WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 20: U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters while hosting (2nd L-R) … [+] Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Republican congressional leaders in the Oval Office at the White House July 20, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump and the congressional leaders talked about a proposed new round of financial stimulus to help the economy during the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
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Senate Republicans and the White House have gone back-and-forth on the rate of unemployment checks under the next stimulus bill proposal, expected to release today. According to a report from the Washington Post, the two sides have come to a consensus, agreeing to a $200 a-week addition to unemployment insurance.
It’s down from $600 a week, which was passed under the CARES Act. The higher rate of unemployment provided a significant safety net to the more than 50 million people that have filed for unemployment during the COVID-19 crisis. JPMorgan Chase JPM
recently found that cutting the additional unemployment protections could lead to a 29% decline in the rate of unemployed spending.
The Republicans want to use the $200 a-week payment for a length of time, providing them with the opportunity to then implement a way to provide benefits that would ensure 70% of income, prior to losing the job. States would have two months to install the program that would allow the capability to provide the 70% of income strategy.
Republican plans for unemployment have ranged from ending the additional checks to only providing $100 more per week ($400 per month). But as coronavirus cases have worsened, as has unemployment, it could force them into negotiations on this particular point of the stimulus bill.
The decision to focus on reducing the benefit will surely become a point of contention in negotiations with Democrats. In the May passing of the Democrat-led HEROES Act in the House of Representatives, the unemployment check of $600 extra per week would extend through January 2021.
Senate Democrats have signaled that they would support a measure closer to the House bill than the lowering of benefits, which has been suggested by the White House and Senate Republicans.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said there’s been no negotiations between the Senate Democrats and Republicans, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to roll out the GOP stimulus plan today.
Demonstrators use leaf blowers to try to blow back tear gas launched by federal officers during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Sunday in Portland, Ore.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
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Demonstrators use leaf blowers to try to blow back tear gas launched by federal officers during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Sunday in Portland, Ore.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Confrontations continued overnight Sunday between protesters and federal law enforcement in Portland, Ore., as hundreds gathered in the city’s downtown for the 60th consecutive day of demonstrations following the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd. Tensions have continued to ratchet up due to the Trump administration’s deployment of federal agents in the city.
Portland police said a bag containing Molotov cocktails and loaded rifle magazines was discovered near Lownsdale Square Park, across the street from a federal courthouse, where some of the most recent clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement have taken place.
Police said the crowd on Sunday spent hours chanting near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse and banging on the metal fence that was erected to protect the building. Things took a violent turn around 11:45 p.m.
“People began launching mortar-style fireworks over the fence,” police said in a statement early Monday. “A short time later people climbed over the fence, entering the portico. At about that time a group lit a large fire in Lownsdale Square Park. People in the crowd continually picked at the fence. Some gathered with shields and umbrellas to cover a person trying to cut through it.”
Police added that a fire was also started near the fence, but was quickly extinguished. After that, people started throwing objects over the fence.
“The crowd was dispersed over the course of the next few hours,” the statement said, concluding, “Portland Police did not participate in dispersing these crowds, did not make any arrests and did not deploy CS gas.”
The Oregonian reported that shortly after midnight, the exterior lights of the federal building were shut off and police ordered the crowd to disperse. “Within minutes, federal officers emerged from the building, firing crowd-control weapons and deploying gas,” the newspaper reported.
“The thing is that protesters now expect federal agents to blast them with flash grenades and tear gas, so [protesters] bring leaf blowers out to blow canisters and the smoke back towards the building,” NPR’s Vanessa Romo told NPR’s Morning Edition. She said the federal agents again made arrests following the clashes.
The confrontation continued into the early hours of Monday morning, according to the Oregonian, as U.S. agents “forced protesters away from the courthouse using batons and what appeared to be pepper balls and pepper spray.”
“We want the feds out and we want the police to take accountability and start stepping back from their role of, like, murdering people, basically,” one Portland protester told Romo.
