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Fauci: hospitalization figures a better guide to Omicron than case count
Fauci: hospitalization figures a better guide to Omicron than case count But government’s top medical adviser warns public not to be fooled by data suggesting variant lacks severity of earlier variants The US government’s top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, has joined a growing body of experts who say hospitalisation figures form a better guide to the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant than the traditional case-count of new infections.Teens and young adults driving record Covid cases in US, health officials sayRead moreReferring to the Omicron surge in the US as a “tsunami”, Fauci also cautioned the public not to be fooled by preliminary data suggesting the variant lacks the severity of earlier Covid-19 variants, such as Delta.“You have a virus that looks like it might be less severe, at least from data we’ve gathered from South Africa, the UK and even some from preliminary data from here in the US,” he told CNN’s State of the Union.“It’s a very interesting, somewhat complicated issue … so many people are getting infected that the net amount, the total amount of people that will require hospitalisation, might be up. We can’t be complacent in these reports. We’re still going to get a lot of hospitalisations.”On ABC’s This Week, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked if it was time to focus less on just the case count, which has soared close to 500,000 reported new daily infections. A number of experts have questioned if such reports cause unnecessary worry, and suggest deaths and hospitalisation data should better inform mitigation efforts.“The answer is, overall, yes,” Fauci said. “This is particularly relevant if you’re having an infection that is much, much more asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic, particularly in people who are vaccinated and boosted. “The real bottom line that you want to be concerned about is, are we getting protected by the vaccines from severe disease leading to hospitalisation?”The Biden administration has made improving vaccination rates a priority but concedes progress is slower than it would like. Fewer than 25% of US children are vaccinated, pediatric hospital admissions are surging and nationally only 62% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated with barely a third receiving a booster. “I’m still very concerned about the tens of millions of people who are not vaccinated at all because even though many of them are going to get asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic, a fair number of them are going to get severe disease,” Fauci said.Surging infection rates, Fauci told CNN, will likely cause disruption to everyday life, already evidenced in pressure on healthcare in several states and in other areas such as education and public transport. A number of universities and school districts will begin 2022 online and in New York City several subway lines have been suspended through staff shortages.Fauci said those concerns contributed to the decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week to reduce the recommended isolation period for those who have tested positive but are asymptomatic from 10 days to five.“You’re certainly gonna see stresses on the system, the system being people with any kind of jobs, particularly with critical jobs, to keep society functioning normally. We already know there are reports from fire departments, from police departments in different cities, that sometimes 30% of the people are ill.“The CDC is trying to get a position where people without symptoms who are infected, that you can get them back to work a little bit earlier if they remain without symptoms.”But he rejected criticism that the change was sparked by economic pressure rather than science. “In the second half of a 10-day period, which would normally be a 10-day isolation period, the likelihood of transmissibility is considerably lower,” he said. “For that reason, the CDC made the judgement that it would be relatively low risk to get people out.“You’re right [that] people are concerned about, ‘Why not test people at that time?’ I myself feel that that’s a reasonable thing to do. I believe that the CDC soon will be coming out with more clarification of that since it obviously has generated a number of questions about that five-day period.”The new mayor of New York, Eric Adams, said he thought the city was doing “an amazing job” of reacting to the shifting challenges of the pandemic, including transportation issues and having one-fifth of police out sick.US experts question whether counting Covid cases is still the right approachRead more“We are pivoting based on where the urgency is located. We’re not taking it one-size-fits-all, we’re thinking about it and making the right moves and decisions,” he told ABC.“I was with my police commissioner. We have a 20% sick rate but now we have officers coming back after the five days.“But we can’t live through variants. We spent $11tn on Covid and we don’t have another $11tn, so our lives can’t be based on what’s the new variant. No. We have to figure out, how do we adjust?“I say to those who are not vaccinated, ‘Stop it. It’s time to get vaccinated. It’s time to have the booster shots. You’re endangering yourself and you’re endangering the public and your family as well.’”TopicsBiden administrationAnthony FauciJoe BidenUS politicsOmicron variantCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More
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‘For me, it’s about the mission’: why Cori Bush is just getting started in Congress
