Sullivan said. “We will come forward and say who we believe perpetrated the attack.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Now that Biden has signed the relief bill, Democrats and Republicans are racing to define it.

Image
Democrats in Congress are unreservedly embracing the scope and cost of the plan they call transformative.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Congressional Republicans and Democrats finally agree on something: The pandemic rescue bill President Biden signed into law on Thursday is the largest expansion of government support programs in more than 50 years. Where they differ is on whether that is good or bad.

Trying to undermine the widely popular $1.9 trillion legislation, Republicans are denouncing the bill as “the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation.” They call it a spending spree that amounts to “a massive expansion of the entitlement system,” funds a longstanding “list of liberal priorities” and was muscled through on a party-line vote by Democrats unwilling to lower its price tag in drawn-out negotiations with Republicans. Democrats proudly own every word of that description.

“If you are a Democrat charged with that, you’d better prove yourself guilty,” said Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania.

The question for Republicans is whether they can get away with excoriating a bill that will deliver tangible benefits in the form of cash, tax credits, help paying child care and health care expenses, and much more to millions of Americans who have struggled for a full year with financial devastation and uncertainty.

Democrats say that Republicans will have a very hard time doing so. Democrats are unreservedly embracing the scope and cost of the plan they call transformative, bolstered by polls that show it is supported by a substantial majority of Americans, including Republican voters.

Privately, some top Republicans said they believed their pushback against the bill had been weak and too heavily focused on process, allowing Democrats to gain the upper hand with their celebration of the extensive help they are providing.

The rush is now on by both parties to define the bill that is likely to be a main point of contention in next year’s midterm elections, as Democrats seek to retain their thin majorities in the House and the Senate against a Republican onslaught.

Senators Schumer and Gillibrand join a chorus of Democrats urging Cuomo to resign.

Video
bars
0:00/1:20
-0:00

transcript

Cuomo Says He Will Not Resign Amid Multiple Scandals

On Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said in a teleconference that he would not resign amid sexual harassment allegations and criticism of his administration’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic.

As I have said before, and I firmly believe and my administration has always represented, women have a right to come forward and be heard. And I encourage that fully, but I also want to be clear, there is still a question of the truth. I did not do what has been alleged, period. I won’t speculate about people’s possible motives, but I can tell you as a former attorney general who’s gone through this situation many times, there are often many motivations for making an allegation, and that is why you need to know the facts before you make a decision. There are now two reviews underway. No one wants them to happen more quickly and more thoroughly than I do — let them do it. I’m not going to argue this issue in the press. That is not how it is done, that is not the way it should be done.

Video player loading
On Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said in a teleconference that he would not resign amid sexual harassment allegations and criticism of his administration’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic.CreditCredit...Cindy Schultz for The New York Times

Facing a deluge of calls from New York’s congressional Democrats for him to resign, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made clear on Friday that he had no intention of quitting, deriding the mounting pressure from his own party as “cancel culture” and insisting he would not bow down.

The calls came in a coordinated barrage of statements released in the morning by most of the state’s Democratic delegation — more than a dozen House members, including Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and then, later in the day, in a statement from Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. The sentiment was clear: Mr. Cuomo had lost the capacity to govern and must leave office.

It was a remarkable moment for Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat who won national acclaim last year during the pandemic, but is now confronting multiple investigations and the threat of impeachment over a string of sexual harassment allegations and his attempt to obscure the virus-related death toll in nursing homes.

The governor responded with defiance — a surprise in a traditional political sense, given that other elected officials have resigned from office in the face of far less unanimous sentiment. But it also marked a return to form for the pugilistic governor, who last week had struck a more conciliatory, apologetic tone in addressing the harassment accusations.

In a hastily arranged news conference, Mr. Cuomo quickly rejected the demands for him to step down, and denied harassing or abusing anyone. He accused lawmakers of jumping to conclusions without knowing the facts, calling them “reckless and dangerous.”

“I did not do what has been alleged, period,” he said.

The sudden mass defection of members of Mr. Cuomo’s own party was one of the most stinging rebukes of a sitting governor in the state’s history, prompting new questions about his ability to weather the most severe political crisis of his decade-long tenure.

“Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of the people of New York,” said Mr. Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the highest-ranking members of Congress. “Governor Cuomo must resign.”

The statement from Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Schumer was worded almost identically.

