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      'Your business model is the problem': tech CEOs grilled over role in Capitol attack

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      The CEOs of America’s biggest technology companies faced a grilling from Congress about the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol, as protesters outside the hearing denounced the platforms for playing a role in fueling the violence.Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter on Thursday were called to testify before two committees of the House of Representatives on social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation.Protesters who had gathered outside the Capitol building ahead of the hearing portrayed the tech executives as the violent insurrectionists whose images went viral in the days after the 6 January riots. One cutout erected on the grounds showed Zuckerberg as the “QAnon Shaman”, a part-time actor with a horned furry hat who participated in the riot.“The platforms’ inability to deal with the violence, hate and disinformation they promote on their platforms shows that these companies are failing to regulate themselves,” said Emma Ruby-Sachs, the executive director of SumofUs, the human rights organization behind the protests. “After the past five years of manipulation, data harvesting and surveillance, the time has come to rein in big tech.”Lawmakers opened the hearing with video testimonies, criticizing the platforms for their role in the 6 January violence, as well as in the spread of medical misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.“You failed to meaningfully change after your platform has played a role in fomenting insurrection and abetting the spread of the virus and trampling American civil liberties,” said the Democratic representative Frank Pallone, the chair of the energy and commerce committee. “Your business model itself has become the problem and the time for self-regulation is over. It’s time we legislate to hold you accountable,” he added.“You’re not passive bystanders – you are not non-profits or religious organizations that are trying to do a good job for humanity – you’re making money,” Pallone later said. “The point we’re trying to make today is that when you spread misinformation, when extremists are actively promoted and amplified, you do it because you make more money.”“The witnesses here today have demonstrated time and time again, that self-regulation has not worked,” echoed Jan Schakowsky, a Democratic representative from Illinois. “They must be held accountable for allowing disinformation and misinformation to spread.”Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers quickly turned to the topic of “cancel culture” and perceived, but unproven, bias against conservatives on social media.In his opening statement, Facebook’s Zuckerberg, argued that the tech companies should not be making the decisions around what is allowed online, and stressed Facebook’s efforts to combat misinformation and its spread of vaccine information.Google’s Pichai, too, sought to highlight his company’s role in connecting users with vaccine information and other Covid-19 resources.Thursday’s session is the latest in a record number of hearings for the big technology players in the past year, as executives have repeatedly been called to the Hill to testify on antitrust issues, misinformation and hate speech.The hearing, which was titled “Disinformation nation: social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation”, was held by the House of Representatives’ energy and commerce committee.Lawmakers repeatedly pressed the CEOs on how their platforms were tackling hate speech and misinformation more widely.The Democratic representative Doris Matsui, of California, raised the issue of anti-Asian hate speech and directly asked Dorsey and Zuckerberg what they are doing to address it. She also asked why they took so long to remove racist hashtags that promoted blame for the coronavirus pandemic on Asian Americans, citing the recent attack on Asian women in Atlanta as a consequence of these policies.“The issues we are discussing here are not abstract,” she said. “They have real world consequences and implications that are too often measured in human lives.”She also cited a study that showed a substantial rise in hate speech the week after Donald Trump first used the term “China flu” in a tweet.Dorsey countered by saying he will not ban the racist hashtags outright because “a lot of these hashtags contain counter speech”, or posts refuting the racism the hashtags initiated. Zuckerberg similarly said that hate speech policies at Facebook are “nuanced” and that they have an obligation to protect free speech.Congressman Tony Cárdenas of California has asked Zuckerberg how the company addresses the major problem of misinformation that targets Latino users, noting that studies have shown Facebook catches less false content in Spanish than in English.Zuckerberg responded that Facebook has an international factchecking program with workers in more than 80 countries speaking “a bunch of languages” including Spanish. He also said Facebook translates accurate information about Covid-19 vaccines and other issues from English into a number of languages.Cárdenas noted the example of his Spanish-speaking mother-in-law saying she did not want to get a vaccine because she heard on social media it would place a microchip in her arm.“For God’s sake, that to me is unbelievable, that she got that information on social media platforms,” he said. “Clearly Spanish language misinformation is an issue.” More

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      USWNT's Megan Rapinoe testifies to Congress on fight for equal pay – video

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      Megan Rapinoe has taken her fight for equal pay to Congress as she testified on Wednesday in front of a committee examining ‘the economic harm caused by longstanding gender inequalities, particularly for women of colour’. Rapinoe said she did not understand why pay inequality was still a problem in US Soccer, despite the USWNT’s success. ‘I feel like honestly we’ve done everything,’ she said.
      During her testimony, Rapinoe added that she supported the rights of trans athletes. The midfielder also addressed the outcry at the NCAA tournament last week after photos showed the far inferior gym equipment provided to female players compared to their male counterparts

      ‘You want full stadiums? We filled them’: Rapinoe testifies to Congress on equal pay More

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      'You want full stadiums? We filled them': Rapinoe testifies to Congress on equal pay

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      Megan Rapinoe has taken her fight for equal pay to Congress as she testified on Wednesday in front of a committee examining “the economic harm caused by longstanding gender inequalities, particularly for women of color”.The Olympic and World Cup champion testified at a hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. In her opening statement, the soccer star told the committee that: “I am here today because I know firsthand that this is true. We are told in this country that if you just work hard and continue to achieve – you will be rewarded, fairly. It’s the promise of the American dream. But that promise has not been for everyone.“The United States women’s national team has won four World Cup championships and four Olympic gold medals on behalf of our country. We have filled stadiums, broken viewing records, and sold out jerseys, all popular metrics by which we are judged.“Yet despite all of this, we are still paid less than men – for each trophy, of which there are many, each win, each tie, each time we play. Less.”Rapinoe said she did not understand why pay inequality was still a problem in US Soccer, despite the USWNT’s success. “I feel like honestly we’ve done everything,” she said. “You want stadiums filled? We filled them. You want role models for your kids, for your boys, and your girls, and your little trans kids? We have that. You want us to be respectful? You want us to perform on the world stage?…”In December, the USWNT reached an agreement with the US Soccer Federation over equal work conditions with their male counterparts. The players were seeking the same conditions as the US men’s team in areas such as travel, hotel accommodation, the right to play on grass rather than artificial turf, and staffing. However, the USWNT still do not have equal pay with the men’s team after a federal judge surprisingly threw out their case in May 2020. The team have appealed the decision and are seeking millions of dollars in backpay from US Soccer.Last week, there was outcry at the NCAA tournament, the crown jewel of US college basketball, after photos showed the far inferior gym equipment provided to female players compared to their male counterparts. Rapinoe touched on the subject during Wednesday’s hearings.“With the lack of proper investment we don’t know the real potential of women’s sports,” she said. “What we know is how successful women’s sports have been in the face of discrimination, in the face of a lack of investment in every level in comparison to men.”The midfielder also said she supported the rights of trans athletes. Dozens of bills in the US seek to ban trans athletes from certain youth sports. “As a member of the LGBTQ community I firmly stand with the trans family,” said Rapinoe. “As someone who has played sports with someone who is trans I can assure you all is well. Nothing is spontaneously combusting.”Rapinoe visited the White House later on Wednesday for an event with Joe and Jill Biden marking Equal Pay Day. More

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      Zuckerberg faces Capitol attack grilling as Biden signals tougher line on big tech

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      Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Facebook, could be in for a rough ride on Thursday when he testifies to Congress for the first time about the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol in Washington DC and amid growing questions over his platform’s role in fuelling the violence.The testimony will come after signs that the new administration of Joe Biden is preparing to take a tougher line on the tech industry’s power, especially when it comes to the social media platforms and their role in spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.Zuckerberg will be joined by Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey, the chief executives of Google and Twitter respectively, at a hearing pointedly entitled “Disinformation nation: social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation” by the House of Representatives’ energy and commerce committee.The scrutiny comes after a report found that Facebook allowed groups linked to the QAnon, boogaloo and militia movements to glorify violence during the 2020 election and weeks leading up to the deadly mob violence at the US Capitol.Avaaz, a non-profit advocacy group, says it identified 267 pages and groups on Facebook that spread “violence-glorifying content” in the heat of the 2020 election to a combined following of 32 million users. More than two-thirds of the groups and pages had names aligned with several domestic extremist movements.The top 100 most popular false or misleading stories on Facebook related to the elections received an estimated 162m views, the report found. Avaaz called on the White House and Congress to open an investigation into Facebook’s failures and urgently pass legislation to protect American democracy.Fadi Quran, its campaign director, said: “This report shows that American voters were pummeled with false and misleading information on Facebook every step of the 2020 election cycle. We have over a year’s worth of evidence that the platform helped drive billions of views to pages and content that confused voters, created division and chaos, and, in some instances, incited violence.“But the most worrying finding in our analysis is that Facebook had the tools and capacity to better protect voters from being targets of this content, but the platform only used them at the very last moment, after significant harm was done.”Facebook claimed that Avaaz had used flawed methodology. Andy Stone, a spokesperson, said: “We’ve done more than any other internet company to combat harmful content, having already banned nearly 900 militarized social movements and removed tens of thousands of QAnon pages, groups and accounts from our apps.”He acknowledged: “Our enforcement isn’t perfect, which is why we’re always improving it while also working with outside experts to make sure that our policies remain in the right place.”But the report is likely to prompt tough questions for Zuckerberg in what is part of a wider showdown between Washington and Silicon Valley. Another flashpoint on Thursday could be Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields social media companies from liability for content their users post.Repealing the law is one of the few things on which Biden and his predecessor as president, Donald Trump, agree, though for different reasons. Democrats are concerned that Section 230 allows disinformation and conspiracy theories such as QAnon to flourish, while Trump and other Republicans have argued that it protects companies from consequences for censoring conservative voices.More generally, critics say that tech companies are too big and that the coronavirus pandemic has only increased their dominance. The cosy relationship between Barack Obama’s administration and Silicon Valley is a thing of the past, while libertarian Republicans who oppose government interference are a fading force.Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have all come under scrutiny from Congress and regulators in recent years. The justice department, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general are suing the behemoths over various alleged antitrust violations.In a letter this week to Biden and Merrick Garland, the new attorney general, a coalition of 29 progressive groups wrote: “It’s clear that the ability of Big Tech giants like Google to acquire monopoly power has been abetted by the leadership deficit at top enforcement agencies such as the FTC … We need a break from past, failed leadership, and we need it now.”There are signs that Biden is heeding such calls and spoiling for a confrontation. On Monday he nominated Lina Khan, an antitrust scholar who wants stricter regulation of internet companies, to the FTC. Earlier this month Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor among the most outspoken critics of big tech, was appointed to the national economic council.There is support in Congress from the likes of David Cicilline, chairman of the House judiciary committee’s antitrust panel, which last year released a 449-page report detailing abuses of market power by Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook.The Democratic congressman is reportedly poised to issue at least 10 legislative initiatives targeting big tech, a blitz that will make it harder for the companies and their lobbyists to focus their opposition on a single piece of legislation.Cicilline, also working on a separate bill targeting Section 230, told the Axios website: “My strategy is you’ll see a number of bills introduced, both because it’s harder for [the tech companies] to manage and oppose, you know, 10 bills as opposed to one.“It also is an opportunity for members of the committee who have expressed a real interest or enthusiasm about a particular issue, to sort of take that on and champion it.” More

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      'Everything is on the table': Senate prepares for showdown over filibuster

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterThe US Senate is rapidly hurtling towards a high stakes showdown over the filibuster, a once arcane procedural maneuver that stands in the way of Democratic efforts to pass sweeping voting rights legislation, among other measures.A fight over the filibuster, which sets a 60-vote threshold to move legislation forward, seemed inevitable after Democrats narrowly took control of the senate in January. But urgency has escalated in recent weeks as Republicans in state legislatures across the country aggressively push new voting restrictions.The Senate last week introduced S1, a vast voting rights bill that already passed the US House. With the filibuster fully in place, it doesn’t stand a chance of passing.And the problem for Democrats is that there is no consensus in the Senate caucus about what, exactly, they should do about the filibuster. Some Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona the most prominent among them, are staunchly opposed to getting rid of the procedure entirely, saying it guarantees the minority has input into lawmaking. That means Senate Democrats will probably have to find some way of moderating the rule to allow them to pass legislation.“The filibuster as is, the status quo, is not sustainable and it will not be like this in 12 months,” said Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor who served as Barack Obama’s chief of staff. “The thing we don’t know is what changes are palpable to the senators.”There are a range of ideas floating around. One that seems to be gathering support is the so-called talking filibuster. It would require senators who want to filibuster a bill to actually speak on the floor for the entire time they want to hold up the legislation. Other ideas include exempting voting rights legislation from the filibuster or lowering the 60-vote threshold to move forward.“Everything is on the table,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said on Wednesday.Joe Biden has long opposed getting rid of the filibuster. But this week he energized advocates by endorsing the talking filibuster.“It’s getting to the point where, you know, democracy is having a hard time functioning,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.Manchin said on Thursday that he welcomed Biden’s stance on the issue.“I think it’s encouraging that President Biden understands this process and wants it to work so at least he’s taking a stance. We’ll see what comes out,” he said. “It’s important to have the minority participation in the Senate because without it you’ve got nothing.”Privately, Schumer reiterated what he has said publicly to advocates this week, saying the caucus was united and the bill would be brought to the Senate floor, according to a person familiar with the meeting. He did not say what the Democratic strategy on the filibuster would be.Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat and another strong defender of the maneuver, said the talking filibuster was “worth exploring but there are a lot of consequences”.Democrats are raising the temperature on the need for reform. Last summer, Barack Obama called for getting rid of the filibuster, describing it as a “Jim Crow relic”. Elizabeth Warren this week said the filibuster “has deep roots in racism”. Senator Raphael Warnock, who became Georgia’s first Black senator in January, gave a stirring speech on the Senate floor this week on the need to protect voting rights.“This issue is bigger than the filibuster,” he said. “It is a contradiction to say we must protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in the society.”Asked whether he could persuade some of his colleagues to come around on changing the filibuster, Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said he was optimistic.“The most fundamental aspect of the Republic is access to the ballot box. We have a responsibility to defend it. If we don’t do that we’re not honoring our oath – so let’s figure out how to do it. We’ll figure out that specific path through our conversation,” he said.But Republicans are digging in their heels, too. Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, said this week he would use the filibuster to block voting rights and LGBTQ+ legislation, vowing he would “talk until I fell over” if needed.And Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, warned earlier this week of a “scorched earth” senate if Democrats got rid of the filibuster. He vowed he would use every procedural maneuver available to block the senate from moving forward.“Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” McConnell said. “Even the most basic aspects of our colleagues’ agenda, the most mundane tasks of the Biden presidency, would be harder, not easier, for Democrats in a post-‘nuclear’ Senate that’s 50-50.”McConnell sent that warning even though it was he who eliminated the filibuster for supreme court nominees in 2017 to get Neil Gorsuch confirmed.Despite those warnings, Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, a government watchdog group, said that Democrats needed to keep every option on the table.“Senate Democrats have the majority and they need to have the ability to govern,” he said. “This idea that it can be costless to filibuster, that you can essentially raise your hands behind closed doors and grind everything to a halt, is unacceptable.” More

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      Mayorkas blames Trump for border woes as Republicans attack Biden

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      The Biden administration is facing mounting pressure over a surge of unaccompanied migrant children crossing into the US, with the numbers seeking asylum at a 20-year high that is placing federal facilities and shelters under immense strain.The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, took to the political talk show circuit on Sunday to press the administration’s case that it is doing all it can. He continued to refer to the problem as a “challenge” not a “crisis”, attempting to put blame squarely on the previous incumbent of the White House, Donald Trump.“It is taking time and it is difficult because the entire system was dismantled by the prior administration,” Mayorkas told CNN’s State of the Union. “There was a system in place that was torn down by the Trump administration.”On ABC’s This Week, Mayorkas highlighted the tougher aspects of Joe Biden’s border policy, stressing that the administration was still expelling families and single adults under a regulation known as Title 42. He insisted largely Central American migrants arriving in increasing numbers were being given a clear message: “Do not come. The border is closed. The border is secure.”But prominent Republicans have seized on the border difficulties as an opportunity to attack Biden for being soft on immigration.There was a system in place that was torn down by the Trump administration“This is a crisis,” Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, has said. “I don’t care what the administration wants to call it – it is a crisis.”Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas and ardent Trump loyalist, lambasted the secretary’s position as “nonsense”.In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Cotton characterized the Biden administration’s stance as “basically saying the United States will not secure the border, and that’s a big welcome sign to migrants from across the world [saying] the border is wide open”.He went on to make lurid allegations, backed up with no evidence, that the focus on unaccompanied children at the border was allowing criminals smuggling fentanyl and other drugs as well as people on “terrorist watch lists” to slip into the US undetected.Political steam over border affairs has been building for two months. In one of his first acts as president, Biden scrapped Trump’s hardline policy of sending unaccompanied children seeking asylum back to Mexico.Under Biden’s guidelines, unaccompanied minors were exempted from the Title 42 rules and shielded from expulsion. That was deemed in line with the president’s pledge to achieve a “fair, safe and orderly” immigration system.On Sunday, Mayorkas said the new approach addressed the humanitarian needs of migrant children “in a way that reflects our values and principles as a country”. But in the past few weeks, the numbers of minors seeking asylum has grown so rapidly that it has outpaced capacity to process the children in line with immigration laws.He is basically saying the United States will not secure the borderMore than 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children are being detained in Custom and Border Protection (CBP) facilities in Texas and Arizona. As a backlog of cases has built up, more than 500 have been kept in custody for more than 10 days, well beyond the 72 hours allowed under immigration law.There have been reports of overcrowding and harsh conditions in federal facilities in Texas. The Associated Press reported that some children were said by immigration lawyers to be sleeping on the floor after bedding ran out.The government has tried to move as many children as possible into shelters run by the US Refugee Office, but they in turn have become stressed. There are now more than 9,500 children in shelters and short-term housing along the border. Non-governmental groups working with migrants and refugees have been forced to scramble to deal with the sudden demand for shelter.As the administration struggles to keep a grip on events, it is also coming under criticism from Republicans and media outlets for refusing to allow reporters inside the beleaguered CBP facilities where children are being held. On Friday, Mayorkas visited El Paso in Texas with a bipartisan congressional delegation. Reporters were not allowed to follow them.The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz, called the move “outrageous and unacceptable”. In a tweet, he said: “No press. No cameras. What is Biden hiding?”Quizzed by Fox News Sunday about the apparent lack of accountability, despite Biden’s promise to bring “trust and transparency” back to public affairs, Mayorkas said the administration was “working on providing access” to border patrol stations.But he added: “First things first – we are focused on operations and executing our plans.”While the political heat is rising at the border, moves are under way in Washington to try and find a longer-term fix to the age-old immigration conundrum. Last week the House of Representatives passed a bill that would give “Dreamers”, undocumented migrants brought to the US as children, a pathway to citizenship.The legislation has an uncertain future in the Senate, given its 50-50 split and the need to reach 60 votes to pass most major legislation.Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois who has introduced a similar Dream Act to the Senate five times in the past 20 years, told CNN that he thought he was close to securing the necessary 60 votes. He also decried the current debate about whether there was a “crisis” or “challenge” at the border.“We need to address our immigration laws in this country that are broken,” he said. “What you see at the border is one piece of evidence of that, but there’s much more.” More

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      Republican Julia Letlow takes Louisiana seat husband won before dying of Covid

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      The Republican Julia Letlow easily won a Saturday special election for a north-east Louisiana-based US House seat her husband, Luke, won before his death from complications related to Covid-19.Julia Letlow becomes the third woman ever elected to the US House from Louisiana, the first Republican woman elected to Congress from the state and the only woman among its current congressional delegation. She trounced 11 contenders.“This is an incredible moment, and it is truly hard to put into words,” she said. “What was born out of the terrible tragedy of losing my husband, Luke, has become my mission in his honor to carry the torch and serve the good people of Louisiana’s fifth district.”Further south, the race to fill a second vacant congressional seat for Louisiana was headed to an 24 April run-off, the seat certain to stay in Democratic hands.Two state senators from New Orleans – Troy Carter and Karen Carter Peterson – secured spots in the runoff after leading among 15 candidates. The New Orleans-based second district is open because Cedric Richmond took a job as a special adviser to Joe Biden.In Louisiana, all candidates regardless of party compete in the primary. If no candidate tops 50% of the vote, a runoff is held between the top two vote-getters.Julia Letlow ran in her deep red district with the backing of Donald Trump, the endorsement of the state GOP and more money than all her competitors combined. She ran on issues similar to those her husband discussed during his campaign, supporting agriculture in the largely rural district, expanding broadband internet access and supporting conservative values.Governor John Bel Edwards offered congratulations.“She has continued to exemplify strength, determination and tenacity in the wake of a terrible tragedy. I know that these same characteristics that got her through the last few months will make her an excellent advocate for Louisiana in Washington,” the Democrat said.Luke Letlow died on 29 December, days before he was to be sworn into office. His wife announced her candidacy in January, sidelining high-profile Republicans.In the second district, Carter received Richmond’s backing and ended the primary as top vote-getter in the majority minority district along the Mississippi river.Peterson squeaked into the runoff, edging out Gary Chambers Jr, a Baton Rouge community activist and publisher who focused on social media outreach. Peterson would be the first Black woman elected to Congress from Louisiana. More

