|
Capital Journal
|
Good morning from the WSJ Washington bureau. We produce this newsletter each weekday to deliver exclusive insights and analysis from our reporting team in Washington. Sign up.
|
|
|
Biden's Day: President Biden will deliver remarks about his immigration policies and sign related executive orders.
Impeachment Trial: Former President Donald Trump and House impeachment managers will give the Senate details of their respective impeachment trial strategies.
Marjorie Taylor Greene: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has sharply criticized Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene over her past comments embracing conspiracy theories, raising the pressure on House Republican leaders to sanction the freshman lawmaker.
Space Security: The Pentagon and NASA are joining forces and removing barriers between civilian and military space projects.
|
|
|
|
|
|
President Biden’s administration has indicated it hopes to scrap the Trump administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. PHOTO: EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
President Biden plans to form a task force to reunite immigrant families separated at the southern border, one of several executive orders on immigration he is expected to sign today that will set in motion a process that the new administration hopes will reverse a number of border policies and restrictions on legal immigration, Michelle Hackman reports.
|
|
The administration has asked the Supreme Court to cancel oral arguments on two pillars of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, construction of a wall along the southern U.S. border and the “Remain in Mexico” program that barred U.S. entry to many asylum applicants while their cases were considered, Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin report.
|
|
|
|
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, center, alongside Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah, opposite, to discuss their Covid-19 relief plan at the White House on Monday. PHOTO: SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
A group of Senate Republicans outlined a roughly $618 billion coronavirus-relief offer Monday, including a round of $1,000 direct checks for many adults, as Democrats began a process that would allow them to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan along party lines, Andrew Duehren and Richard Rubin report.
-
“It was a very good exchange of views,'' Sen. Susan Collins said outside the White House after the meeting with Mr. Biden. "I wouldn’t say that we came together on a package tonight."
|
|
Republicans’ proposal leaves Mr. Biden standing between his promises of action on the virus and fostering bipartisanship, writes Jerry Seib. The underlying political question: Does the Democratic Party have a mandate from voters to take big and bold actions on their own?
|
|
-
Covid-19 stimulus checks and more: How the GOP and Biden plans compare.
|
|
|
103,500,950 cases world-wide and 2,240,771 deaths.
26,322,365 cases in the U.S. and 443,613 deaths.
Source: Johns Hopkins University, as of 8:30 a.m. ET.
|
|
|
The Biden administration has reached a $230 million deal with Australian company Ellume to produce at-home, over-the-counter Covid-19 tests, report Tarini Parti and Brianna Abbott. Of the three FDA-cleared tests that can be processed entirely at home, Ellume’s is the only one that doesn’t require a prescription. None are widely available.
-
The U.S. economy is expected to return to its pre-pandemic level by the middle of this year, the CBO projects, but economic activity will remain below its potential until 2025.
|
|
-
🎧What’s News: Reporter Drew Hinshaw looks at the progress of vaccination and the prospects of the pandemic creeping into 2022.
|
|
|
|
Investigators have made a preliminary determination that the police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the U.S. Capitol riot shouldn’t be charged with any crimes in connection with her death, Aruna Viswanatha, Sadie Gurman and Tawnell D. Hobbs report.
-
A spokeswoman for the Capitol Police declined to comment on what she called “an ongoing investigation.” A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “It would be premature to provide a comment at this time.”
|
|
|
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Compares Capitol Riot to Trauma of Her Sexual Assault
|
|
|
|
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in an emotional and detailed account of her experience during the riot at the U.S. Capitol, revealed Monday night that she is a survivor of sexual assault.
"These folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, that we should forget what’s happened or are even telling us to apologize, these are the same tactics of abusers," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in a lengthy Instagram Live appearance. "I’m a survivor of sexual assault and I haven’t told many people that in my life but when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other."
She didn’t elaborate further about the sexual assault.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez went on to recount her experience of the pro-Trump rioters taking over the U.S. Capitol complex.
At midday on Wednesday, Jan. 6, she said, someone broke into her congressional office while she was in there. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she was hiding in her office bathroom. “I mean, I thought I was going to die,” she told her followers.
“If this was the journey that my life was taking, I felt that things were going to be OK and that I had fulfilled my purpose,” said Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who appeared to wipe away a tear.
She said the man who was in her office turned out to be a Capitol Police officer, but he didn't have a partner and didn’t ever identify himself, which she said felt off to her and her aide: “We couldn't read if this was a good situation or a bad situation.”
A spokeswoman for the Capitol Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said the Capitol Police officer told her to run to another building but didn’t tell her where to go specifically and she ended up running around a Capitol office building trying to find a member she knew to hide with. She eventually got into the office of Rep. Katie Porter (D., Calif.).The pair found other clothes to change into so they didn’t look like members of Congress if they needed to escape, she said.
Eventually they made it to Rep. Ayanna Pressley's office (D., Mass.) where they stayed until 4 a.m. recounting the day.
“I didn’t feel like I was OK or secure at any point in that day,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
“There’s the trauma of going through what you went through and then there’s trauma afterwards of people not believing you or trying to publicly humiliate you or trying to embarrass you and that gets internalized, too. Because a lot of times, you don’t want to believe it either.”
|
|
|
Mr. Biden said the Myanmar military’s seizure of power was a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and that the U.S. would hold the leaders of the coup accountable, William Mauldin and Ian Talley report. The U.S. has limited leverage against the military leadership in Myanmar. U.S. trade with the country is small.
-
Beijing has a multibillion-dollar trade and investment relationship with Myanmar and has expressed less public concern than the U.S. about who is in charge.
|
|
The Biden administration Monday reversed a decision by Mr. Trump to lift aluminum tariffs on the United Arab Emirates, Alex Leary reports. Mr. Trump on his final day in office issued a proclamation to exempt the country from a 10% tariff on aluminum imports, citing “an important security relationship,” and said a quota would suffice.
|
|
-
Iran tested a new rocket on Monday with improved technology that could be used in its missile program.
|
|
|
-
The lawyers who resigned in recent days from former President Donald Trump's impeachment-trial team left not just because of strategic disputes, but also because of disagreements over their fees. (Axios)
-
Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid last year because of a widespread belief he wasn't honest and broad disapproval of his handling of the coronavirus, his own pollsters concluded. (Politico)
-
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had close ties with Mr. Trump, now is picking a fight with President Biden. (Foreign Affairs)
|
|
|
This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Kate Milani, Troy McCullough, James Graff, and Toula Vlahou. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter.
|
|