“Due to the multiple, credible sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, it is clear that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners and the people of New York,” they said. “Governor Cuomo should resign.”

But Mr. Cuomo suggested that the fellow New York Democrats pressing for his resignation were doing so because of “political expediency,” and “without knowing any facts and substance.”

Several women, some of them current or former state employees, have accused the governor of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior. They include an unidentified aide who said this week that Mr. Cuomo had groped her in the Executive Mansion. Last month, Lindsey Boylan, a former administration official, said the governor had given her an unsolicited kiss on the lips, and Charlotte Bennett, a former aide who is 25, said he had asked her invasive questions, such as whether she had sex with older men.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Refusing to resign, Cuomo echoes past governors faced with scandals.

Image
Two years ago, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia faced calls from Virginia’s top Democrats to quit after the discovery of a racist photograph on his medical school yearbook page.Credit...Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York Times

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s rejection on Friday of widespread calls for his resignation was reminiscent of two other governors’ defiant refusals to step down in the face of recent scandals.

Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, a Democrat accused in 2019 of having appeared in a racist photograph as a student, ultimately hung on to his job.

Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri, a Republican, adamantly rejected calls to quit in 2018 after he was accused of coercion in an extramarital affair, but he was eventually forced from office.

There are differences in the cases. Mr. Cuomo, a three-term Democrat, is the subject of an impeachment inquiry after several women accused him of sexual misconduct, including unwanted advances and groping. In a telephone news conference on Friday, he accused the Democrats demanding his resignation of “bowing to cancel culture” and denied the women’s accusations.

“I did not do what has been alleged, period,” he said, though he had previously acknowledged — before the most serious accusation came out — “that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable.”

Two years ago, Mr. Northam similarly faced calls from Virginia’s top Democrats to quit after the discovery of a racist photograph on his medical school yearbook page. At a news conference, Mr. Northam, a mild-mannered physician turned politician, said he was not one of the men in the photo, but admitted to once darkening his face to imitate Michael Jackson in a dance contest. He seemed on the verge of demonstrating the moonwalk until his wife shot him a withering look.

In 2018, Mr. Greitens was indicted by a St. Louis grand jury on an invasion of privacy charge after his former hairstylist accused him of photographing her naked and threatening to release the pictures if she disclosed their affair. It allegedly occurred the same year, 2015, that he announced his run for governor.

Mr. Greitens denied that he had threatened blackmail. But the Republican-controlled state legislature said the charges were “credible” and called a special session to weigh impeachment. Mr. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL who styled himself an anti-establishment Republican like President Donald J. Trump, announced his resignation in May 2018.

Mr. Cuomo seemed to be expecting absolution through the two investigations into his behavior that are underway. “Let the review proceed,” he said. “I’m not going to resign.”

His gamble may be that time is on the side of a politician ensnared in scandal.

That is how it worked for Mr. Northam. Within weeks of the yearbook photo surfacing, Virginia’s lieutenant governor and attorney general were caught up in scandals of their own. With the prospect of the state’s three top officials, all Democrats, being pressured to resign and the No. 4 official in line, a Republican, taking over, Democrats lost all fervor to see Mr. Northam leave. The scandal blew over. The governor, who cannot serve two consecutive terms, has dedicated the balance of his tenure to righting historical racial injustices.

Mr. Greitens, too, may have a political second act. He has recently teased a run for Missouri’s open Senate seat in 2022 after Senator Roy Blunt announced that he would retire.

News analysis: Biden’s speech showed he understands his legacy depends on ending the pandemic quickly.

Image
Pharmacist Brittany Marsh administers a Covid-19 vaccine to Scott Moody at her pharmacy this week in Little Rock, Ark.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York Times

The 365 days between the United States’ panicked retreat from offices and schools and President Biden’s speech on Thursday night, celebrating the prospect of a pandemic’s end, may prove to be one of the most consequential years in American history.

People learned about national vulnerabilities most had never considered, and about depths of resilience they never imagined needing except in wartime. Even the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, for all their horror and the two decades of war they ushered in, did not change day-to-day life in every city and town in the United States quite the way the coronavirus did.

One president lost his job in large part for mishandling a crisis whose magnitude he first denied. His successor knows his legacy depends on bringing the catastrophe to a swift conclusion.

