Manchin criticizes Republican opposition to 6 January commission: ‘There’s no excuse’ – live | US news

Joe Biden criticized congressional Republicans for touting the benefits of the coronavirus relief package to their constituents after they unanimously opposed it.

The president help up a list of Republican lawmakers who have boasted about the benefits of the package for their districts’ businesses and services.

“I mean, some people have no shame,” Biden said with a laugh.

Speaking in Cleveland, Joe Biden celebrated the reopening of US businesses as more Americans get vaccinated against coronavirus.

“We’ve turned the tide on the once-in-a-century pandemic,” Biden said. “And now we’re faced with a question: what kind of economy are we going to build for tomorrow? What are we going to do? I believe this is our moment to rebuild an economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

The president credited his administration with helping to bring back jobs that had disappeared at the beginning of the pandemic and making vaccines widely available.

“Covid cases are down. Covid deaths are down. Unemployment filings are down. Hunger is down. Vaccinations are up. Jobs are up. Growth is up,” Biden said. “To put it simply, America is coming back. America is on the move.”

Joe Biden is now delivering remarks on the US economy and vaccination efforts at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio.

Standing in front of signs saying “Blue Collar Blueprint for America,” Biden noted US businesses have been reopening in recent weeks, as vaccinations ramp up.

The president also made a joke about Ohio’s million-dollar lottery to encourage residents to get their coronavirus vaccinations.

“I hear that Ohio has a new millionaire,” Biden said.

Joe Biden is now touring the manufacturing technology center at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio.

Once the tour concludes, the president will deliver remarks on the economy at the community college’s metropolitan campus, so stay tuned.

President Biden is planning to meet with Republicans next week after a group of GOP senators presented a revised infrastructure plan, Bloomberg reports. Republicans’ counter-proposal remains more than $1 trillion short of Biden’s latest proposal.

“We’re going to have to close this down soon,” Biden has remarked of his conversations with Republicans.

The GOP counter-proposal to Biden’s infrastructure plan is $928 billion over eight years, but the majority is money that Congress was already expected to green-light.

On Friday, Biden lowered his infrastructure proposal to $1.7 trillion, down from an initial $2.25 trillion proposal, Bloomberg says.

US intelligence authorities have recognized that the intel community has two theories on the origins of Covid-19. Two agencies believe that coronavirus surfaced naturally due to human contact with infected animals, while a third agency is “embracing a possible laboratory accident as the source of the global pandemic,” Reuters reports.

“The U.S. Intelligence Community does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus was transmitted initially but has coalesced around two likely scenarios,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has remarked in a statement Thursday. ODNI also says that the majority of US agencies thinks there is not “sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.”

This ODNI statement has not specified which of its 17 agencies thinks Covid-19 came from sick animals, and which agency thinks it came from a lab accident. The ODNI says that these agencies’ beliefs are with “low or moderate confidence”, which means they think the evidence is hardly conclusive.

The ODNI’s statement comes one day after President Biden announced that he would “redouble” efforts to probe the origins of Covid-19. Biden has asked the Intelligence Community to report back to him in 90 days on their findings.

Biden has said that he would release the report after 90 days “unless there’s something I’m unaware of.”

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Senator Joe Manchin fiercely criticized his Republican colleagues for opposing the bill to form a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol insurrection. “There’s no excuse for any Republican to vote against this commission since Democrats have agreed to everything they asked for,” the Democratic senator said in a statement. But Manchin told reporters he is still unwilling to eliminate the Senate filibuster in order to get the commission bill passed.
• Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell argued the commission would be “extraneous” to current investigations. “There’s no new fact about that day we need the Democrats’ extraneous commission to uncover,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech. The Republican leader appears to have the votes necessary to defeat the commission bill, which passed the House last week.
• Senate Republicans released their latest offer in the negotiations over an infrastructure bill. The bill proposes spending $928 billion on infrastructure over the next eight years, but most of that money was already going to be spent because of current policies in place. Only $257 billion of the Republican proposal is considered new spending, and the White House said the offer still lacks funding for key initiatives.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, also released a statement in response to Republicans’ latest infrastructure proposal.

“At first review, we note several constructive additions to the group’s previous proposals, including on roads, bridges and rail,” Psaki said.

“At the same time, we remain concerned that their plan still provides no substantial new funds for critical job-creating needs, such as fixing our veterans’ hospitals, building modern rail systems, repairing our transit systems, removing dangerous lead pipes, and powering America’s leadership in a job-creating clean energy economy, among other things.”