Interview‘For me, it’s about the mission’: why Cori Bush is just getting started in Congress Lauren Gambino in Washington Missouri congresswoman says she was sent to Washington to disrupt the political order that had long stopped working for people like herselfIf the American political status quo was working, Congresswoman Cori Bush might not have slept on the steps of the US Capitol to demand an extension of a coronavirus-era eviction moratorium. She might not have testified about her decision to have an abortion, consigning the details of her experience to the official congressional record. Perhaps she might not have run for Congress at all.But as the St Louis congresswoman sees it, she was sent to Washington to disrupt a political order that had long ago stopped working for people like herself – a nurse, pastor and activist who has worked for minimum wage, once lived out of a car and raised two children as a single mother. And she says she is only just getting started.Squad goals: Ocasio-Cortez warns Biden patience is wearing thinRead more“I ran and I lost and I ran and I lost. I kept running because there was a mission behind it,” Bush said in an interview. “It wasn’t about me wanting to be somebody in Congress – I know some people have those aspirations – but, for me, it was more about the mission. And I have not completed that mission yet.”Halfway through an extraordinary first term, and gearing up for reelection, Bush is one of the most recognizable – and quotable – members of the House. Part of the progressive “Squad”, she believes deeply that her own personal hardships make her a better and more responsive representative. Her personal story is what connects her to her constituants and what sets her apart in Congress.When her colleagues left Washington for their weeks-long summer recess without securing an extension of the federal eviction moratorium, Bush stayed behind. Having experienced the pain of poverty and eviction, she couldn’t fathom leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans vulnerable to homelessness as the coronavirus ravaged the US. In an instant, she decided to stage a sit-in on the steps of the US Capitol.Her protest on the Capitol steps drew widespread national attention and effectively shamed party leaders into finding a solution where they had insisted there was none. Eventually, the White House extended the temporary ban on evictions.The hard-won victory was an important moment for Bush and her team. She said it proved to her constituents in St Louis that she would always put them first, even if it put her at odds with Democrats, party leadership, even the president of the United States.“For us, winning that extension of the eviction moratorium was a huge part of the story of who we said that we would be in Congress, we said we would do the work, do the absolute most, and that was the absolute most we could do.”Now, she continued, “the White House knows that about us, too.”Bush describes herself a “politivist” – part politician, part activist. In her view, the roles are complementary, not oppositional.“Oftentimes people expect you, because you hear it in your communities, that when you go to Congress, you’re going to change. That is the expectation,” she said. “I think that we’ve already been able to show that St Louis is first…. St Louis is the heart of every single thing that we do.”Bush rose to prominence as a Black Lives Matter organizer in Ferguson, Missouri, where the movement was born after the 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr was shot and killed by a white police officer. The daughter of a local alderman, Bush said it wasn’t until the protests that she considered running for public office.‘It was just unconscionable’: Cori Bush on her fight to extend the eviction moratoriumRead moreIn 2020, Bush became the first Black woman to represent the state of Missouri when she was elected to Congress after two unsuccessful campaigns – first for Senate in 2016 and again in 2018 for Congress. To win, she unseated the Democratic incumbent, William Lacy Clay. Clay had held the seat for 20 years, having succeeded his father, William Clay Sr, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, who was first elected in 1968.She was sworn in three days before the Capitol was attacked by a pro-Trump mob.“We were still moving into our office when the insurrection happened,” she said. “We didn’t have a panic button yet.”“So that was our introduction to Congress,” she continued. “Since we started off in such an unexpected place, a horrible place, for us, it was just like, ‘OK, dig in.’”While locked in their office, Bush and her staff drafted a resolution to “investigate and expel” any member of Congress who attempted to overturn the election results and “incited a white supremacist attack”.The resolution reflected the increasing hostility between members of Congress. At times, Bush has said she feels targeted by her own colleagues.Shortly after the attack, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, ordered the relocation of Bush’s office, after she asked to be moved away from congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene out of concern for her staff’s safety.Earlier this month, Bush joined House progressives in pressuring the party’s leaders to strip congresswoman Lauren Boebert of her committee assignments over her Islamophobic comments targeting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim. At a press conference, she unloaded on Boebert, calling her a “lying, Islamophobic, race-baiting, violence-inciting, white supremacist sentiment-spreading, Christmas tree gun-toting elected official” who is a “danger” to her country and her colleagues.Like her colleagues in the “squad”, Bush has been unafraid to challenge Democratic leaders, even the president.“I am who I am,” she said. “I don’t take off my activist hat to be able to legislate in Congress. And so that has been the guiding force this entire time.”During a tense standoff over Biden’s agenda earlier this year, Bush charged Democratic leaders with breaking their promise to progressives by decoupling two pieces of Biden’s agenda – a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping social policy package. In a word, she captured progressives’ sense of betrayal: “Bamboozled.” TV network chyrons snapped to reflect the comment and soon Bush was on TV arguing their case. House leaders delayed the vote.A month later, Bush was one of just six House Democrats to vote against the infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law last month. Not because she opposed the legislation, which would spend billions upgrading Missouri’s bridges and highways, but because she feared that passing the bill without the larger social policy that was a priority for progressives would sap them of their leverage.Bush now fears she was correct. After a months-long effort to appease conservative Democratic senators, Joe Manchin announced that he could not support the $2.2tn social safety net bill, dooming its chances in the evenly divided chamber.Bush, who previously denounced Manchin’s opposition to the package as “anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant”, laid the blame squarely on party leadership.“Honestly, I’m frustrated with every Democrat who agreed to tie the fate of our most vulnerable communities to the corporatist ego of one Senator. No one should have backed out of our initial strategy that would have kept Build Back Better alive,” she tweeted. Tagging the president, she said: “You need to fix this.Still, the activist in Bush is not done fighting for the measure, which passed the House in November. “We cannot spend the next year saying, ‘the House did its part, and now it’s the Senate’s turn,’” she said recently. “We need the Senate to actually get this done.”Bush is also working to elevate issues of racial justice that she said the party does not do enough to prioritize.Efforts to pass police reform collapsed earlier this year, and voting rights legislation remains stalled in the Senate. The supreme court will soon decide the future of abortion access.Bush said her Capitol protest was inspired by the moment, but she does not rule out future action.“If I feel led to move in that way, based upon whatever is happening, it is never off the table for me,” she said.Some lawmakers are critical of her legislative style. They call it divisive at worst and naive at best. The suggestion is that she will eventually have to learn to compromise and play by the rules.But in light of Manchin’s opposition, Bush is even more certain of her approach.“If that were the gold star, we would be a lot further in this country,” she said. “There’s more than one way to get things done.”TopicsCori BushUS politicsDemocratsBiden administrationinterviewsReuse this content More
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US Capitol attack committee agrees to defer request for some records
US Capitol attack committee agrees to defer request for some recordsPanel bends to wishes of the Biden White House over concerns of national security and executive privilege
Robert Reich: 6 January shows we must answer neofascism
The House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol has agreed to defer its request for hundreds of pages of records from the Trump administration, bending to the wishes of the Biden White House.Capitol panel to investigate Trump call to Willard hotel in hours before attackRead moreThe deferral is in response to concerns that releasing all the Trump documents sought could compromise national security and executive privilege.Joe Biden has repeatedly rejected Donald Trump’s efforts to cite executive privilege to block the release of all documents surrounding that day. But the White House is still working with the committee to shield some documents.The former president is appealing to the supreme court to stop the National Archives and Records Administration co-operating with the committee.The agreement to keep some Trump-era records shielded is contained in a 16 December letter from the White House counsel’s office. It mostly concerns records that do not involve the events of 6 January but were covered by the request for documents from the Trump White House.Dozen of pages created on 6 January don’t pertain to the assault on the Capitol. Other documents involve the national security council. Biden officials were worried that if those pages were turned over it would set a troublesome precedent. Other documents are highly classified and the White House asked Congress to work with the agencies that created them to discuss their release.“The documents for which the select committee has agreed to withdraw or defer its request do not appear to bear on the White House’s preparations for or response to the events of 6 January, or on efforts to overturn the election or otherwise obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” White House deputy counsel Jonathan Su wrote in one of two letters obtained by the Associated Press.Su wrote that withholding the documents “should not compromise [the committee’s] ability to complete its critical investigation expeditiously”.The National Archives has been transmitting tranches of documents to the White House and to lawyers for Trump, who has raised broad objections and specific concerns.The National Archives has said records Trump wants to block include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts, handwritten notes “concerning the events of 6 January” from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and “a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity”.Biden has rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege over those documents, including in a letter sent on 23 December regarding about 20 pages.“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified,” White House counsel Dana Remus reiterated.Trump claims 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia – but the real number is fourRead moreA federal appeals court ruled this month against Trump, and he has filed an appeal to the supreme court, which has yet to decide whether to take up the case.Judge Patricia Millett, writing for the federal court, said Congress had a “uniquely vital interest” in studying the events of 6 January and Biden had made a “carefully reasoned” determination that the documents were in the public interest.Trump also failed to show any harm that would occur from the release, Millett wrote.“On the record before us, former president Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the political branches over these documents,” Millett said.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesBiden administrationDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Fauci says Omicron surge will continue and Americans must not be complacent
Fauci says Omicron surge will continue and Americans must not be complacent
Biden medical adviser: US has to ‘do better’ on access to testing
Fauci welcomes Donald Trump’s support for Covid vaccines
Guilt and frustration of breakthrough Covid
Cases of Covid-19 will continue to surge worldwide due to the Omicron variant, the US chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday, warning Americans not to get complacent amid reports that the variant is less harmful than others.Hundreds more US flights canceled for third day amid surging Covid casesRead more“If you have many, many, many more people with a less level of severity,” Fauci told ABC’s This Week, “that might kind of neutralise the positive effect of having less severity.“We’re particularly worried about those who are in that unvaccinated class … those are the most vulnerable ones when you have a virus that is extraordinarily effective in getting to people.”Fauci also welcomed Donald Trump’s endorsement of Covid-19 vaccines and boosters, saying: “We’ll take anything we can get about getting people vaccinated.”But Trump prompted rebarbative anger among supporters and amid a huge case surge, with knock-on effects feared for the economy and schools, Fauci also admitted the US had “to do better” on providing access to testing.Speaking to Axios, Fauci said it was “conceivable that sooner or later everybody will have been infected and/or vaccinated or boosted”.“When you get to that point,” he said, “unless you have a very bizarre variant come in that evades all protection – which would be unusual – then I think you could get to that point where you have this at a steady level.”But he also suggested fourth shots might yet be needed. On ABC, he was asked why “we still don’t have affordable tests widely available to anybody who needs it”.“If you look at the beginning of the [Biden] administration,” Fauci said, “… there were essentially no rapid point-of-care home tests available. Now, there are over nine of them and more coming. Production has been rapidly upscaled.“… But the situation where you have such a high demand, a conflation of events, Omicron stirring people to get appropriately concerned and wanting to get tested as well as [a] run on tests during the holiday season – we’ve obviously got to do better.“I think things will improve greatly as we get into January, but that doesn’t help us today and tomorrow. So you’re right, [access to testing] is of concern.”Another leading public health expert said he did not think the case for possible fourth vaccine shots needed to be made right now.“If we need it I think our health system is prepared,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told Fox News Sunday. “But let’s actually talk about whether we need it or not. And at this moment, based on the data I’ve seen, I’m pretty skeptical that we’re gonna need a fourth shot.“Part of the question is that we have to ask ourselves what are we trying to do? Are we trying to block every single infection? Maybe that’s our goal. If that’s our goal then yes, maybe we need a fourth shot. Or are we just trying to prevent serious illness and death? Which, of course, I think should be our primary goal.“So I’m pretty unconvinced at this moment that we need a fourth shot … let’s get a lot more data before we even really start seriously thinking about it.”Jha also said school closures – feared by many parents – should not be increasing.“We know how to keep schools open,” he said, “we know how to keep them safe. This really shouldn’t even be on the table. I’m disappointed to see this happening.“We know that for kids being in school is the right thing for them, for their mental health, for their education. And we have all sorts of tools to keep schools open so I don’t really understand why school districts are [closing schools].“… There could be times when you have such severe short staffing shortages that it may be hard to keep schools going. That really should be the only context I think at this point.”More than 816,000 have died from Covid in the US but resistance to vaccinations and other public health measures remains strongest in states and counties which voted for Trump. On ABC, Fauci was asked if he thought the former president’s supporters would listen to his support for vaccines.“Well, I certainly hope so,” he said. “We’ll take anything we can get about getting people vaccinated.”But Fauci also said he was “dismayed” when Trump followers in Dallas booed him for supporting vaccines.“I was stunned by that,” he said. “I mean, given the fact of how popular he is with that group, that they would boo him … tells me how recalcitrant they are about being told what they should do.“I think that his continuing to say that people should get vaccinated and articulating that to them, in my mind is a good thing. I hope he keeps it up.”Trump also backed vaccines in an interview with the conservative commentator Candace Owens, saying: “The vaccines work … the ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine … and if you take the vaccine, you’re protected.”Omicron: bleak New Year or beginning of the end for the pandemic?Read moreOn Instagram, Owens said Trump was backing vaccines because he was “old” and “came from a time before TV, before internet, before being able to conduct … independent research”.Last week, after Biden recognised his predecessor’s efforts to develop vaccines, Trump said he was “appreciative” . Biden also commended Trump for receiving a booster, saying it “may be one of the few things he and I agree on”.On Sunday, Vice-President Kamala Harris was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation if the unvaccinated were to blame for the Omicron surge.“I don’t think this is a moment to talk about fault,” Harris said.But she added: “It is clear that everyone has the ability to make a choice to save their lives and to prevent hospitalisation if they get vaccinated and if they get the booster. And so I urge people to do that.”TopicsCoronavirusAnthony FauciBiden administrationJoe BidenDonald TrumpOmicron variantUS politicsnewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Top progressive urges Biden to focus on Build Back Better despite Manchin blow
Top progressive urges Biden to focus on Build Back Better despite Manchin blowJayapal calls on president to continue work on social spending plan and to use executive actions to get around senator’s rejection
Kamala Harris charts own course as VP amid intense scrutiny
Pramila Jayapal, a leading House progressive, has urged Joe Biden to continue focusing on his Build Back Better social spending legislation and to use executive actions as a way to work around public rejection by a key senator, Joe Manchin.Why the collapse of Biden’s Build Back Better would be a major blow to the climate fightRead moreWriting in the Washington Post, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said it would soon release a plan for actions including lowering costs, protecting family healthcare and tackling the climate crisis.“The progressive caucus will continue to work toward legislation for Build Back Better, focused on keeping it as close to the agreed-upon framework as possible,” Jayapal wrote.Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, rejected Build Back Better last Sunday. With the Senate split 50-50, his dramatic move seemed to doom the bill.It also threatened to scuttle hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for measures to meet climate goals and prompted Goldman Sachs to lower its forecasts for US economic growth.Manchin has expressed concerns about climate proposals and extensions to monthly child tax credit payments.“Taking executive action will also make clear to those who hinder Build Back Better that the White House and Democrats will deliver for Americans,” Jayapal wrote.On Fox News Sunday, the Maryland Democratic senator Ben Cardin was asked about Republican hopes, as voiced by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, that Manchin might switch parties – a move which would hand the Senate to the GOP. Manchin has said he hopes there’s still room for him in Democratic ranks.“The Democratic party is proud of having a broad tent,” Cardin said. “We have people with different views.”Cardin also claimed that under Chuck Schumer, of New York, Democrats had “been able to keep unity among all 50 of the Democratic senators”.That claim is at least questionable in current circumstances but Cardin also said: “We were able to pass the American Rescue Plan, we were able to deal with the … debt cap in our country, we were able to get a lot of things done.“There’s absolutely room in our party for Joe Manchin, Elizabeth Warren [a progressive senator from Massachusetts] and everyone in between, with different views, [and] Bernie Sanders.”Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist from Vermont, is an independent but caucuses with the Democrats. He reacted furiously to Manchin’s move last week.“We were very proud of our caucus,” Cardin insisted, “and the fact that we had diversity in our caucus, and Joe Manchin is very much welcomed in the Democratic party.”Asked about Manchin’s move against Build Back Better, Vice-President Kamala Harris told CBS’s Face the Nation: “The stakes are too high for this to be, in any way, about any specific individual.”She also said the White House was not giving up on the legislation.Republicans are united in opposition to the bill. Schumer has said the chamber will vote on a package in early 2022. The White House has said conversations with Manchin will continue. Biden has said he and Manchin are “going to get something done”.TopicsHouse of RepresentativesBiden administrationJoe BidenUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Harris charts her own course as vice-president amid intense scrutiny
Harris charts her own course as vice-president amid intense scrutiny Harris is navigating a position that comes with great influence but few formal responsibilities – and the stakes are even higher for her compared to past vice-presidentsEarlier this month, Kamala Harris convened the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council, an important summit that brought together cabinet secretaries and top space and military officials in the sun-drenched atrium of the US Institute of Peace. Over the course of nearly two hours, the vice-president engaged the panel in discussion with real, earthly implications for national security, the climate crisis and workforce development.But attention in Washington was diverted elsewhere. At the supreme court, the justices were weighing the future of abortion rights. Republicans in Congress were threatening a government shutdown over their opposition to Covid-19 mask mandates. And as Harris spoke, public health experts confirmed the first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the US.Such is the challenge of Harris’s mission: a historic first navigating an inescapably secondary role. Her work on the president’s most urgent priorities – combatting the coronavirus pandemic and enacting his legislative agenda – is often overlooked, while her efforts on her own policy portfolio often goes unnoticed. It is a dynamic that has frustrated past occupants of the office, which comes with great influence but few formal responsibilities. But the expectations – and the stakes – are even higher for Harris, both because she made history as the first Black, South Asian and female vice-president, and because she is next in line to Joe Biden, who, at 79, is the oldest president ever to hold office.Speaking to the space council, Harris shared a piece of wisdom given to her by an astronaut, offering it as a guiding principle for tackling the myriad challenges before them: “Just focus on what’s right in front of you. And from there, widen your view.”Nearly a year into her vice-presidency, Harris has plenty to focus on – and more than enough distractions.‘There is no playbook for this’Harris has been handed a portfolio packed with politically thorny issues, voting rights and the root causes of immigration from Central America, among them. That work comes in addition to a host of other assignments that includes selling the president’s infrastructure plan, advocating for his sprawling social policy bill, representing women in the workforce, highlighting maternal health disparities, combatting vaccine hesitancy and championing small businesses.Voting rights advocates frustrated by ‘same-old, same-old’ meeting with White House Read moreThe Biden administration continues to face a global pandemic that has not receded, rising inflation and uncertainty over the centerpiece of the president’s legislative agenda. Since taking office, her approval numbers have fallen precipitously alongside Biden’s, fueling early chatter about possible Democratic alternatives should Biden not run for re-election in 2024.She is a frequent target of attacks from conservative media outlets, where some pundits still willfully mispronounce her first name. But she has also come under pressure from activists frustrated by the slow pace of progress on issues like immigration and voting rights. And the recent departures of high-profile aides from her office have renewed scrutiny of her management style.In the churn, Harris has struggled to chart her own course in a position that can be simultaneously forgettable and highly visible.“When you are second in command, not first in command, no one understands your role,” said Donna Brazile, a veteran Democratic strategist who is close to Harris. “So you have to constantly define your role and shape your own narrative. That is the challenge that she has.”The pandemic, and the possibility of being summoned to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, have made travel tricky. But Harris said recently she hopes to spend more time away from Washington next year, selling the president’s agenda. And she will surely be a sought-after surrogate for Democrats on the campaign trail ahead of November’s midterm elections.Already, Harris has made dozens of domestic trips, hosting roundtables and giving local interviews to spotlight the administration’s work.On recent trip to Charlotte to promote the infrastructure law, Harris was joined by the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. During a tour of a bus depot, Harris sought to keep the focus on infrastructure, quizzing a local transit official about the features of a brand-new electric-powered bus. But after the event, Harris was peppered with questions from reporters about 2024, the rumored rivalry between her and Buttigieg and reports of a “staff shake-up” in the vice-president’s office.Harris has expressed frustration with the breathless coverage, which includes a recent report on her skepticism of Bluetooth headphones and an interview with a body-language expert analyzing her interactions with Buttigieg during the North Carolina trip. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Harris called the coverage “ridiculous” and said she would not allow herself to be distracted.“There is no playbook for this,” said Karen Finney, a longtime Democratic strategist who is close to the Harris team.Noting that Harris has broken barriers in every job she’s held, Finney said she came into office with her eyes wide open.“She’s tough,” Finney said. “She’s focused on the job.”Some stories are harder to dismiss. Stories about staff dysfunction have dogged Harris throughout her nearly two decades in elected office, from San Francisco district attorney to the US Senate to her 2020 presidential campaign, which fell apart amid reports of internal discord.Allies see overtones of sexism and racism in the coverage of Harris. They say the portrait of her as an overbearing boss is a trope used to diminish women in politics, and that male politicians are rarely subject to the same level of scrutiny over their leadership style. And former aides have come to her defense, saying she is demanding but not unfair.But critics say Harris stands apart. She burns through staffers who have a high tolerance for difficult work environments under both male and female bosses. They point to the high turnover in her office and the lack of longtime aides by her side, a sharp contrast with Biden, who is surrounded by advisers who have been with him for decades.Gil Duran, a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, worked for Harris in 2013, when she was attorney general. He left five months later. In a recent column, he wrote that Harris was repeating the “same old destructive patterns”.Those concerns did little to slow her political rise, Duran told the Guardian, but now that she is seen as Biden’s heir apparent, they could color perceptions of her ability to manage the presidency.Is Kamala Harris being shunned by the US president? Politics Weekly Extra – podcastRead more“It’s important to put a stop to this narrative,” he said. If she can do that, he believes the stories of internal dysfunction will be “old news” by the time she might face voters again. “But if it continues to be refreshed by new drama,” Duran warned, “then I think it’s going to be hard to escape.”Rise to the presidency?Harris’s difficult portfolio has caused angst among supporters and allies who hope to see her rise to the presidency. Some have argued that tasking the vice president with politically sensitive – and potentially intractable – policy issues positions her poorly for future endeavors. Others have argued she is being sidelined in her current role, left to handle matters that are either unpleasant or peripheral to the administration’s priorities.When asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos if she felt “misused or underused” by the White House, Harris disagreed. “No,” she said. “I don’t. I’m very, very excited about the work that we have accomplished.”Elaine Kamarck, a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Picking the Vice President, says the concern is misguided.“The measure of a successful vice-president is whether or not the president trusts them enough to give them major duties,” she said. “That she has been given important jobs by the president means that he trusts her. And of course, they’re tough. If they weren’t tough, they wouldn’t be important.”But she has also frustrated immigration advocates and progressives, who consider the California Democrat, herself the daughter of immigrants, as a close ally. Many were upset that she used her first international trip to Central America to warn migrants: “Do not come.”They are also disappointed by the slow pace of progress on the administration’s long-promised immigration reform. For several days, immigrant rights activists protested outside Harris’s residence at the Naval Observatory, demanding the administration make good on their promise to deliver pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.Carving her own pathHarris has stressed that progress will be slow. Combating corruption and violence in Central America, not to mention addressing the threat of climate change, will take years to bear fruit. But she has made some headway. Harris recently announced a slew of new pledges from companies like PepsiCo, Mastercard and Microsoft, as part of her efforts to improve economic opportunity in the region.Perhaps no issue in her charge is of more urgent concern for her party than voting rights. It is a task even Biden conceded would take “a hell of a lot of work”, but one that has personal resonance for Harris, who likes to say that she attended civil rights protests as a child, when she was still in a stroller.Activists have spent months pressuring Biden and Harris to use their bully pulpit more aggressively to push for voting rights legislation. A pair of voting rights bills are stalled in the Senate, where Republicans have used the filibuster to block the measures on four separate occasions.A recent meeting with Harris left leading voting rights advocates frustrated and alarmed that the White House did not have a strategy to pass federal voting rights legislation as Republicans roll back access to the ballot box in state legislatures across the country and enact new electoral maps designed to benefit them politically.“We need to see that sense of urgency as they have done with other priorities in administration,” said Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “We’ve not seen that level of urgency yet.”One of the few concrete duties the Constitution provides for the vice president is to serve as president of the Senate, casting tie-breaking votes when they arise. It’s a job that keeps her busy – and nearby – as she can be summoned to Capitol Hill at any hour of the day to push legislation or one of the president’s nominee through the evenly divided chamber.“Every time I vote, we win,” Harris told NBC News after casting her 14th and 15th tie-breaking votes.Despite her time on Capitol Hill, she has not served as the administration’s lead negotiator on its legislative agenda, a role Biden relished as Barack Obama’s vice-president. Harris, who spent a large part of her nearly four years in the Senate running for president, lacks the deep bonds Biden forged with lawmakers over his decades in Congress.But Harris has worked to strengthen those relationships with her former colleagues. Earlier this year, she invited all 24 female senators for dinner at her residence. And during the fraught, final negotiations over the infrastructure law, she huddled with Biden at the White House, making late-night calls to members of Congress that helped seal the deal.Carving her own path, Harris has sought to use her ceremonial office to elevate issues and voices that are often underrepresented in Washington. Earlier this year, she met with disability advocates to discuss how the administration could make voting more accessible. She also recently convened the first White House’s first day of action on maternal health. During the summit, she highlighted the racial disparities in the nation’s maternal mortality rate, which is more than double that of most other developed nations.“I wonder what my mother would say today, had she been here to see this, or my grandmother or any other woman from that era, including Shirley Chisholm, who I had the great opportunity to work for,” Brazile, who was the first Black woman to manage a presidential campaign, said, becoming emotional.“What would they say if they got up every morning knowing that the person who is a heartbeat away from the presidency, the person who is second in command, is someone who looks like them?”On 19 November, Harris became the first woman in American history to hold presidential powers. The brief transfer of power occurred from 10:10 am to 11:35 am EST, while Biden was under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy. Harris spent the time working from her office in the West Wing and most would agree her stint in the role of president left the glass ceiling largely intact.Yet for her supporters, the moment was a glimpse of a future they still believe to be possible.History has shown that the best path forward for a vice president with higher ambitions is to ensure the success of the president, said Kamarck.“In the end, what matters is whether people end up liking the Biden years,” Kamarck said. “Do they want it to continue or are they sick of the Biden years and want something different?”TopicsKamala HarrisBiden administrationUS politicsJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More
- in US Politics
‘It’s time to take action’: faith leaders urge Biden to pass voting rights legislation
‘It’s time to take action’: faith leaders urge Biden to pass voting rights legislationA letter organized by Martin Luther King III and his wife comes after Republicans successfully filibustered bills four times this year More than 800 faith leaders have called on the Biden administration and Senate Democrats to pass voting rights legislation next year.“We cannot be clearer, you must act now to protect every American’s freedom to vote without interference and with confidence that their ballot will be counted and honored. Passing comprehensive voting rights legislation must be the number-one priority of the administration and Congress,” faith leaders said in a letter addressed to the president and Senate members on Wednesday.The letter, organized by Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, was signed by various faith organizations, including the African American Christian Clergy Coalition, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action and Faith in Public Life.Signatories include those who come from Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities, including Reverend Canon Leonard L Hamlin Sr of the Washington National Cathedral and Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg of National Council of Jewish Women.“The communities we represent will continue to sound the alarm until these bills are passed. While we come from different faiths, we are united by our commitment to act in solidarity with the most vulnerable among us,” the letter added.The letter comes after Republicans successfully filibustered voting rights bills on four different occasions this year. Most recently, on 3 November, Republicans in the Senate blocked the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Acts – one of two major pieces of voting rights legislation that Democrats have championed in Congress in attempts to prevent Republicans from eroding easy access to the vote.Republicans blocking the key voting rights bill in November was a move seen by many as a breaking point in the push to eliminate the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation.Despite numerous Democrats calling for the elimination of the filibuster, they lack the votes to end the rule due to not only a slim majority but also opposition within their own party. Two Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are strongly opposed, arguing that the rule forges bipartisan compromise.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, described the filibuster on 3 November as a “low, low point in the history of this body”.In Wednesday’s letter, faith leaders said, “Nothing – including the filibuster – should stand in the way of passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, both of which have already passed the House and await Senate action and leadership.”According to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice, nineteen states have enacted nearly three dozen laws between January and the end of September that make it more difficult to vote.Wednesday’s letter is a reflection of the growing pressure on Democrats to pass voting rights legislation that aims to outlaw excessive partisan gerrymandering and would require early voting, no-excuse mail-in voting, in addition to automatic and same-day registration.“It’s time to stop lamenting the state of our democracy and take action to address it,” the letter said.TopicsUS voting rightsBiden administrationMartin Luther KingRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