The halting response demonstrated both the worst of American governing and then, from Operation Warp Speed’s 10-month sprint to vaccines to the frantic pace of inoculations in recent days, the very best. The economic earthquake as cities and towns shuttered so altered politics that Congress did something that would have been unimaginable a year ago this week. Lawmakers spent $5 trillion to dig the nation out of the economic hole created by the virus and, almost as a political aftershock, enacted an expansion of the social safety net larger than any seen since the creation of Medicare nearly 60 years ago.

No country can go through this kind of trauma without being forever changed. There were indelible moments. In the spring came the racial reckoning brought on by the death of George Floyd after a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. On Jan. 6 came the mob attack on the Capitol that led many to wonder whether American democracy was still capable of self-correction.

But Mr. Biden’s message on Thursday centered on the theme that the country did finally come together in a common cause — vaccines as the road to normalcy — and from that could spring a glimmer of unity, as a still-divided nation seeks solace in millions of tiny jabs in the arm. In his speech, Mr. Biden held out two distinct dates of hope: May 1, when all adults in the United States will be eligible to receive a vaccine, and July 4, when modest Independence Day celebrations might resemble life a little like it once was.

For Mr. Biden, the question is when he will be able to pivot from what he has called the “rescue” phase of the pandemic to the “recovery” phase after the pandemic. In his speech on Thursday, the president made it clear that the rescue was still underway.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Here’s a fact-check of Biden’s first prime-time White House address.

Image
President Biden walking away from the podium after his first prime-time address from the White House.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden, in a prime-time address on Thursday night, exaggerated elements of the coronavirus pandemic along with his, and his predecessor’s, response to it. Here’s a fact-check.

What Mr. Biden Said

“A year ago we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked, denials for days, weeks, then months.”

This is exaggerated. It is true that President Donald J. Trump downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic for months. But he was not exactly silent and did not fail to respond completely. One year ago, on March 12, 2020, Mr. Trump delivered an address from the Oval Office acknowledging the threat and announced new travel restrictions on much of Europe.

What Mr. Biden Said

“As of now, total deaths in America, 527,726. That’s more deaths than in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and 9/11 combined.”

This is exaggerated. According to estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs, a total of 392,393 died in combat in those three wars. Combined with the 2,977 people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, that figure would be indeed smaller than the coronavirus death toll Mr. Biden cited. It would also be lower than the 529,000 death figure tracked by The New York Times. But factoring in deaths that occurred in service but outside of combat, the toll from the three wars (more than 610,000) would be higher than the current total number of virus-related deaths Mr. Biden cited.

What Mr. Biden Said

“Two months ago this country didn’t have nearly enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all or anywhere near all of the American public. But soon we will.”

This is misleading. By the end of last year, the Trump administration had ordered at least 800 million vaccine doses that were expected for delivery by July 31, 2021, the Government Accountability Office reported. That included vaccines undergoing clinical trials as well as those not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration. According to Kaiser Health News, that would have been enough to vaccinate 200 million people with authorized vaccines, and more than enough for 400 million once all the vaccines were cleared for use. The current U.S. population is roughly 330 million. And, contrary to Mr. Biden’s suggestions, both administrations deserve credit for the current state of the vaccine supply.

What Mr. Biden Said

“When I took office 50 days ago, only 8 percent of Americans after months, only 8 percent of those over the age of 65 had gotten their first vaccination. Today, that number is 65 percent.”

This is misleading. When Mr. Biden took office on Jan. 20, the vaccination effort had just begun, after the F.D.A. authorized Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in mid-December.

Moreover, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people between ages 65 and 74 receive the vaccine only after it has been administered to health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities, frontline essential workers and people over the age of 75.

It’s also worth noting that about 62.4 percent of people over 65 have received one vaccine dose, but just 32.2 percent are fully vaccinated, according to the C.D.C.

More than 1,000 congressional aides have joined forces to push for change after the Capitol riot.

Image
Herline Mathieu, center, the president of the Congressional Black Associates, and other leaders of staff associations on Capitol Hill said their members did not feel safe after the attack on Jan. 6. Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

After the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, Herline Mathieu knew things had to change.

As president of the Congressional Black Associates, one of a hodgepodge of organizations on Capitol Hill that represent the aides who serve members of the House and the Senate, she heard from scores of fellow staff members who did not want to return to the complex after the violence and racism of the riot.

“I spoke with at least 60 members who were just really concerned about their safety,” said Ms. Mathieu, a legislative aide.

