Closing summary
We’re closing the politics blog now on a rollercoaster Thursday for President Joe Biden. The day began with depressing economic news that the US was technically in a recession, but was brightened considerably by a bipartisan vote in the House that sends the $280bn Chips Act to his desk.
And then there was the unexpected development that Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, blamed for single handedly blocking the majority of Biden’s first term agenda on the climate emergency and the economy, had reversed his position.
The Inflation Reduction Act Manchin negotiated with Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is, Biden said, “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis.”
Thanks for joining us today. Before you go, please have a read of my colleague David Smith’s report on the reconciliation bill here.
Here’s what else we followed today:
- Former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has spoken with the House panel investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection, and the committee is negotiating to obtain testimony from other members of the former president’s cabinet, the Associated Press reported.
- Politico reported that the House panel and the justice department’s criminal inquiry had struck an testimony-sharing deal on witness transcripts and other evidence. The report came as Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney spoke with the panel virtually.
- Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping spoke for more than two hours by phone, in what was reported to have been a sometimes testy conversation including a discussion of Nancy Pelosi’s controversial upcoming trip to Taiwan.
- At least 43 abortion clinics in 11 states have closed since the supreme court eliminated federal protections for the procedure last month, and seven states no longer have any providers, a study published Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute revealed. Prior to the ruling ending Roe v Wade protections, the 11 states had a total of 71 clinics providing abortion care, the report says.
- The Miami Herald reported that a state operation touted last month by Republican governor Ron DeSantis as a successful law enforcement action to “keep illegals out of Florida” ended up arresting mostly legal residents. Of 22 arrests in a three-day sweep from 7 to 9 June, the “vast majority” were not related to immigration, the Herald said.
Updated
While chief of staff to Donald Trump, the retired general John Kelly “shoved” Ivanka Trump in a White House hallway, Jared Kushner writes in his forthcoming memoir.
The detail from Breaking History, which will be published in August, was reported by the Washington Post.
Kushner, the Post said, writes that he and his wife saw Kelly as “consistently duplicitous”.
“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office. Ivanka was walking down the main hallway in the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello, chief.’ Kelly shoved her out of the way and stormed by. She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”
Kushner writes that Kelly offered a “meek” apology about an hour later.
Kelly told the Post: “I don’t recall anything like you describe. It is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a woman. Inconceivable. Never happen. Would never intentionally do something like that. Also, don’t remember ever apologising to her for something I didn’t do. I’d remember that.”
A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump said her husband’s description was accurate, the Post said.
The Post also said Kushner writes that Kelly gave his wife “compliments to her face that she knew were insincere.
“Then the four-star general would call her staff to his office and berate and intimidate them over trivial procedural issues that his rigid system often created. He would frequently refer to her initiatives like paid family leave and the child tax credit as ‘Ivanka’s pet projects.’”
Read the full story:
Barack Obama’s presidential portrait will be unveiled at the White House in a September ceremony hosted by his former vice-president Joe Biden, the Associated Press reports.
Portraits of the former president and first lady Michelle Obama will be presented in the East Room on 7 September, according to Obama’s office.
It will mark the first time the former first lady has returned to the White House since her husband left office in January 2017. Barack Obama went back in April to mark the 12th anniversary of his signature health care law.
House passes Chips Act, places on Biden's desk
The House of Representative has delivered a big win for Joe Biden, passing the $280bn Chips and Science Act that includes $52bn to boost the production of semiconductors.
The bill cleared the Senate 64-33 in a bipartisan vote yesterday, the president urging the House to get the bill to his desk as soon as possible to help ease a shortage in semiconductors he said is holding back US defense, healthcare and vehicle manufacturing industries.
Biden received the news of the bill’s House passage, 243-187 in a strong bipartisan vote, during a virtual round table with business leaders at the White House this afternoon.
The moment @POTUS gets word that the CHIPS Act has enough votes to pass the House pic.twitter.com/2CqAnr8oVc
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) July 28, 2022
Biden earlier highlighted the Chips Act as a central plank of his agenda to boost American industry, as he also hailed the newly announced $739bn Inflation Reduction Act.
In a statement, the president said the Chips Act “will make cars cheaper, appliances cheaper, and computers cheaper. It will lower the costs of every day goods. And, it will create high-paying manufacturing jobs across the country and strengthen US leadership in the industries of the future at the same time.”
Republicans had threatened to whip members against voting for the Chips Act after they were angered by last night’s announcement of the reconciliation bill, brokered in a deal between Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and previously reluctant West Virginia senator Joe Manchin.
Read my colleague David Smith’s report on the proposed new legislation here:
Updated
Biden: 'Signs of economic progress in second quarter'
It’s a double helping of Joe Biden today, the president just delivering remarks on the economy at an afternoon White House roundtable of business leaders.
Once again, the president is downplaying the suggestion, bolstered by this morning’s dismal GDP figures, that the US is in a recession:
There’ll be a lot of chatter today on Wall Street and among pundits about whether we are in a recession. But if you’re looking at our job market, consumer spending business investment, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter as well.
And yesterday, Fed chairman [Jerome] Powell made it clear that he doesn’t think the US economy is currently in a recession. He said, quote, there are too many areas of economics where the economy is performing too well.
For the second time today, following his address earlier this afternoon on the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden listed positive factors, including job creation, low unemployment and foreign investment in US industry.
I applaud by the bipartisan effort to get the Chips Act to my desk, which would advance our nation’s competitiveness and technological edge by boosting our domestic semiconductor production and manufacturing.
Another thing Congress should do is to pass the Inflation Reduction Act to lower prescription drug costs, reduce the deficit, help ease inflationary pressures and ensure 13m Americans can continue to save an average of $800 per year on health care premiums.
Both of these bills are going to help the economy continue to grow, bring down inflation and make sure we aren’t giving up on all the significant progress we made in the last year.
Mnuchin cooperating with January 6 inquiry
Former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has spoken with the House panel investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection, and the committee is negotiating to obtain testimony from other members of the former president’s cabinet, the Associated Press reports.
The panel is looking into the days following the deadly Capitol riot and discussions between senior officials over whether to try to remove the then-president from office.
The negotiations come as the committee was interviewing Trump’s former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, on Thursday. The former South Carolina congressman was special envoy for Northern Ireland on January 6 2022, a post he resigned immediately after the riot.
The AP says Mnuchin’s interview, and the negotiations with others, were confirmed by three people familiar with the committee’s work, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The agency says the committee asked Mnuchin about discussions among cabinet secretaries to possibly invoke the constitutional process in the 25th Amendment to remove Trump after the attack on the Capitol, according to one of the people, and is in talks to interview former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
The panel has already interviewed former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, former labor secretary Eugene Scalia and former acting defense secretary Christopher Miller as it focuses on Trump and what he was doing in the days before, during and after the riot.
We’ve written plenty about the Inflation Reduction Act today, and heard that Joe Biden believes it’s “the most significant bill to tackle the climate crisis in history”.
So what’s actually in it?
My colleague Oliver Milman has this handy explainer to what made it into the package. And what didn’t:
We now have the White House readout of Joe Biden’s two hour conversation with China’s President Xi Jinping this morning:
The call was a part of the Biden administration’s efforts to maintain and deepen lines of communication between the US and PRC [People’s Republic of China] and responsibly manage our differences and work together where our interests align.
The two presidents discussed a range of issues important to the bilateral relationship and other regional and global issues, and tasked their teams to continue following up on today’s conversation, in particular to address climate change and health security.
It seems they also touched on Nancy Pelosi’s controversial upcoming trip to Taiwan, which has angered Chinese leaders. The White House readout said:
On Taiwan, President Biden underscored that the United States policy has not changed and that the United States strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
The Chinese take, according to the Associated Press, was equally defiant.
The news agency quoted an account of the call by China’s ministry of foreign affairs.
“Those who play with fire will perish by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this,” it said.
“President Xi underscored that to approach and define China-US relations in terms of strategic competition and view China as the primary rival and the most serious long-term challenge would be misperceiving China-US relations and misreading China’s development, and would mislead the people of the two countries and the international community.”
At least 43 abortion clinics in 11 states have closed since the supreme court eliminated federal protections for the procedure last month, and seven states no longer have any providers, a study published Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute has found.
Prior to the ruling ending Roe v Wade protections on 24 June, the 11 states had a total of 71 clinics providing abortion care, the report says.
🚨 As of July 24, these 7 US states 👇 had banned abortion completely following the SCOTUS decision to overturn #RoeVWade:
— Guttmacher Institute (@Guttmacher) July 28, 2022
❌ Alabama
❌ Arkansas
❌ Mississippi
❌ Missouri
❌ Oklahoma
❌ South Dakota
❌ Texas#BansOffOurBodies https://t.co/6r9oaGNzqJ
As of 24 July, there were only 28 clinics still offering abortions, all located in the four states with six-week bans. Across these 11 states, the number of clinics offering abortions dropped by 43 in just one month.
The seven states no longer offering any abortion provision are Alabama (previously 5 clinics), Arkansas (2), Mississippi (1), Missouri (1), Oklahoma (5), South Dakota (1) and Texas (23 ).
“Obtaining an abortion was already difficult in many states even before the supreme court overturned Roe,” Rachel Jones, Guttmacher’s principal research scientist, said.
“These clinic closures resulting from state-level bans will further deepen inequities in access to care based on race, gender, income, age or immigration status since long travel distances to reach a clinic in another state will be a barrier for many people.”
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Joe Biden thanked Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, for their “extraordinary effort” in negotiating the reconciliation bill.
It had looked like Manchin had killed hope of any of the president’s signature policy goals on the climate emergency or the economy passing when he withdrew from talks on Build Back Better earlier this year.
The West Virginia senator, however, insisted earlier today he “never walked away” and was always open to renewed discussions, on parts of the package at least, which were finally concluded on Wednesday after weeks of secret meetings with Schumer and his staff.
Biden said:
I know can sometimes seem like nothing gets done in Washington. I know it never crossed any of your minds. But the work of the government can be slow and frustrating and sometimes even infuriating.
Then the hard work of hours and days and months from people who refuse to give up pays off.
History has been made. Lives have changed with this legislation. We’re facing up to some of our biggest problems. And we’re taking a giant step forward as a nation.
Biden closed his address with remarks on data that came out this morning showing the economy had shrunk for a second successive quarter, and that the US was technically in a recession.
He listed low unemployment, overseas investment in US manufacturing and yesterday’s passing by the Senate of the Chips Act boosting semiconductor production among a number of reasons why he believes the US economy is strong.
“That doesn’t sound like a recession to me,” Biden said.
Updated
Biden: 'Most significant legislation in history to tackle climate crisis'
Joe Biden hailed the Inflation Reduction Act as “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis” in a White House address welcoming the wide-ranging legislative package.
The president outlined the benefits to Americans during his remarks, which followed the surprise announcement of a deal last night between Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and holdout West Virginia senator Joe Manchin.
This bill will be the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis and improve our energy security right away, and give us a tool to meet the climate goals... we’ve agreed to by cutting emissions and accelerating clean energy. It’s a huge step forward.
This bill will reduce inflationary pressures on the economy. It will cut your cost of living and reduce inflation, it lowers the deficit and strengthens our economy for the long run as well.
This bill has won the support of climate leaders like former vice-president Al Gore, who said the bill is, quote, long overdue and a necessary step to ensure the United States takes decisive action on the climate crisis that helps our economy and provides leadership for the world.
Climate activists have broadly welcomed the bill which, if passed by Congress, would give Biden a massive victory ahead of November’s midterms. Inflation at 40-year highs and soaring prices in supermarkets and at gas pumps have contributed to the president’s low approval ratings.
It also follows months of stalling on Biden’s agenda, specifically by Manchin, who didn’t like the cost of $1.8tn Build Back Better spending package featuring measures like extended child tax credit.
Biden acknowledged:
This bill is far from perfect. I know the bill doesn’t include everything that I’ve been pushing for since I got to office. For example, I’m going to keep fighting to bring down the cost of things for working families and middle class families by providing for things like affordable childcare, affordable elder care, the cost of preschool, housing, helping students with the cost of college, closing the health care coverage gap...
My message to Congress is this. This is the strongest bill you can pass to lower inflation, cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis and promote energy security, all the time while reducing the burdens facing working class and middle class families.
So pass it. Pass it for the American people. Pass it for America.
Updated
Biden speaks on Inflation Reduction Act
Joe Biden is about to deliver a hastily arranged address about the Inflation Reduction Act, the White House says.
You can watch the president’s remarks here.
Updated
Joe Biden “was not involved” in negotiations over the newly announced Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Manchin has said, claiming credit instead for himself and his own aides.
In a press call Thursday morning that shed a little more light, but not very much, on how the bill came to be, the Democratic West Virginia senator said:
It was me and my staff. And then we worked with [Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer’s staff. My staff was driving it. We wrote the bill. Schumer’s staff would look at it and we would negotiate, and we worked that through them.
President Biden was not involved.
In comments to Punchbowl last night, Manchin said he and Schumer were old friends, and claimed he had pressed ahead with negotiations despite months of “ass kicking” from other Democrats angry he blocked Biden’s flagship Build Back Better bill, a $1.8tn package incorporating tax reform, climate measures and social welfare spending.
Climate advocates reacted with surprise and delight to Joe Manchin’s decision to back a sweeping bill to combat the climate crisis, with analysts predicting the legislation will bring the US close to its target of slashing planet-heating emissions.
The West Virginia senator, who has made millions from his ownership of a coal-trading company, had seemingly thwarted Joe Biden’s hopes of passing meaningful climate legislation – only to reveal on Wednesday his support for a $369bn package to support renewable energy and electric vehicle rollout.
The move by the centrist Democrat shocked many of Manchin’s colleagues, who despaired after more than 18 months of seemingly fruitless negotiations with the lawmaker, a crucial vote in an evenly divided Senate.
“Holy shit,” tweeted Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota. “Stunned, but in a good way.”
Holy shit. Stunned, but in a good way. $370B for climate and energy and 40% emissions reduction by 2030.
— Senator Tina Smith (@SenTinaSmith) July 27, 2022
BFD.https://t.co/0pNuIjh3hY
Should the bill pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by Biden, it will be the biggest and arguably first piece of climate legislation ever enacted by the US. The world’s largest historical carbon polluter has repeatedly failed to act on the climate crisis due to missed opportunities, staunch Republican opposition and the machinations of the fossil fuel lobby.
The climate spending, part of a broader bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, “has the potential to be a historic turning point” said Al Gore, the former vice-president.
“It represents the single largest investment in climate solutions and environmental justice in US history. Decades of tireless work by climate advocates across the country led to this moment.”
The bulk of the bill includes hefty tax credits to unleash clean energy projects such as wind and solar as well as a rebate of up to $7,500 for Americans who want to buy new electric vehicles. There is $9bn to retrofit houses to make them more energy efficient, tax credits for heat pumps and rooftop solar and a $27bn “clean energy technology accelerator” to help deploy new renewable technology.
A further $60bn would go towards environmental justice projects and there is a new program to reduce leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas drilling.
Read the full story:
Evidence-sharing 'partnership' spells new peril for Trump
There are developments today in the investigations into Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in office following his 2020 election defeat, including news of a “partnership” between the House inquiry and justice department over witness testimony.
The sharing of witness transcripts and other evidence, reported by Politico, is a “significant milestone” the media outlet says, and comes as justice department sources reveal its criminal inquiry has narrowed on Trump’s own actions during the insurrection.
Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat chairing the bipartisan House inquiry, told Politico: “We’ve put a template together for sharing information, sharing it with Justice. My understanding is, there’s general agreement on it.”
A number of Trumpworld insiders have testified to the panel in recent weeks, including the former president’s ex-chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, today.
Mulvaney told The Hill last month he believed “things could get very dark” for Trump after allegations in the House panel’s recent public hearings that he attempted to intimidate witnesses from giving testimony.
Since then, others, including former vice-president Mike Pence’s ex-chief of staff Marc Short, have provided their own insight into Trump’s scheming to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president... potentially damaging testimony that is now, or soon could be, also in the justice department’s hands.
In an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, attorney general Merrick Garland refused to rule out charging Trump, promising to “pursue justice without fear or favor” for anyone criminally responsible for the insurrection or preventing the peaceful transfer of power.
