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      Calls to can Goya Foods grow after CEO repeats Trump's election lies

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      Calls for a boycott of Goya beans, chickpeas and other foodstuffs have grown louder after chief executive Robert Unanue made a series of false claims about the presidential election in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Florida on Sunday.Unanue has previously courted controversy with praise for Donald Trump, which last year prompted Ivanka Trump to pose, infamously, with a can of Goya beans.Onstage in Orlando, Unanue called Donald Trump “the real, legitimate and still actual president of the United States”.He also falsely claimed the presidential election that Trump lost conclusively to Joe Biden and the state contest in Georgia, which Biden won narrowly, were “not legitimate”, and claimed mail-in ballots were fraudulent.“We still have faith,” Unanue said, “that the majority of the people of the United States voted for the president … I think a great majority of the people in the United States voted for President Trump, and even a few Democrats.”Biden won more than 81m votes, or 51.3% of the total cast, to more than 74m for Trump. The Democrat won the electoral college 306-232, a margin Trump called a landslide when it was in his favour over Hillary Clinton.Trump has continued to lie about the election, in January inciting supporters to attack the US Capitol in a bid to stop the ratification of results. That led to his second impeachment, which ended with his second acquittal. The former president repeated his lies about the election in his own speech at CPAC, on Sunday night.Unanue has previously been censured by his company for speaking in support of Trump. In January, owner Andy Unanue told the New York Post: “Bob does not speak for Goya Foods when he speaks on TV. The family has diverse views on politics, but politics is not part of our business. Our political point of views are irrelevant.”Robert Unanue said then: “I don’t believe I should speak politically or in a faith-based manner on behalf of the company. But I leave open the possibility of speaking on behalf of myself.”After his remarks at CPAC on Sunday, the journalist Soledad O’Brien tweeted: “Folks at Goya should be embarrassed.”The speech also prompted renewed calls for a boycott of Goya products.“No more chickpeas from Goya for me,” tweeted one famous consumer, Joy Behar, a cohost of The View on ABC. More

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      Trump grasps for relevance in first post-presidential speech at CPAC

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      An embittered Donald Trump has used his first post-presidential speech to propagate the lie of a “rigged” election in 2020 and hint that he might try to beat Democrats “for a third time” in 2024.Grasping for continued relevance, Trump returned to his political comfort zone by fearmongering about immigrants and unleashing angry tirades against Joe Biden, his Republican critics and the media.The twice-impeached former president, greeted by wild cheers at the biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives in Orlando, Florida, falsely asserted: “Illegal aliens and dead people are voting, and many other horrible things are happening that are too voluminous to even mention, but people know.“I mean, it’s being studied and the level of dishonesty is not to be believed. We have a very sick and corrupt electoral process that must be fixed immediately. This election was rigged and the supreme court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it.”The crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where the “big lie” took root and flourished over the past four days, chanted: “You won! You won!”Trump replied bluntly: “We did.”The 45th president spent two months falsely claiming that last November’s election was stolen, culminating in a deadly insurrection by his supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January.In fact Biden won by a margin of 7m votes and state officials, courts and Trump’s own attorney general found no significant irregularities.Trump criticised judges for not having “the guts” to intervene. And earlier, in an apparent ad lib, he made clear that he still does not accept the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.“Actually, as you know they just lost the White House,” he said of Democrats before hinting that he could seek revenge. “But who knows, who knows? I may even decide to beat them for a third time.” It was typical Trump showmanship and the room erupted in cheers and applause.He went on to call for sweeping electoral reforms including the abolition of early voting and tougher voter rules, widely seen as measures that would have a disproportionate impact on people of colour.Trump, who launched his first campaign for president in June 2015 with racist statements about Mexican immigrants and the need for a border wall, defaulted to that issue as he fiercely denounced Biden.“We all knew that the Biden administration was going to be bad – but none of us imagined just how bad they would be, and how far left they would go … Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history.He continued: “In just one short month we have gone from ‘America first’ to ‘America last’,” citing a “new and horrible crisis on our southern border … Biden’s radical immigration policies aren’t just illegal – they are immoral, they are heartless, and they are a betrayal of our nation’s core values”.He also demanded the that his successor open schools despite the coronavirus pandemic. Trump said: “The Biden administration is actually bragging about the education they are providing to migrant children on the border, while at the same, time millions of American children are having their futures destroyed by Joe Biden’s anti-science school closures.”Wearing blue suit, white shirt and red tie, Trump walked on stage just before 5pm to a standing ovation from hundreds of supporters bunched together indoors with few face masks at what looked dangerously like a coronavirus super-spreader event.Trump began: “Hello, CPAC. Do you miss me yet?” He pledged: “I want you to know that I am going to continue to fight right by your side,” but made clear he would do so as the standard bearer of the Republican party. “It’s going to unite and be stronger than ever before. I am not starting a new party. That was fake news.”He went on to call for a purge of the Republican critics who voted for his impeachment after the US Capitol mob violence, including “warmonger” Liz Cheney, the No 3 Republican in the House of Representatives. He insisted: “The Republican party is united. The only division is between a handful of Washington DC establishment political hacks and everybody else all over the country.” Trump said he would support “smart, tough” Republican leaders.In a comeback speech that lasted an hour and a half there were many familiar lines from old speeches, including tirades against the the Iran nuclear deal, “forever wars”, renewable energy, big tech companies and the Washington establishment. But he also found some new prejudices to flaunt, with misinformed transphobia.After using his arms to imitate a weightlifter, he said: “Young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males. It’s not good for women, it’s not good for women’s sports which worked so long and so hard to get to where they are.”Trump rounded off with another tease about his future ambitions, telling the crowd: “With your help we will take back the House, we will win the Senate and then a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House. And I wonder who that will be. I wonder who that will be. Who, who, who will that be? I wonder.”Earlier on Sunday, the Republican congressman Jim Jordan said of him: “The leader of the conservative movement, the leader of the ‘American first’ movement, the leader of the Republican party and, I hope, on January 20, 2025, he is once again the leader of our great country.”But the annual CPAC straw poll found that only 55% of attendees want Trump to be the Republican nominee in 2024, ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis at 21% (the conference is taking place in Florida), South Dakota governor Kristi Noem at 4% and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley at 3%.Evan McMullin, executive director of Stand Up Republic and a former presidential candidate, tweeted in response: “It’s still ‘his party,’ but there’s a growing number ready for something new.” More

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      CPAC: pent-up Trump set to denounce Biden at rightwing summit