So Ms. Mathieu began to organize, a relatively rare endeavor for employees in Congress, which is exempt from most labor laws, including occupational safety and anti-discrimination statutes.

Before long, Ms. Mathieu had brought together 10 different staff associations — together representing more than 1,000 congressional staff members, mostly people of color — to push for a safer environment, better work conditions and more access to counseling and other services after the riot. They are also calling for changes to the Capitol Police force, which they argue let them down on Jan. 6, and a say in the makeup of an independent, 9/11-style commission proposed to investigate the attack.

“It’s important for us to come together to show that we are here,” said Ms. Mathieu, who works for Representative Emanuel Cleaver II, Democrat of Missouri. She stressed that she was acting on behalf of the staff association, not the congressman. “This is honestly the closest thing we’ve got to a union,” she said.

But in their push for a safer environment, the aides are also pressing to ensure that the Capitol Police does not resort to racial profiling or cracking down on minority groups in response to the latest rash of violence.

“We’ve seen in post-9/11 that South Asians have been disproportionately profiled,” said Nishith Pandya, the president of the Congressional South Asian-American Staff Association. “It is very clear who the perpetrators of this attack were, and it’s nobody who looks like the people here. Yet we all have to be concerned about racial profiling because of how this country has reacted to attacks like this before.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Americans are confident in Biden’s virus response, but think he’s unlikely to unify the country.

Image
Image
Credit...Pew Research Center

With President Biden taking a victory lap after signing his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, he continues to enjoy widespread confidence in his handling of the pandemic, according to a Pew Research Center poll released on Thursday.

Almost two-thirds of Americans expressed faith in Mr. Biden’s ability to confront the health crisis, including one-third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. An even higher share — 70 percent of all Americans — expressed a favorable view of the relief package, according to another set of results from the same survey released earlier this week.

That lines up with the results of a CNN poll, also released on Thursday, that found that 67 percent of the country had confidence in Mr. Biden’s ability to guide the country out of the pandemic.

Mr. Biden’s overall job approval rating sits firmly in positive territory, with 54 percent giving him positive marks and 42 percent disapproving, the Pew survey found. But he continues to face a stubborn partisan divide: Among Republicans and Republican leaners, just 16 percent expressed approval.

By comparison, at a similar moment in President Barack Obama’s first term, Pew found that 37 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners gave him positive marks. For Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the number was 30 percent among those in the opposing party.

So while Mr. Biden enjoys broad public confidence on his ability to handle the pandemic, and while a solid majority of the country told Pew researchers that they trusted him to make sound decisions on foreign policy and the economy, there is less faith in his ability to bring the country together, although it was a key component of his campaign.

Forty-eight percent of Americans said they felt good about his chances of uniting the country, while 52 percent said they didn’t have a lot of confidence, according to Pew.

The poll found more evidence of the entrenched divide: The Democratic Party was slightly more popular than the Republican Party, with 47 percent of Americans expressing a positive view of it — compared with 38 percent for the G.O.P. — but about three in five Americans described both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party as “too extreme in its positions.”

The poll was conducted from March 1-7, and reached 12,055 respondents via Pew’s American Trends Panel, which uses a probability-based model to draw a sample that is representative of the national population.

Biden condemns ‘vicious’ hate crimes against Asian-Americans.

Image
A rally in February to oppose the series of hate crimes that have targeted Asian-American people in San Francisco.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

President Biden on Thursday evening condemned “vicious” hate crimes against Asian-Americans, who he said have been “attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated” during the coronavirus pandemic.

“They’re forced to live in fear for their lives just walking down streets in America,” Mr. Biden said during a prime-time address at the White House, marking a year since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. “It’s wrong. It’s un-American, and it must stop.”

Asian-Americans have grappled with anxiety and fear as violence against them spiked during the pandemic. Activists and elected officials say the attacks were fueled early on in part by the rhetoric of former President Donald J. Trump, who frequently referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” because it originated in Wuhan, China. Mr. Trump has also blamed the Chinese government for the pandemic, saying Beijing failed to keep the virus from spreading beyond China’s borders.

Over the past year, researchers and activist groups have tallied thousands of racist incidents against Asian-Americans. Earlier this year, an 84-year-old man from Thailand was violently slammed to the ground during an attack in San Francisco, and he later died. The killing, which his family described as racially motivated, spurred a campaign to raise awareness of his death and the recent attacks against Asian-Americans.