Psaki also expressed hesitation about the Republican proposal to use unspent coronavirus relief funds to help pay for the infrastructure package.

Looking at the timeline for passing a bill, Psaki said, “Though there are no votes in Congress next week, we will work actively with members of the House and Senate next week, so that there is a clear direction on how to advance much needed jobs legislation when Congress resumes legislative business during the week of June 7.”

Joe Biden took a few questions from reporters before boarding Air Force One to travel to Cleveland, Ohio, for a speech on the economy.

Asked about Senate Republicans’ latest counteroffer in the infrastructure negotiations, Biden said he had a brief but positive conversation with Senator Shelley Moore Capito about the new proposal.

“I haven’t had a chance yet to go over the details of the counteroffer made by Capito,” Biden said. “We’re going to meet sometime next week, and we’ll see if we can move that.”

Echoing Senate Democrats, the president emphasized the need to wrap up the infrastructure negotiations in the coming weeks.

“I told her we have to finish this really soon,” Biden said. “We’re going to have to close this down soon.”

Some Senate Democrats are already pushing to use reconciliation to pass an infrastructure bill, thus avoiding a potential Republican filibuster of the legislation.

The family of Officer Brian Sicknick met with several Republican senators as the Senate prepares to vote on the bill to establish a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol insurrection.

One of those senators, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said in a statement that he offered his condolences to the family of Sicknick, the US Capitol Police officer who died of a stroke the day after the January 6 insurrection.

In his statement, Johnson emphasized that the insurrectionists “should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” but he did not agree with the family on the need for a commission to study the attack.

“Although we respectfully disagreed on the added value of the proposed commission, I did commit to doing everything I could to ensure all their questions will be answered,” Johnson said.

Senate Republicans are poised to use the filibuster to defeat the commission bill, which passed the House last week.

The family of Officer Brian Sicknick is on Capitol Hill today, meeting with senators and pushing them to support establishing a bipartisan commission to study the January 6 insurrection.

Sicknick was a US Capitol Police officer who died the day after the insurrection. He collapsed shortly after clashing with rioters, and he later died at a nearby hospital. A medical examiner said last month that Sicknick died after suffering two strokes.

Asked how she felt listening to Republicans who oppose establishing a commission, Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Brian Sicknick, told reporters, “This is why I’m here today. I mean, usually I’ll stay in the background, and I just couldn’t stay quiet anymore.”

Senator Joe Manchin indicated he was not open to eliminating the filibuster in order to get the January 6 commission bill passed.

“I’m not willing to destroy our government, no,” the Democratic senator told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Manchin added, “I think we’ll come together. You have to have faith there’s 10 good people.”

According to CNN, Senate Republican leaders are confident they have the votes necessary to defeat the commission bill today.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer lamented that the January 6 commission bill cannot secure widespread bipartisan support in Congress.

Reflecting on how the “big lie” of widespread election fraud in the presidential election has overtaken the Republican party, Schumer said the country must put a stop to this “cancer” in the GOP.

The Democratic leader specifically criticized Republican legislators in Arizona for “chasing a bananas-crazy right-wing Internet conspiracy” that China tampered with ballots to swing the election to Joe Biden.

“We need to stand up to the big lie,” Schumer said. “We must get at the truth and do everything in our power to restore Americans faith in our elections and this grand, ongoing, noble experiment of democracy.”

With that goal in mind, Schumer said a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol insurrection is “exactly what the doctor ordered”.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the idea of forming a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol insurrection, arguing that such a panel would be “extraneous” to the current investigations underway at the justice department and in Congress.

McConnell’s comments in a Senate floor speech this morning came as Republicans prepared to block the House-approved bill to convene a January 6 commission. If Republicans do block the bill, it may mark the first official use of the Senate filibuster in this session of Congress.

“There’s no new fact about that day we need the Democrats’ extraneous commission to uncover,” McConnell said moments ago.

The Republican leader noted that more than 440 people have already been arrested in connection to the Capitol insurrection and the attorney general has promised to maintain the investigation of the attack as a top priority for the justice department.

Democrats have pointed out that much remains unknown about the Capitol attack, including some insurrectionists’ potential ties to Republican lawmakers.

“I do not believe the additional extraneous commission that Democratic leaders want would uncover crucial new facts or promote healing,” McConnell said. “Frankly, I do not believe it is even designed to do that.”

McConnell added, “I’ll continue to urge my colleagues to oppose this extraneous layer when the time comes for the Senate to vote.”