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      Donald Trump, the former US president, was on Sunday set to mark his attempted political comeback by denouncing Joe Biden for “the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history”.Trump was due to make his first speech since leaving the White House at the rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, where an effusive reception was guaranteed.The twice impeached ex-president was poised to unleash pent-up frustration after two months of social media silence – he was banned by Facebook and Twitter for incendiary comments – and just a handful of TV interviews.According to excerpts shared with the Guardian by Trump’s post-presidential office, he planned to make clear he intends to remain a political force by declaring: “I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we began together four years ago is far from over.”“We all knew that the Biden administration was going to be bad – but none of us imagined just how bad they would be, and how far left they would go… Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history.And adding: “Biden’s radical immigration policies aren’t just illegal – they are immoral, they are heartless, and they are a betrayal of our nation’s core values.”Trump was also intending to call on Biden to reopen schools despite ongoing safety fears due to the coronavirus pandemic. And planned to present himself as the standard bearer of a Republican party that defends “working American families – of every race, every color, and every creed”.The former president was expected to invoke his “America first” nationalist agenda by insisting: “We believe in standing up to China, shutting down outsourcing, bringing back our factories and supply chains, and ensuring that America, not China, dominates the future.”Despite the recent bipartisan vote at his impeachment trial, where he escaped conviction, Trump claims the Republican party is “united”, according to the excerpts. “The only division is between a handful of Washington DC establishment political hacks, and everybody else all over the country.”Most commentators expect Trump, aged 74, to leave open the possibility that he will run for re-election in 2024 without making a definitive commitment. He has remained a looming presence at CPAC, with speaker after speaker pledging fealty to him and his “Make America great again” agenda, while a golden calf-style idol in his image was even paraded around the convention halls.Numerous speakers and panels have also indulged and promoted Trump’s brazen lie that the election was stolen from him. Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow who is facing a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit from a voting-machine maker over his false conspiracy theories, was seen giving media interviews at the event.Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union, which runs the conference, claimed: “CPAC is your first opportunity to see what actually happened on election day. And there was widespread voter fraud in way too many states, most especially in big cities run by the Democrat machine. That is fact and we gave you evidence to underscore that fact.”Tom Fitton, president of the rightwing group Judicial Watch, told attendees: “On election day, President Trump had the votes to win the presidency. These vote totals were changed because of unprecedented and extraordinary counting after election day. Judicial Watch has long warned of the chaos and increased risk of fraud from recklessly mailing one hundred million ballots and ballot applications.”Such claims have repeatedly been proved false. Mail-in voting surged because of the coronavirus pandemic but state officials, including Republicans, reported no significant irregularities. The former president and his allies lost more than 60 legal challenges, including those weighed by Trump-appointed judges. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, dismissed the fraud allegations.For all the talk of party unity, CPAC was notable for the absence of former vice-president Mike Pence, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and other leading Republicans.On Sunday Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, insisted that CPAC does not represent the entire Republican party. “Now, if we plan to win in [midterm elections in] 2022 and [the presidential election] in 2024, we have to listen to the voters, not just those who really like President Trump, but also those who perhaps are less sure,” he told CNN’s State of the Union programme. “If we idolise one person, we will lose. And that’s kind of clear from the last election.”The watchdog Accountable.US condemned CPAC for putting Trump on a pedestal despite his role in inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January. Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said: “When Donald Trump is given a hero’s welcome at CPAC, it will be the largest gathering of sedition supporters since the Capitol riot itself.“The more evidence that emerges of Trump’s guilt, the more conservative leaders rally behind him. Trump lit the match of insurrection, and CPAC leaders would obviously rather keep stoking the fire for as long as possible.”Back at the conference earlier, Robert Unanue, the chief executive of Goya Foods, told attendees: “It’s just an honour to be here. But my biggest honour today is gonna be that – I think we’re gonna be on the same stage – as, in my opinion, the real, the legitimate, and the still actual president of the United States, Donald J Trump.” More

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      Republican predicts Trump won’t be party’s presidential nominee in 2024

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      Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican senator, predicted on Sunday morning that Donald Trump will not be the party’s nominee for president in 2024, pointing to the number of seats lost by Republicans in the House and Senate over the four years Trump was in office.Cassidy was asked on CNN’s State of the Union show whether he would support Trump if the former president runs for another term in 2024, or if he would support him if he did run and won the Republican nomination to challenge Joe Biden.“That’s a theoretical that I don’t think will come to pass,” Cassidy said.He added: “I don’t mean to duck, but the truth is … I don’t think he’ll be our nominee.”Cassidy also warned his party against revolving around a single dominant figure.“If we idolize one person, we will lose,” he said.Sen. Bill Cassidy says he doesn’t think fmr. Pres. Trump will be the GOP nominee for president in 2024. “Over the last four years, we lost the House… the Senate and the presidency” which has not happened since Herbert Hoover. “If we idolize one person, we will lose” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/AJvH2MkDSM— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 28, 2021
      “Political campaigns are about winning,” the senator added.In the 2020 election, Trump and his party lost control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.“That has not happened in a single four years under a president since [former President] Herbert Hoover,” Cassidy said.Trump was then impeached for a historic second time, for inciting the 6 January deadly insurrection at the US Capitol after his supporters charged Congress and invaded both chambers after being riled up over the election result by Trump at a rally near the White House moments before.Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump at his impeachment trial.Trump also presided over management of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, claiming the virus would “just disappear”, deliberately playing down the full dangers early on and floating bogus treatments, while more than 500,000 perished, by far the highest death toll in the world.Asked about Trump’s strength in the GOP, as the rightwing conservative conference CPAC has lined up speaker after speaker lauding the former president over the last three days, with some repeating his lies that he really won the 2020 election, Cassidy rejected the notion that Trump controls the party.“CPAC is not the entirety of the Republican party,” he said.He argued that the GOP should focus on those voters who switched from Trump to Biden in the November election.“If we speak to those issues, to those families, to those individuals, that’s when we win,” he said. More

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      CPAC: Trump to make first post-White House speech at rightwing summit

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterDonald Trump returns to the political stage on Sunday determined to show that he is still a major force in America and ready to purge his critics within the Republican party.In his first post-presidential speech, Trump will address the biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives in Orlando, Florida, immediately after a poll is expected to show he is most attendees’ first choice for the Republican nomination in 2024.“We’re looking forward to Sunday,” Trump’s son, Don Jr, told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I imagine it will not be what we call a low energy speech, and I assure you that it will solidify Donald Trump and all of your feelings about the Maga [Make America great again] movement as the future of the Republican party.”CPAC has always offered a glimpse of tectonic plates shifting beneath the conservative movement. In 2009 the conference disavowed the presidency of George W Bush, which had led to the Iraq war and ended in financial catastrophe. In 2016 it was wary of Trump, who cancelled his speech, but a year later it had fully embraced him and his administration.In 2021 the conference seems to offer proof that the Republican party is no longer in the political mainstream but has veered into far-right extremism. Speakers have raged against “cancel culture”, radical socialism and “big tech” companies while pushing Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud and denying he has any culpability for the subsequent insurrection at the US Capitol.CPAC is also working doubly hard to shore up Trump’s position as Republican standard bearer even after he lost the trifecta of White House, House of Representatives and Senate and was twice impeached.Matt Schlapp, the president of the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, told the Washington Post: “Even though Donald Trump is a one-term president, there’s this feeling among Republicans that he was a huge, smashing success.“That doesn’t mean that every moment of every day, of every news cycle, was pleasurable. What it means is that from a policy perspective, he basically ticked through the list of things that he said he would do.”The cult of personality has manifested itself in Trump bumper stickers, hats, T-shirts, face masks and other merchandise with slogans such as “Trump 2024” and “Miss me yet?”, as well as a giant gold-colored statue of the 45th president dressed in a jacket, red tie and Stars-and-Stripes boxing shorts and wielding a star wand.Speaker after speaker has ostentatiously pledged their loyalty, implying that the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Ted Cruz, a Republican senator for Texas, told attendees on Friday: “Let me tell you something: Donald Trump ain’t going anywhere.”The posture has ensured that Trump’s small band of foes within the Republican party has been targeted for criticism just as much as the man who beat him last November, Democratic president Joe Biden.Trump Jr warned against any return to an old Republican party beholden to special interests by singling out Liz Cheney, the daughter of Bush’s vice-president Dick Cheney and the No 3 Republican in the House. Cheney voted for Trump’s impeachment after the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol and criticised his plan to appear at CPAC.Cheney, Trump Jr argued, “is the leader of that failed movement and, if we want to go back to losing, if we want to go back to an America last policy, we should be following that,” he said. “But I don’t, and I don’t think anyone in this room does either.”Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman who held a rally in Cheney’s home state of Wyoming to demand her resignation, earned cheers CPAC by asserting: “If Liz Cheney were on this stage today, she would get booed off of it!”He continued: “What does that say? The leadership of our party is not found in Washington DC. You are the energy, we are America, that’s why they’re in the eight square miles of Washington DC, and we’re here in the sunshine state of Florida.”Florida is also now Trump’s home as, since departing the White House, he has kept a surprisingly low profile at his luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. He spends most mornings on his nearby golf course, according to a CNN report, and claims he has increased his drive by 20 yards.Many at CPAC have perpetuated and promoted Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, arguing that they justified new restrictions on voting. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri proudly defended his vote to challenge the electoral college result just hours after the riot at the Capitol.“I was called a traitor,” he recalled to a noisy ovation. “I was called a seditionist. The radical left said … I should be expelled from the United States Senate. Well, as I said a moment ago, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here. I’m going to stand up for you.”Absences at CPAC are also a political barometer. Mike Pence, the former vice-president targeted by the pro-Trump mob on 6 January, declined an invitation, although organisers insist he remains on friendly terms with his old boss. There is also no sign of Cheney, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, or former presidential nominee Mitt Romney.But whether Trump, 74, can or will seek to regain power in 2024 remains far from certain. This week the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York took possession of eight years’ worth of his tax returns and a mountain of other financial data as it conducts a criminal investigation into his business empire.Joe Walsh, a Trump critic and former Republican congressman, predicted a rousing reception for him on Sunday but said of 2024: “I think he’ll string everybody along. It all depends on his health. Is he in jail? Is he a gazillion dollars in debt? But assuming he isn’t indicted, if he wants to run, it’s his. I don’t think any Republican will challenge him.” More

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      Republicans push 'blue-collar comeback' – but is the party a true friend of the worker?