In New York, the number of hate crimes involving Asian-American victims reported to the New York Police Department jumped to 28 in 2020, up from just three the previous year.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Stimulus Payments to Start Arriving This Weekend

Image
A mall in Southaven, Miss., where the mask mandate ended last week. The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress are betting that providing additional stimulus checks can kick-start a faster recovery.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York Times

The Treasury Department said on Friday that stimulus payments would begin arriving in bank accounts by direct deposit this weekend as the Biden administration tries to get much-needed money to struggling families.

Treasury and Internal Revenue Service Officials said the payments would be released in batches over the next several weeks, with some coming in the mail in the form of checks or debit cards. The payments are the first big logistical test for Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, as millions of Americans are anxiously awaiting the economic aid.

The payments will provide up to $1,400 per individual, including dependents. The amounts will be reduced for people making more than $75,000 and for married couples who earn more than $150,000. Individuals earning more than $80,000 or couples making more than $160,000 will not get payments.

This is the third round of direct payments since the pandemic started last year. The amount of money each person qualifies for is based on tax information filed with the Internal Revenue Service for 2019 or 2020.

The Treasury Department has been working with financial institutions to try to ensure the payments arrive more quickly this time around than they did last year, when millions of payments were misdirected into unused accounts. The majority of the payments are expected to be delivered within the next few weeks.

On Monday, people will be able to check the status of their payments on the I.R.S.’s website

Some of the first round of payments last year were delayed because former President Donald J. Trump wanted the design of the checks changed to have his name added to the memo line. A Treasury official said on Friday that the checks will be signed be a career official. On the memo line will be the words, “Economic Impact Payment.”

The pace of U.S. vaccinations has been accelerating ahead of the date by which Biden wants all adults to be eligible.

Image
A woman received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J. on Monday. The U.S. is averaging about 2.2 million Covid vaccine doses daily.Credit...James Estrin/The New York Times

President Biden’s call for every adult American to be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine by May 1 comes at a time when doses are being administered at an accelerated pace.

In the past month alone, the rate of vaccinations has ramped up about 40 percent, to an average of 2.3 million shots a day as of Friday, up from an average of about 1.7 million shots a day on Feb. 12, according to a New York Times database.

The increased pace of inoculations comes as vaccine production has ramped up. Mr. Biden’s team has made key decisions that quickened the manufacturing and distribution, though some of that success is owed to the Trump administration which had a vaccine production effort in place when Mr. Biden assumed office.

But now that the vaccine supply is getting closer to meeting the demand of the eligible, the country faces the challenge of getting all those shots into arms, an operation that requires not only enough doses, but also improving access to communities of color, as well as space, manpower and messaging to convince Americans wary for a variety of reasons that getting vaccinated is safe and effective.

Already, mass vaccination sites are opening and expanding across the country, and some places are extending the hours that shots are available. The White House on Friday announced that another vaccination site run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency would open at a football stadium in Detroit that will be able to administer 6,000 shots a day.

More and more states have also been expanding the criteria for people now eligible to sign up for vaccines as well.

Since the vaccination campaign began in December, 101 million doses have been administered across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of shots had been gradually increasing, and since Jan. 20, more than 84 million doses that have been administered as of Thursday. The president initially set a goal of 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office and, later, said he was aiming for an average of 1.5 million shots per day. At the current pace of 2.3 million shots a day, the country would surpass the point of 100 million shots during his administration in about a week.

In mid-February, Mr. Biden said there should be enough vaccine supply available to any adult in the country by the end of July. By early March, he said that timeline moved up to the end of May. Mr. Biden also recently announced that his administration would secure an additional 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine by the end of this year, a boost that could eventually make the vaccines available to children. The additional doses could also be used for booster shots, if necessary.

Getting the country vaccinated has become a race against time, with new variants emerging around the country and state leaders becoming antsy to ease restrictions as the weather gets warmer. Mr. Biden’s health team has warned that now is not the time to lift restrictions, especially leaving in place mask mandates that have been shown to successfully stem the spread of infections.

“We need everyone to keep washing their hands, stay socially distanced, and keep wearing the mask as recommended by the C.D.C.,” Mr. Biden said during a national address on Thursday. “Because even if we devote every resource we have, beating this virus and getting back to normal depends on national unity.”

Amy Schoenfeld Walker and Noah Weiland contributed reporting.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT