Here’s what to know
Trump firm sues New York to regain control of Bronx golf course
Former president Donald Trump’s company sued the city of New York on Monday, seeking to reverse the cancellation of Trump’s contract to run a city-owned golf course in the Bronx.
Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) terminated Trump’s contract to run the Ferry Point golf course in January, citing Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The city said that Trump had tarnished his own brand name such that he could never operate a “first class, tournament quality course” as the city wanted, according to court papers.
In the lawsuit, Trump said that the course had done nothing to break its contract with the city. Instead, he said, de Blasio disliked Trump because of his politics and used the Capitol insurrection “as a pretext” to carry out a political vendetta.
Activists gear up for battle as Senate Republicans prepare to block voting rights bill
Liberal activists and Democratic lawmakers are angling to use a planned Senate vote Tuesday on broad legislation to overhaul election access, campaign finance and government ethics — which is expected to fail because of solid Republican opposition — as an inflection point in a major last-ditch push to change Senate rules and pass voting rights legislation before the end of the summer.
Advocates of federal intervention who have been spurred to action by the raft of new, more restrictive state voting laws passed by Republican legislatures face a steep uphill battle after Tuesday’s vote. No GOP senators are expected to vote to even begin debating legislation, and several Democratic senators have made it clear that they oppose a move that could allow further action — eliminating the 60-vote supermajority rule known as the filibuster.
Federal judge tosses most claims against Trump, Barr and U.S. officials in clearing of Lafayette Square
A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed most claims filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., Black Lives Matter and others who in lawsuits accused the Trump administration of authorizing an unprovoked attack on demonstrators in Lafayette Square last year.
The plaintiffs asserted that the government used unnecessary force to enable a photo op of President Donald Trump holding a Bible outside the historic St. John’s Church. But U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of Washington called allegations that federals officials conspired to make way for the photo too speculative.
The judge’s decision came in a 51-page opinion after the Justice Department requested she toss four overlapping lawsuits naming dozens of federal individual and agency defendants, as well as D.C. and Arlington police, in the June 2020 incident.
Biden administration to endorse bill to end disparity in drug sentencing between crack and powder cocaine
The Biden administration plans to endorse legislation that would end the disparity in sentences between crack and powder cocaine offenses that President Biden helped create decades ago, according to people with knowledge of the situation — a step that highlights how Biden’s attitudes on drug laws have shifted over his long tenure in elected office.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Regina LaBelle, the acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, plans to express the administration’s support for the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law Act, or Equal Act.
The legislation, which is sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), would eliminate the sentencing disparity and give people who were convicted or sentenced for a federal cocaine offense a resentencing.
DCCC Chair Maloney endorses Eric Adams for New York mayor
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, endorsed Eric Adams on Monday for New York mayor, hailing the moderate Democrat as a candidate with “the experience and grit we need to lead New York City out of the pandemic and into the future.”
“As our region continues to recover from the pandemic, New York City needs a mayor with a smart vision and the strength to realize it. Eric Adams has dedicated his career to improving and protecting New York, and he is the best person for the job,” Maloney said in a statement. “As he has demonstrated in Brooklyn, Adams knows what it takes to grow the economic engine that is New York.”
Maloney recently led the review of why House Democrats lost seats in the 2020 election.
Biden and financial regulators discuss ways to build on economic recovery
Financial regulators on Monday reported to Biden that the health of the financial system is in strong condition.
The president met with top financial officials, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, to discuss multiple issues, ranging from climate change, diversity and inclusion to ways to continue improving the economic turnaround that began shortly after his inauguration, the White House said in a statement about the afternoon session.
Part of the discussion centered on how to sustain equitable growth across various demographic groups throughout the country. Biden has been vocal in his desire to see more working-class families benefit from the economy and not just those who are among the wealthiest Americans.
Financial risks are reportedly being mitigated by robust capital and liquidity levels in the banking system, the regulators said, according to the White House statement. They said the ongoing economic recovery accompanied with fiscal support is contributing to healthy household balance sheets.
Other issues regulators discussed included ideas for promoting financial inclusion and ways to responsibly increase access to credit for small-business owners and potential homeowners, the White House said.
Democrats advocate for unions while championing the Biden infrastructure plan
Democrats argued that expanding the rights of workers to unionize and advocate for themselves is key to building the infrastructure needed to improve the economy. In Pittsburgh, Harris was joined by other key Democrats while making the case that the Biden administration is the most “pro-union.”
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh spoke about the role that unions play in helping families enter — and remain in — the middle class while championing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, known as the PRO Act, a bill focused on strengthening workers’ right to unionize that the House passed last year.
Walsh spoke about how central unions were in helping his family achieve parts of the American Dream. The former Boston mayor grew up in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood the son of two Irish immigrants. Walsh said his father and uncle joined a local labor union and eventually made unemployment and worker safety issues a regular part of family discussions.
“That union gave my family everything,” said Walsh, who eventually became a union official. “Everything” included health-care benefits as Walsh, at age 7, battled cancer and a pension when his father retired.
The PRO Act is part of Biden’s infrastructure proposal, and Walsh also spoke about the latest pandemic relief package, the American Rescue Plan, which he said aims to assist families in many of the areas where they are most in need.
Harris said the American Jobs Plan, Biden’s infrastructure proposal, has to prioritize the role of taking care of families in building stable economies. She visited the city to encourage Pennsylvanians to enroll in the child tax credit program, which has the potential to significantly decrease the child poverty rate.
The administration has called providing child care so that families can work a key part of building the country’s infrastructure. The American Rescue Plan provided states with $39 billion to meet child-care needs, and the infrastructure proposal would invest additional dollars.
“There is no issue we can take on that is too small or too big,” Harris said in explaining the vastness of the administration’s definition of infrastructure to include “whatever you need to get where you need to go.”
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) said passing the president’s infrastructure plan would present an opportunity to make a “transformational” investment.
“We have a lot of work to do to lift up workers who are going to be doing the work when those infrastructure dollars are spent,” the senator told those gathered.
Sen. Whitehouse defends family’s membership in private beach club amid questions about whether it is all-White
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is defending his family’s ties to an exclusive beach club in Rhode Island, amid questions about whether the club’s membership is all-White.
Whitehouse and his family are longtime members of Bailey’s Beach Club. which is formally known as Spouting Rock Beach Association. The private club is located on Ocean Avenue in Newport, R.I., and has been described as a haven for the Vanderbilts, the Astors and other members of America’s “ruling class.”
In an interview Friday with local news site GoLocal Providence, Whitehouse was asked whether the club has any non-White members.
“I think the people who are running the place are still working on that, and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet,” Whitehouse replied.
Psaki says White House remains committed to nuclear talks with Iran
White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated that the Biden administration will continue to pursue a nuclear deal with Iran even though the newly elected president there has said he has no interest in engaging with the United States.
Echoing what national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview Sunday morning, Psaki said the United States considers Iran’s 82-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, its negotiating partner.
Noting that the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran at the government-level, she does not see the election of Ebrahim Raisi, previously the country’s ultraconservative judiciary chief, as changing the dynamics of the talks.
“So we are going to continue to work to move these diplomatic negotiations forward because it’s in the interest of the United States and the interests of our national security,” she said.
Psaki would not weigh in on whether a nuclear deal with Iran could get the votes in Congress, suggesting that was premature.
“What’s in the interest of the United States is having that return to visibility, that return to an understanding of what [Iran’s] capabilities are, how close they are to acquiring a nuclear weapon,” Psaki said. “We’re not quite there yet. When we get to a point, if we get to the point when there’s a deal, we’re happy to have the discussion about the legislative vote count.”
Biden meets with U.S. financial regulators, including Fed Chair Powell
Biden is hosting financial regulators at a closed-door meeting to discuss the state of the country’s financial institutions and issues such as climate change and inclusion.
The meeting comes as the economy is recovering, but not for everyone, and as Biden continues to push for a massive investment in the nation’s infrastructure.
At the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, meanwhile, a formal rule is being considered that would require businesses to disclose economic risks associated with climate change
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell isl attending the White House gathering of financial regulators, his first official meeting with Biden since the inauguration.
Other attendees include Treasury Secretary Janet L Yellen, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acting director Dave Uejio, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Jelena McWilliams, Commodity Futures Trading Commission acting chairman Rostin Behnam and acting comptroller of currency Michael Hsu.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that while there are some topics for discussion on the agenda, the meeting is more broadly a routine check-in with the financial regulators.
Psaki didn’t directly respond when asked if Biden has confidence in the job Powell is doing at the Fed.
“The president’s view is this is a routine meeting with financial regulators to get an update on management of the economy and around and making credit accessible to people across the country,” she said.
Harris says expanded child tax credit is key to decreasing childhood poverty
Encouraging families to take advantage of the child tax credit is fundamental to decreasing the country’s child poverty rate, Harris said Monday.
The vice president was in Pittsburgh encouraging Americans to take advantage of the expanded child tax credit — a part of the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan that the Biden-Harris administration has championed.
“When more families know about how they can get the relief, that is how we will be able to lift our children out of poverty,” she said. “That is how we will be able to lift up our nation’s middle class, as well.”
The plan has expanded the child tax credit to give parents $3,000 per year per child between ages 6 and 17. For children under 6, the credit is $3,600. Couples living in households with annual incomes below $150,000 and single parents making less than $112,500 are eligible for the credit. Income earners who file taxes will automatically receive the payments.
Harris went on to say that expanding the credit is about helping not just children but entire families. Making more funds available to Americans raising kids is in the best interest of families as a whole, she said.
“When we talk about child policy, it has to be with the recognition that we don’t just come in and take care of the child,” the vice president said. “If you want to take care of the child, you do it in the context of the family in which that child is being raised.”
“You recognize the challenges of working parents,” she added. “You recognize the challenges of families that are just barely holding it together. And then you treat the issue in the context of the whole.”
Analysis: After seven months of debunking, the false belief that Biden won because of fraud hasn’t budged
Speaking to a large crowd of supporters outside the White House on Jan. 6, President Donald Trump warned that he was about to bore them.
“I’m going to read you pages” of purported evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election, Trump said. “I hope you don’t get bored listening to it. Promise? … Don’t get bored, don’t get angry at me because you’re going to get bored because it’s so much.”
It took a few minutes to get to that “evidence,” given that Trump wanted to riff on how bad the media was and how bad Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) was. But soon enough, he made his case.
For example, that “you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters” in Pennsylvania — a claim that had already been debunked and was described by a state official as “obvious misinformation.” He made other untrue or debunked claims about Pennsylvania, claims that were also quickly dismantled. He made claims about Wisconsin that had been taken apart a month earlier. He claimed that a broken pipe in Atlanta was something suspicious; if so, the suspicion should be about the quality of plumbing and not about vote-counting.
Despite Trump’s insistence that the evidence of fraud was overwhelming, it was not. In fact, it was all-but-nonexistent, and what evidence one might have pointed to was not credible. In the months since, other theories of fraud have emerged and faded, with no such claim — including myriad new assertions from Trump — withstanding any extended scrutiny.
One might assume, then, that the burst of speculation that the election had somehow been stolen might fade over time. That Americans predisposed to assume that President Biden had taken office only after a massive effort to steal the vote would consider the collapse of every effort to prove that point as evidence that perhaps this isn’t what happened.
That is not what has happened.
Biden encourages Americans to take advantage of child tax credit
Biden made a strong push for the child tax credit Monday, encouraging Americans to take advantage of the program in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan that he signed into law in March.
In a video released by the White House, the president also urged Americans to press their lawmakers to make the tax benefit permanent. The tax credit is in place only for 2021.
“With the power of the American Rescue Plan and you, our country can ensure that all working families can raise their kids with the support and dignity they deserve,” Biden said.
The plan has expanded the child tax credit to give parents $3,000 per year per child between the ages of 6 and 17. For children under age 6, the credit is $3,600. Couples living in households with annual incomes below $150,000 and single parents making less than $112,500 are eligible for the credit. Income earners who file taxes will automatically receive the payments, Biden said.
However, families who do not file taxes because they are not required to do so based on their income can go to childtaxcredit.gov to find out how to access the benefit. And the payments will be directly deposited into their bank accounts starting July 15.
To see how much each family could receive from the credit, The Washington Post created a tool allowing readers to calculate how much they will receive here.
Hours after the video, the White House issued a statement from Biden in which he said that he repeatedly has argued that “America’s middle class deserves a tax cut.” He added that the child tax credit “will give our nation’s hardworking families with children a little more breathing room when it comes to putting food on the table, paying the bills, and making ends meet. Nearly every working family with children is going to feel this tax cut make a difference in their lives, and we need to spread the word so that all eligible families get the full credit.”
Analysis: The pandemic didn’t just cripple the economy. It transformed it.
A pair of newspaper stories over the weekend looked at what may be one of the most important questions for policymakers as the country emerges from the pandemic: Is the U.S. economy healing, stalling or transforming?
The answer appears to be that it’s doing all of the above, depending on the sector, the geographic region, and even down to the individual worker.
But the degree to which the United States is bouncing back (businesses reopening, routines returning) vs. springing forward (embracing pandemic-era solutions such as increased reliance on remote work and the online economy) is an open question.
How decision-makers answer it could shape how quickly the economy recovers and set the stage for what may be broad changes to the way Americans live and work, with consequences for elections in 2022, 2024 and beyond.
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June 22, 2021 at 08:06AM
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Regulators tell Biden that the financial system is in ‘strong condition,’ White House says - The Washington Post
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