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      Amid the resurrection of “the big lie” about an election stolen from Donald Trump, another deceptive theme has emerged at this weekend’s rightwing gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference: Republicans as the true party of the blue-collar worker.
      It was a concept promoted variously over CPAC’s first two days by, among others, a multimillionaire former governor who made a fortune in healthcare; the son of Donald Trump, who lives in his own exclusive Florida club; and two firebrand US senators with law degrees from Ivy League universities who oppose a universal hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
      One of them, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, earlier this month flew his family to a sunshine vacation at a five-star resort in Mexico to escape the deadly winter blast back in his home state. At CPAC he asserted his alignment with America’s working men and women.
      “The Republican party is not the party just of the country clubs; the Republican party is the party of steel workers and construction workers, and pipeline workers and taxi cab drivers, and cops and firefighters, and waiters and waitresses, and the men and women with calluses on their hands who are working for this country,” Cruz told the nation’s biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives, just days after cutting short his Cancun holiday when the scandal came to light.
      “That is our party, and these deplorables are here to stay.”
      The CPAC positioning to try to represent the Republican party as a champion of the working class comes as Democratic president Joe Biden’s effort to raise the minimum wage faces significant congressional roadblocks, including opposition from many senior Republican figures.
      Cruz, a Harvard-educated lawyer and the beneficiary of substantial corporate campaign donations, at least until many halted contributions in the wake of the 6 January Capitol riots, is a long-time opponent of what he has called the “bad policy” concept of a minimum wage, and has said legislation to enforce it would “kill American jobs”.
      Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who last month joined his fellow Trump loyalist Cruz in attempting to block the certification of Biden’s victory, was another prominent CPAC speaker espousing working-class roots while opposing the new president’s wage proposals.
      “Where I come from in Missouri, I grew up in rural Missouri, [a] small town right in the middle of Missouri, it’s a working-class town full of good folks, working hard to make it every day,” said Hawley, a Yale law school graduate.
      “And I can just tell you, where I grew up, we believe in citizenship because we’re proud of it. We’re proud to be Americans,” he added in an address condemning “powerful corporations” and “oligarchs” he accused of imposing a “radical left agenda” on the United States.
      Hawley, considered a possible candidate in the race for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination if Trump does not run again, has also suffered corporate backlash for his support of the former president’s election lies. He proposed legislation this month that would exempt small businesses from paying their employees a “burdensome” minimum wage.
      On Saturday at CPAC, the fealty continued to Trump, who was honored at the conference venue this week by the installation of a large, gaudy statue that sparked the Twitter hashtag #goldencalf.
      “The blue-collar comeback was the theme of our administration,” the Republican Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty said in a panel discussion on industry during which he praised “President Trump’s leadership” for job growth.
      KT McFarland, a conservative commentator who was briefly Trump’s deputy national security adviser at the start of his administration, said she had a telephone call with the former president on Friday night in which he allegedly outlined the theme of his scheduled CPAC speech on Sunday.
      “I think that Donald Trump is not finished with this revolution,” she said, describing how she called his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and claiming Trump himself picked up the phone.
      “He said: ‘I’m going to talk about the future. I’m going to talk about how we win in 2022, how we take the White House back in 2024.’”
      Trump’s son, Donald Jr, told CPAC attendees earlier in the gathering that Biden’s relaxation of Trump-era immigration measures and reopening of camps for migrant youth would affect the very blue-collar workers Republicans are attempting to covet.
      “Where is the outrage about an asinine immigration policy that is encouraging people to bring children unaccompanied and otherwise into a country?” he said. More

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      Golden Trump statue turning heads at CPAC was made in … Mexico

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      A golden statue of Donald Trump that has caused a stir at the annual US gathering of conservatives was made in Mexico – a country the former president frequently demonized.The statue is larger than life, with a golden head and Trump’s trademark suit jacket with white shirt and red tie. Video and pictures of the tribute being wheeled through the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, went viral on Friday.The conference is seen as a vital gathering of the Republican right, and this year has become a symbol of Trump’s continued grip on the party, despite being cast out of office after two impeachments, seemingly endless parades of scandals and a botched response to the coronavirus pandemic that has cost half a million lives in the US.Now the artist behind the huge statue of Trump – Tommy Zegan – has revealed that the object was made in Mexico; a country that has been the target of much Trump racist abuse over his political career, and somewhere he has literally sought to build a wall against.“It was made in Mexico,” Zegan told Politico’s Playbook newsletter. Zegan, who lives in Mexico on a permanent resident visa, described the transport of the monument to CPAC in full to Playbook.Politico reported: “Zegan spent over six months crafting the 200lb fiberglass statue with the help of three men in Rosarito. He transported it to Tampa, Florida, where it was painted in chrome, then hauled it from there to CPAC.” More

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      House set to approve $1.9tn Covid aid bill despite minimum wage setback

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      The US House of Representatives is aiming to pass Joe Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus aid bill on Friday in what would be his first big legislative win, although marred by the news that a favored minimum wage hike would have to be tossed out.A spirited and potentially long debate was expected, as most Republicans oppose the cost of the bill that would pay for vaccines and other medical supplies to battle a Covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work.The measure would also send a new round of emergency financial aid to households, small businesses and state and local governments.A group of Senate Republicans had offered Biden a slimmed-down alternative, but the White House and some economists insist a big package is needed.Biden has focused his first weeks in office on tackling the greatest public health crisis in a century, which has upended most aspects of American life.Democrats control the House by a 221-211 margin, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi is counting on nearly all of her rank and file to get the bill passed before sending it to a 50-50 Senate, where the Democratic vice-president, Kamala Harris, holds the tie-breaking vote.Embedded in the House bill is a federal minimum wage increase, which would be the first since 2009 and would gradually bump it up to $15 an hour in 2025 from the current $7.25 rate.But the future of the wage hike was dealt a serious blow on Thursday, when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it could not be allowed in the Senate version of the coronavirus bill under that chamber’s “reconciliation” rules.The special rules allow the legislation to advance in the Senate with a simple majority of the 100 senators, instead of the 60 needed for most legislation.Biden has not given up on raising the minimum wage to $15, a top White House economic adviser said on Friday.A higher wage “is the right thing to do”, White House national economic council director, Brian Deese, said in an interview on MSNBC.“We’re going to consult with our congressional allies, congressional leaders today to talk about a path forward, about how we can make progress urgently on what is an urgent issue.”Meanwhile, lawmakers must also act on the coronavirus stimulus package, Deese said.The $15 minimum wage figure had already faced opposition in the Senate from most Republicans and at least two Democrats, which would have been enough to sink the plan. An array of senators are talking about a smaller increase, in the range of $10 to $12 an hour.In a statement after the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling, Pelosi said: “House Democrats believe that the minimum wage hike is necessary.”She said it would stay in the House version of the coronavirus bill.In arguing for passage of the relief bill, Pelosi cited opinion polls indicating the support of a significant majority of Americans who have been battered by the yearlong pandemic.“It’s about putting vaccinations in the arm, money in the pocket, children in the schools, workers in their jobs,” Pelosi told reporters on Thursday. “It’s what this country needs.“Among the big-ticket items in the bill are $1,400 direct payments to individuals, a $400-per-week federal unemployment benefit through 29 August and help for those having difficulties paying their rent and home mortgages during the pandemic.An array of business interests also have weighed in behind Biden’s America Rescue Plan Act, as the bill is called.Republicans have criticized the legislation as a “liberal wishlist giveaway” that fails to dedicate enough money to reopening schools that have been partially operating with “virtual” learning during the pandemic.The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, complained it was “too costly, too corrupt”. While Republicans for months have blocked a new round of aid to state and local governments, McCarthy said he was open to his home state of California getting some of the bill’s $350bn in funding, despite a one-time $15bn budget surplus.Efforts to craft a bipartisan coronavirus aid bill fizzled early on, shortly after Biden was sworn in as president on 20 January, following a series of bipartisan bills enacted in 2020 that totaled around $4tn. More