The Seattle Police Department said 59 officers were recovering from injuries sustained Saturday when they were hit with “explosives, rocks, bottles, and wood,” according to the police-run SPD Blotter website. Their injuries range from bruising, abrasions, burns and a torn meniscus, with one officer hospitalized, police said.
In Austin, Garrett Foster, a 28-year-old white man who brought his AK-47 rifle to protests, was shot and killed on Saturday around 10 p.m. local time. As he and other Black Lives Matter protesters were making their way down the street, a motorist turned toward the crowd. According to police, Foster approached the vehicle.
The driver opened fire, hitting Foster, who had been attending the protests with his fiancée for some time. By early Mondayafternoon, a GoFundMe page for Foster had raised nearly $108,000.
Portland police are still investigating a shooting that took place earlier on Sunday, in which one person was injured in Lownsdale Square Park and was treated for non-life threatening injuries. Police released two people who’d been taken into custody. They did not indicate if the shooting was linked to the protest.
Cities across the nation mark another weekend of violence.
Oregon‘s U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams told The Oregonian over the weekend that Portland officials were engaged in “nonsensical, political theater” by banning city police from working with federal law enforcement and swore that the federal government would not be abandoning any of the federal buildings in the city.
“Anyone who thinks we’re just going to give up the courthouse, Hatfield, Pioneer (Courthouse) or any other federal facility downtown, that’s not going to happen,” Williams said in the interview, according to the paper. “We’re not leaving.”
U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said that Portland, Ore., officials were engaging in “political theater” by banning local police from working with federal law enforcement in an interview with The Oregonian. (DOJ)
For two full months, protesters have demonstrated nightly outside Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, attempting to set the courthouse on fire, vandalizing the building, and throwing knives and using fireworks against federal law enforcement sent to defend the building. The unrest has come as similar protests have raged around the country, aimed ostensibly at bringing about racial justice and defunding police departments in the wake of the death of George Floyd in late May while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department.
The protests have been especially politically charged in Portland, with accusations that federal agents are making unjustified arrests of protesters in unmarked vans. Civil rights groups have called the incidents “kidnapping.” Williams requested an inspector general probe into the incidents and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that the agents were identified with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) insignia during the alleged encounters, but that their names were not on their uniforms due to doxing attempts against the officers.
Meanwhile, Democratic politicians, amid nightly violence, have slammed the federal government for its actions and insisted that the protests are largely peaceful.
“Portland, Ore., is not out of control,” Rep Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said on the House floor last week. “To be sure, there are some people who have strong feelings and there are some who have done things that are inappropriate and unlawful. But that is the challenge of our local officials and our state officials to manage it. Not having somebody unwelcome, uninvited and unprepared coming to take this difficult situation and make it worse.”
Blumenauer later demanded the resignation of DHS Secretary Chad Wolf in a tweet.
“Any person who oversees the kidnapping of protesters and the violent occupation of American cities has no place in our government,” he said.
Protesters throw flaming debris over a fence at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Wednesday, July 22, 2020, in Portland, Ore. Following a larger Black Lives Matter Rally, several hundred demonstrators faced off against federal officers at the courthouse. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Williams declined to comment on the incidents of alleged “kidnapping” to The Oregonian, citing the inspector general probe, but did defend federal law enforcement’s presence in the city, saying they will be there until “violent extremists” stop trying to break into the courthouse.
“Until that happens, we’re going to do what we need to do to protect federal property,” Williams told The Oregonian. “When the violence ends, then there won’t be a need for the presence of nightly federal officers… It seems quite simple.”
He criticized Portland for banning their police from working with federal officers. The decision was “short-sighted,” he said according to the paper, and “doesn’t help anything.”
Demonstrators shield themselves with umbrellas as federal officers launch tear gas outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse during a Black Lives Matter protest Friday, July 24, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
In the same interview, U.S. Marshal Russel Burger explained the reasoning behind federal officers’ actions, including the use of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and more. Burger said, according to The Oregonian, that the less-than-lethal measures are used to maintain a “defensive posture,” and a fence used to “de-escalate” the scene around the courthouse. Officers try not to leave the courthouse unless rioters try to set the building ablaze or tamper with the fence to get to the courthouse, Burger said – and when officers are attacked by the demonstrators they try to scatter the rioters, “if it means pushing them out four blocks away, if that’s what it takes, that’s what they got to do.”
Williams has previously said that federal officers have been “subjected to nightly threats and assaults from demonstrators while performing their duties.”
A federal judge last week denied a request from Oregon’s attorney general to keep federal agents from arresting people outside the courthouse, due to the fact the government lacked standing to sue on behalf of the protesters.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
The national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, has tested positive for the coronavirus, but the White House insisted there was “no risk” of Donald Trump being exposed.
However, O’Brien recently returned from a trip to Europe where he was photographed, without wearing a mask or social distancing, with several foreign officials, including his UK counterpart, Mark Sedwill; the UK ambassador to France, Edward Llewellyn; and the French national security adviser, Emmanuel Bonne.
Several White House staffers have fallen sick from the disease over the past few months, but O’Brien is highest-level administration official so far to have tested positive.
“He has mild symptoms and has been self-isolating and working from a secure location off site. There is no risk of exposure to the president or the vice-president. The work of the national security council continues uninterrupted,” the White House said in a statement.
CNN cited officials as saying O’Brien abruptly left the White House last Thursday and has been working from home since then.
It is unclear when O’Brien last had a meeting with the president. Their most recent public appearance together was during a visit to US Southern Command in Miami on 10 July.
O’Brien has hired as national security adviser in September, despite having relatively light foreign policy experience, and has taken a low-profile approach to the job, certainly compared to his immediate predecessor, John Bolton.
The news stirred a tense atmosphere in Washington, as Republicans prepared to unveil their latest stimulus and relief proposals and Donald Trump digested new polling showing disapproval of his handling of the pandemic and leads in key states for his challenger, Joe Biden.
O’Brien is Donald Trump’s fourth national security adviser, a role naturally requiring close contact with the president. According to CNN, O’Brien was on White House grounds last Thursday, raising questions about potential exposure. It was also reported that White House staffers only learned of O’Brien’s test via press reports.
Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg News reported that O’Briencame down with the virus after a family event and was “isolating at home while still running the NSC [national security council], doing most of his work by phone”.
But CNN reported that O’Brien recently went to Europe with staffers and reporters and said “multiple pictures released from the trip showed O’Brien neither practicing social distancing nor wearing a mask”.
The news will intensify scrutiny over Trump’s refusal to consistently wear a face mask in public, despite mounting evidence that masks help mitigate the spread of coronavirus. The president strongly urged Americans to wear masks for the first time last week, but he has since been seen in public not wearing a mask.
Pressure was also mounting on Republicans in Congress on Monday, to finalise a new aid package and spare millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in the pandemic from enduring dire hardship when $600-a-week additional unemployment benefits expire on Friday.
With the so-called “income cliff” just four days away, Republican leaders have indicated that they will unveil a $1tn aid package agreed with the White House. But bitter partisan negotiations lie ahead, with a measure likely to pass only at the 11th hour.
House Democrats, who passed a $3tn package in May, have accused Republicans of dithering and object to replacing the $600 weekly benefits, which they want to extend, with a more complicated formula based on 70% of wages. That calculation could in effect see support reduced to about $200 a week.
Democrats are also unhappy about liability protections likely to be included in the Republican package that insulate employers from being sued by workers who contract coronavirus.
The negotiations come at a febrile time. Last week 1.4 million Americans filed new unemployment claims, joining a pool of more than 30 million out of work.
As the political crisis on Capitol Hill comes to a head, there is no sign of the public health crisis abating. According to the Covid Tracking project, 4.2m confirmed cases of coronavirus have been recorded in the US with the death toll close to 140,000. Johns Hopkins University puts the death toll closer to 150,000.
The death rate across the states has exceeded 1,000 people a day over the past week, although on Sunday a figure of 558 was recorded.
The infection rate is continuing to surge alarmingly, particularly in the south. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are all showing steep upward trajectories and many states have been forced to rein back on reopening their economies after the virus caused havoc in health systems.
Florida now has more than 400,000 confirmed cases and has surpassed the tally in New York, a previous center of the contagion. California, struggling with a resurgence of its own, has recorded the most cases.
Despite the prevalence of disease in Florida the vice-president, Mike Pence, was scheduled to visit Miami on Monday, to highlight phase three trials for a vaccine.
The political fallout of the pandemic remains intense, both at state level and for the White House, where Donald Trump is dealing with the consequences of having presided over one of the worst impacts of the pandemic in the world. With fewer than 100 days to go before the presidential election, Joe Biden now holds a commanding lead in the polls.
A new NBC News/Marist poll released on Monday underlined the danger of the current moment for Trump. It gave Biden a seven-point lead in the vital swing state of North Carolina, increasingly seen as a bellwether in presidential elections. Among registered voters in the state, Biden was supported by 51% to Trump’s 44%.
Congressional horse trading over aid could have far-reaching implications for millions. Democrats have warned that any reduction in financial help to the unemployed could herald a wave of evictions as households struggle to meet rent.
On Sunday, the Trump adviser Larry Kudlow pledged on CNN’s State of the Union that a moratorium on housing evictions, which has expired, will be extended.
The legislation is expected to include a new round of $1,200 checks to individual Americans, an extension of unemployment benefits at a reduced level, billions of dollars for schools with some of the money aimed at helping classrooms reopen, and a five-year liability shield for businesses, health-care providers and others.
White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien is the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration known to have contracted the virus.
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White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien is the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration known to have contracted the virus.
Evan Vucci/AP
President Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien has tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House announced on Monday.
“National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien tested positive for COVID-19. He has mild symptoms and has been self-isolating and working from a secure location off-site. There is no risk of exposure to the president or the vice president. The work of the National Security Council continues uninterrupted,” the White House said in a statement. No further details were immediately available.
O’Brien is the most senior White House official known to get the virus, and the closest to Trump. He is the latest person in Trump’s orbit to become infected.
In May, Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for Vice President Pence who is married to a senior Trump adviser, tested positive, as did a military aide who worked as a valet to the president. In June, eight members of the campaign’s advance team, including two Secret Service agents, tested positive in Tulsa, Okla., just before a Trump rally there. Kimberly Guilfoyle — a fundraiser for the campaign and the girlfriend of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. — tested positive in early July.
In a 2016 attack on police officers at a downtown Dallas demonstration, several marchers carried AR-15s and other military-style rifles, and local officials said their presence created confusion for police officers. A single gunman, Micah Johnson, a former Army reservist, killed five officers.
“There are multiple layers to this tragedy, but adding guns to any emotional and potentially volatile situation can, and too often does, lead to deadly violence,” Ed Scruggs, the board president of Texas Gun Sense, a gun legislation reform group, said in a statement about the Austin shooting.
C.J. Grisham, founder and president of the gun-rights organization Open Carry Texas, defended the practice of bringing rifles to rallies and marches, particularly after numerous attacks around the country in which motorists have driven their cars into demonstrations and injured or killed protesters.
“Protesters are under attack from a wide variety of people,” Mr. Grisham said. “It’s unfortunate these days that if you’re going to exercise your First Amendment rights, you probably need to be exercising your Second Amendment rights as well.”
The shooting occurred shortly before 10 p.m. James Sasinowski, 24, a witness, said it seemed the driver was trying to turn a corner and did not want to wait for marchers to pass.
“The driver intentionally and aggressively accelerated into a crowd of people,” Mr. Sasinowski said. “We were not aggravating him at all. He incited the violence.”
Michael Capochiano, another witness, had a slightly different account of what happened. He said he was marching with other demonstrators when he saw a motorist honk his horn and turn toward the crowd, forcing people to scatter.
Cities across the nation mark another weekend of violence.
Dozens of Seattle police officers were injured during another lawless weekend in the city as demonstrations again devolved into destruction and attacks on law enforcement.
Police bodycam footage shared Sunday shows a supercut of protesters throwing rocks, bottles, wood and explosives at officers during Saturday’s protests in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Police said 59 officers suffered injuries ranging from cuts and bruises to burns. One officer was treated at a hospital for a torn meniscus. Photos showed several officers’ fleshy wounds.
Rioters also set fire to a portable trailer and threw an explosive device at the police department’s East District precinct, leaving an 8-inch hole in the side of the building, police said.
Police declared a riot and deployed sponge rounds, OC spray, and blast balls to disperse protesters. At least 47 people were arrested for assaults on officers, obstruction, and failure to disperse.
Polce said an officer, left, suffered an abrasion to his leg from an explosive device, while another, right, sustained a burn. (Seattle Police Department)
However, protesters accused police of excessive force on social media, posting images of wounds they say were caused by police munitions, the Seattle Times reported.
The fear of large-scale protests at the start of the weekend had led businesses to board up windows over concerns their property may be targeted by rioters after vandals damaged property earlier last week, KOMO News reported.
Joseph Wanagel describes the violence he’s witnessing in his neighborhood by ‘criminals’ who have taken over the protests.
In the Sunday morning aftermath, many businesses were left to once again clean up debris from broken windows, vandalized buildings and looted stores, Q13 FOX reported. A Starbucks was targeted by several rioters who smashed windows, looted, and spray-painted profanity on the exterior walls.
PORTLAND, Oregon — Violence continued Sunday night near the contested federal courthouse, with local police temporarily detaining two people after a gunshot, and federal agents tackling and detaining at least six protesters before seizing weapons and shields from their encampment.
“Get off me, get off me!” a woman screamed as at least three federal agents swarmed over her, shoving her to the street and holding her down. Several of her fellow protesters tried to push the agents off, but were warned back by a camouflaged agent with a rifle.
A handful of other protesters were tackled, restrained and either frog-marched into the courthouse or loaded into marked police vehicles. Federal agents then searched the encampment that’s sprung up in a city park across the street, looking through tents and containers before removing shields, gas masks and other protest supplies, including several sticks, chemical sprayers and an empty gas can.
It was unclear what precipitated the arrests around 1:20 a.m., but they came during an evening of tension heightened by a reported shooting around 7:30 p.m. in the protest encampment. Police briefly detained two people in connection with that incident, and later released pictures of loaded rifle magazines and two Molotov cocktails they found nearby. It remained unclear early Monday if the shooting was connected to the protest, and police said the magazines and firebomb “appear to be unrelated” to the shooting.
All last week the area was the scene of violent confrontations between activists and federal officers. Videos posted to Twitter showed angry crowds confronting police investigating the shooting. Portland police have largely ceded the area to protesters for the past week, but arrived quickly following the reported shooting.
“As police were securing the scene a person arrived at a hospital by private vehicle with an apparent gunshot wound, non-life threatening. That person seems to have been associated with the incident,” police officials said in a statement.
Thousands of protesters have flocked to the streets surrounding the federal courthouse each night for nearly two months since the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day in Minneapolis, and while federal agents have been subjected to barrages of fireworks, bottles and flaming garbage, violence between protesters has been limited.
Activists aligned with the Black Lives Matter social justice movement have said they are worried the focus on federal law enforcement and the courthouse risks diluting their efforts to overhaul the Portland police department. Protests have taken place every day since Floyd’s death, but exploded in size last week after President Donald Trump ordered a heightened federal presence to protect federal buildings and restore order.
All that time, the protest area has largely been void of local law enforcement officials. Police no longer routinely patrol the streets in the area, mostly turning a blind eye to people spray painting graffiti on surrounding buildings, setting small fires, destroying pedestrian walk signals, illegally camping in a park and urinating in doorways. In their place, self-appointed guardians manage traffic, provide meals and aid protesters hit with tear gas. And at night they clash with federal agents.