Biden: Economy 'on right path' despite unofficial recession
Joe Biden is talking up the US economy in a statement from the White House, even as depressing data released Thursday indicates a recession has technically begun.
“Coming off of last year’s historic economic growth - and regaining all the private sector jobs lost during the pandemic crisis - it’s no surprise that the economy is slowing down as the Federal Reserve acts to bring down inflation,” Biden said, referring to Wednesday’s decision to hike interest rates by 0.75%.
But even as we face historic global challenges, we are on the right path and we will come through this transition stronger and more secure. Our job market remains historically strong, with unemployment at 3.6% and more than 1m jobs created in the second quarter alone.
My economic plan is focused on bringing inflation down, without giving up all the economic gains we have made. Congress has an historic chance to do that by passing the Chips and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act without delay.
We’ll hear more from the president in public comments this lunchtime after he meets with chief executives of key industries.
Updated
The Miami Herald is reporting that a state operation touted last month by Republican governor Ron DeSantis as a successful law enforcement action to “keep illegals out of Florida” ended up arresting mostly legal residents.
According to the newspaper, of 22 arrests made by the Florida highway patrol and four county sheriffs offices in a three-day sweep from 7 to 9 June, the “vast majority” were not related to immigration.
Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted a law enforcement operation designed to combat illegal immigration.
— Ana Ceballos (@anaceballos_) July 28, 2022
What he didn't mention is that vast majority of arrests were of legal residents, who committed drug-related crimes, a key focus of the operation.https://t.co/teu2riopsz
At a press conference in Pensacola, DeSantis also implied that undocumented migrants had been arrested on drug-related crimes, when none were, the Herald said.
“They were able to recover these illegal aliens and enough fentanyl to kill off 2,000 people in the state of Florida,” DeSantis told reporters.
DeSantis, tipped as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, frequently bashes Joe Biden on immigration and has previously been criticized for spending taxpayer money on sending Florida law enforcement officers for security duty at the US southern border in Texas.
The comedian Jon Stewart ripped into Republican senators on Wednesday, after they abruptly halted a bipartisan bill that would expand healthcare access for military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
The former host of the Daily Show, who now hosts The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV+, has lobbied for the bill.
He called those who switched their votes “stab-vets-in-the-back senators”.
He added: “PS: fuck the Republican caucus and their empty promise to our veterans.”
The measure, called the Honoring our Pact Act, would make it easier for veterans to access military care related to exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam and toxins from pits used to burn military waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A version of the bill passed the Senate 84-14 earlier this year but was sent back to the House for some technical corrections. It easily passed there.
But on Wednesday, 25 Republican senators who previously supported the measure declined to move it forward.
John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told CNN Republicans did not back the measure because Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, was blocking votes on amendments Republicans wanted.
Cornyn also said Republicans wanted to negotiate more, in order to cut out some of the mandatory spending contained in the bill.
Stewart called that justification “bullshit”.
Republicans blocked the veterans measure just after Schumer, from New York, and Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, announced they had reached a deal on a sweeping tax and climate measure.
Read the full story:
Updated
Schumer: Democrats must be disciplined on Manchin deal
Majority leader Chuck Schumer told Senate Democrats at a private caucus meeting this morning they had an opportunity to achieve two “hugely important” priorities on health care and climate change, by approving the Inflation Reduction Act he brokered with Joe Manchin.
Schumer warned colleagues that final passage of the $739bn package will be hard in the 50-50 senate, according to the Associated Press, quoting an source granted anonymity to relay his private comments.
He said they would need to be disciplined in messaging and focus, but he believes they can get it done, the person added.
Two Democrats told the agency the Senate would vote on the wide-ranging measure next week, setting up Joe Biden and Democrats for an unexpected victory in the run-up to November’s midterm elections if the bill overcomes what will almost certainly be unanimous Republican opposition.
Biden and Xi in lengthy phone discussion
Joe Biden is speaking with China’s Xi Jinping, the fifth conversation of their presidencies, as the two leaders chart the future of their complicated relationship at a time of simmering economic and geopolitical tensions, the Associated Press reports.
We’re waiting for the White House to reveal details of the call, which began at 8.33am, but the agency said Biden is seeking new ways to work with the rising global power as well as strategies to contain China’s influence around the world.
There’s also tension over Nancy Pelosi’s proposed upcoming trip to Taiwan, which has angered Chinese leadership.
We’ll bring you more information as we learn it.
Manchin: 'I've never walked away from anything'
Joe Manchin has been defending his unexpected U-turn on climate and tax policy that resulted in the Inflation Reduction Act.
West Virginia’s Democratic senator, who is in isolation following a positive test for Covid-19, told Punchbowl that it wasn’t a reversal at all.
And he said that he had endured months of criticism from progressive Democrats and others for derailing much of Joe Biden’s ambitious first-term agenda - or “one hell of an ass-kicking” as he eloquently described it.
Of his secretive negotiations with Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer that led to last night’s announcement, Manchin said:
I never gave up.
The smart thing politically for me [to] do once Build Back Better was done and I walked away was to let a sleeping dog lie.
But when you get a moment in time, and if you know in your heart something needs to be done, it’s the right thing.
Manchin also said the reconciliation bill was born of his resistance to Biden’s flagship $1.8tn Build Back Better spending package, which he scuppered because he didn’t like the cost. He told Punchbowl:
Remember when I told you I didn’t walk away? I never walked away. I’ve never walked away from anything.
And I’ve been trying to tell people that. The bottom line was inflation scared the bejesus out of me at 9.1%. I said, ‘I’m gonna go back and re-scrub that bill.’ And then, you know, Chuck and I have a little bit of a relationship, if you will. Good, bad, indifferent at times, but it’s always been respectful and he got mad...
So Monday, I said, ‘Chuck, I’m not walking away, never have, my people are still working. If you want to see if we can basically scrub everything and make sure it’s not inflationary.’ That’s just how this went.
And he says, ‘Yeah, we’re willing to engage again.’ And I said, ‘OK, if you want to engage again.’ I said, ‘We haven’t stopped, we’re going through everything, taking out anything that we think could be inflammatory.’
And I gotta give him credit, they were OK. And we went through the whole thing.
Now the reconciliation bill is announced, and assuming it passes the scrutiny of the House and Senate parliamentarians, Democrats have to get it passed.
They will need all 50 of their votes in the Senate, and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema is a notable tax-hike skeptic. A spokesperson told the Guardian she won’t comment on the bill until she “reviews the text and what comes out of the parliamentarian process.”
Another potential headache: Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin tested positive today for Covid-19 and is isolating, but is expected to be back for any Senate vote.
Over in the House, meanwhile, where Democrats hold a slim four-seat majority, there are questions over New Jersey representatives Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherill, and Tom Suozzi of New York, who say they won’t support tax changes without certain concessions.
We’ll hear more from Manchin at 10.45am in a hastily arranged press call.
Updated
Manchin reverses course on Biden reconciliation bill
Good morning politics blog readers and happy Thursday. If you didn’t see it last night, you’re waking to news of a stunning reversal by senator Joe Manchin on tax and climate policy, and his agreement with Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer for a comprehensive new bill, following weeks of stealthy negotiations.
The concession by the rebel West Virginia Democrat, who almost single handedly has thwarted much of Joe Biden’s ambitious first-term agenda, surprised and angered congressional Republicans, who in an immediate apparent act of revenge – and self-sabotage – then blocked a bipartisan Senate bill expanding healthcare access for certain military veterans.
We’ll have more analysis of Manchin’s unexpected reversal, and the consequences of it, coming up.
Here’s what else we’re looking at today:
- Joe Biden is scheduled to speak on the state of the economy at 2.15pm, following this morning’s depressing data showing it has shrunk two quarters in a row and pushed the US closer to recession. The president is meeting chief executives of key sectors and industries this morning for updates.
- We’ll have more news about Donald Trump’s actions surrounding the January 6 insurrection, which are the subject of inquiries by a House panel and the department of justice.
- Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hosting an event about reproductive health care at 11am.
- White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s daily briefing is listed for 3.15pm, but she has been running up to an hour late on other days this week.
- Republicans and Democrats can work out their grievances on the diamond in the annual congressional baseball game at 7pm.
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