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      How Democrats can use Biden's $1.9tn Covid relief to win the midterms

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      Just days after signing the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package into law, Joe Biden was on the road selling the benefits of the bill to the American people – and also to his own party’s political prospects.The president kicked off his “Help is Here” tour last Tuesday, visiting a Black-owned flooring business in Chester, Pennsylvania. “We’re in a position where it’s going to bring immediate relief – $1,400 – to 85% of the American public,” Biden said as he toured Smith Flooring. “And I think you should be aware: more help is on the way, for real.”Democrats have been eager to trumpet the message that Biden has followed through on his campaign promise to deliver another round of stimulus checks and an extension of federal unemployment benefits to Americans who have financially struggled because of the coronavirus pandemic.But the passage of the relief bill may also be the Democratic party’s best chance of keeping control of both chambers of Congress after next year’s midterm elections. Democrats are hoping that the aid it brings can help them avoid the historical trend of the president’s party losing congressional seats in the midterms following his election.There is little room for error too, given Democrats’ narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress. Republicans need to flip just five seats to take control of the House, and a loss of a single Senate seat would cost Democrats their majority in the upper chamber. Such losses would seriously hobble Biden’s ability to enact his agenda.With those high stakes in mind, the president and Vice-President Kamala Harris have been traveling across the country to advertise the relief bill in swing states that will hold key Senate races next year. Biden told House Democrats earlier this month that he was determined to learn from 2009, when Barack Obama was hesitant to take a “victory lap” after the passage of the stimulus bill.“We didn’t adequately explain what we had done,” Biden told lawmakers. “And we paid a price for it, ironically, for that humility.”Democratic groups are helping with Biden’s victory tour, flooding the airwaves to remind voters in battleground states where those $1,400 direct payments came from. American Bridge 21st Century, a progressive political action committee, has announced a six-figure ad buy focusing on the impact of the relief package. The first ad, which featured a special education teacher talking about how the legislation would help schools reopen, started airing in Pennsylvania as Biden visited the state on Tuesday.“This is a law that is going to help people’s lives across the board, and something that is this holistically comprehensive on the policy side is also going to be holistically popular for the midterms,” said Jessica Floyd, the president of American Bridge. Echoing many Democratic lawmakers and strategists in recent weeks, Floyd made a point to cite polling showing the relief bill enjoyed the support of a broad majority of Americans.But Republicans, who unanimously voted against the relief bill in Congress, are not sitting on the sidelines as Democrats make their marketing pitch. Republican party leaders have been busy attacking the legislation as a liberal “wishlist” that does nothing to confront the crises facing the nation.“Americans deserve targeted legislation that will accelerate vaccine distribution, get Americans back to work, and safely reopen our schools – not hyperpartisan and wasteful pork spending,” Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement after the passage of the bill.The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already launched its own digital ads against two vulnerable Democratic incumbents, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, accusing them of “bailing out” New York and California by approving the state aid in the relief package.“Packed in the bill are provisions that will really hurt vulnerable senators in tough states,” a Republican operative focused on Senate races said. The operative predicted that Republicans’ criticism of “bailout” money to Democratic-controlled states and stimulus payments to undocumented immigrants would linger longer in voters’ memories than the $1,400 checks they received.There is still time for both parties to shape how Americans view the relief package. Despite the positive polling about the bill, a recent survey from the progressive firm Navigator Research showed a majority of voters say they know little to nothing about the legislation.So the challenge for Democrats and Republicans will be to both convince voters of the merit – or lack thereof – of the relief bill and then keep that issue at the forefront of voters’ minds as they start to consider which candidates to support next November.In that sense, these competing messaging campaigns from the two parties represent the start of a months-long competition to define the beginning of Biden’s presidency in the court of public opinion. The winner of that competition will probably walk away with control of Congress.“Part of our job is not to let people forget that Democrats put together a bill that is hugely popular now,” Floyd said. “Our job is to keep it popular and also point out for the coming months that every single Republican in Congress voted against it. I think keeping both of those facts top of mind starts today.” More