Early on Sunday night, activist and artist Donovan Smith, 28, climbed atop a pickup parked in the middle of the protest and told attendees the Black community must focus on more than just police reform.
“We are doing worse today in Oregon than we were 50 years ago,” he said, calling for the crowd to vote for Black City Council members willing to restructure the police department and examine issues of economic inequality.
Sunday’s crowd was substantially smaller than the estimated 4,000 people who attended Saturday night and saw far less interaction between protesters and federal agents until about midnight, when the two sides exchanged a short volley of fireworks and glass bottles, answered by tear gas.
Saturday night, protesters screamed at officers to quit their jobs and a small number of protesters attached ropes to a fence encircling the courthouse building, pulling down a section. This prompted agents to swarm out into the street, firing tear gas, to push the crowd back.
Portland police declared the protest a riot just after 1 a.m. on Sunday morning and sent in police cars and officers to scatter participants, making six arrests. Federal agents made eight arrests for either assaulting an officer or failing to comply with officers’ orders.
The Department of Homeland Security said 14 agents were hurt in confrontations with protesters Saturday night, variously referring to participants as “anarchists,” “violent actors” and “rioters.” Agents said they were hit with bottles and fireworks and blinded with lasers and high-intensity flashlights.
Trump, who sent in the federal officers more than a week ago, said journalists were not showing what’s “really” going on. “They want the American public to believe that these are just some wonderful protesters, not radical left ANARCHISTS!” he tweeted Sunday. He then followed up by accusing hundreds of mothers protesting in Portland under the name “Wall of Moms” of being part of a scam.
Trump accused protesters — which have also included fathers, college students, doctors and nurses, scientists and military veterans — of being anarchists “who hate our country.”
To appease protesters, city leaders have taken steps to reform the police department, cutting $15 million from what would have been a $245 million budget and disbanding three specialty units that patrolled schools and public transit and worked to reduce gun violence. City leaders also downsized the department’s SWAT team, and allocated $5 million to pay for unarmed first responders to assist people experiencing homelessness.
But Tai Carpenter of the activist group Don’t Shoot PDX said victory will come not only when the federal presence decreases in the city, but if major change happens within local government. To her, that’s the disbanding of the Portland Police Bureau and the resignation of Mayor Ted Wheeler.
“Our resistance community is very strong. First, we had the Wall of Moms and then it’s the Wall of Dads, the Wall of Veterans. There’s a constant evolution here, and people are always finding more and more reasons to say, ‘I’m going out there, too,’” she said. “Hopefully, things change by November. I’m feeling good about it, especially with so many youth leading. They’re extremely inspiring, and they’re so organized.”
Ameya Okamoto, 20, the lead organizer with Fridays4Freedom, said she is leery to use the word “victory” when discussing outcomes of any protest because “we know we’re long-term.” She’s hopeful there will be small milestones worth celebrating, like “the unseating of a white, complicit mayor” but recognizes overall that “this fight is so much bigger than us.”
The group was founded just before Juneteenth, and has posted a list of demands on its Instagram page, including disarming Portland State University; the creation and implementation of ethnic studies programs throughout Portland Public Schools; and the complete abolition of the Portland Police Bureau
Wheeler, who was teargassed by federal officers late Wednesday night after spending hours at the demonstration trying to calm protesters, will face off in November against Sarah Iannarone, an urban policy consultant who also took on Wheeler in the 2016 mayoral race, finishing third in the primary. She’s been a regular at protests and has participated in the protest’s “Wall of Moms.”
“If you’re going to decry the violence of Trump’s feds, and say they’re not welcome here, you need to decry the violence in your own law enforcement,” she told The Oregonian last week about Wheeler’s leadership. “The mayor isn’t willing to do that. He won’t have the public trust until he does.”
However, another analyst said it isn’t quite clear what the Trump administration is trying to achieve even as there needs to be global pushback toward a domestically repressive and internationally assertive China.
“The question is not whether to push back, the question is how to do it most effectively,” said Michael Fuchs, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, an independent non-partisan think tank.
But “at this point, it really just seems like the Trump administration is doing everything that it can to look tough — if you will — on China without a clear strategy that’s been articulated here as to what they want to achieve, what kind of Chinese behavior they want to change. That to me is the real concern here,” said Fuchs, who was appointed as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs by President Barack Obama and served from 2013 to 2016.
While there may be concerns domestically — particularly among businesses — about Beijing’s aggressive diplomacy, there is support for Xi Jinping’s approach to international relations, said Stratfor’s Baker.
“They’ve shifted domestically to really pushing this concept of a new nationalism,” said Baker.
“The idea of pan-Chinese-ism — you pull it together, you talk about 4,000-plus years of history and you say China is in a position where the world is treating it unfairly and China needs to finally stand up for itself, move past that …Deng Xiaoping moment where China is quiet and stands on the sidelines and he’s gaining some support for that internally,” said Baker. “There is that sense of Chinese pride that is strong right now.”
He is introducing legislation to ban federal funds for a project by the New York Times newspaper, aimed at revising the historical view of slavery.
The project’s founder expressed outrage at the remarks.
This comes amid the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minnesota in May sparked huge protests across the US against police brutality and racism.
Protesters and police in the city of Portland, Oregon, have clashed repeatedly in recent days. The confrontations have escalated since a deeply controversial decision by President Donald Trump to send federal law enforcement to the city. Under the US constitution, policing is a matter for individual states, not for the federal government.
Senator Cotton told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: “We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country.
“As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as [Abraham] Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.”
Media captionPortland protests: Calls for federal troops to leave US city
On Thursday Senator Cotton introduced the Saving American History Act, aimed at stopping funding for 1619, an initiative which bases US history teaching around the first arrivals of slave ships in the US in August of that year.
The project won the Pulitzer prize for commentary for its founder, the New York Times journalist Nicole Hannah-Jones, but it has been criticised by many US conservatives, with Senator Cotton describing it as “left-wing propaganda”.
“The entire premise of the New York Times’ factually, historically flawed 1619 Project… is that America is at root, a systemically racist country to the core and irredeemable,” Senator Cotton said.
“I reject that root and branch. America is a great and noble country founded on the proposition that all mankind is created equal. We have always struggled to live up to that promise, but no country has ever done more to achieve it.”
Responding to Senator Cotton’s legislation, Hannah-Jones tweeted that if slavery was justified as a means to an end, anything else could be too.
As he left the Capitol, Meadows told reporters that they had “been working through just some of the technical language” and had reached “an agreement in principle.”
“We have a few modifications that we’re looking for clarity on, but we’ve gotten those down to a handful that hopefully will be resolved in the next hour or so,” he added.
He also said he expected the remaining open issues to be “resolved” before Republicans introduce their package Monday.
“It’s just down to a handful of items where we believe a phone call here and there should be able to resolve it,” he added.
Mnuchin said there were “no outstanding issues” but noted that “there’s some language that people are just double-checking.”
Senate Republicans are expected to unveil their roughly $1 trillion proposal on Monday after punting last week amid ongoing negotiations with the White House on key provisions of the package.
The package is expected to include $105 billion for schools, $16 billion in new testing money, more flexibility for how states and local governments can use $150 billion appropriated by Congress in March, and a five-year shield from coronavirus lawsuits except in the case of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
It’s also expected to include a second round of stimulus checks. Mnuchin has said it will mirror the language in the March bill that provided a one-time check of $1,200 to individuals who make up to $75,000 per year. The amount of the check was scaled down until it hit an income ceiling of $99,000 per year for an individual, where it was phased out altogether.
Republicans are also expected to nix the $600-per-week increase in unemployment benefits from the March bill, which began to expire on Saturday.
Instead, they are proposing a system that would match the unemployment benefits to approximately 70 percent of what a person was making before being laid off, according to Mnuchin.
States have warned that it could take weeks or months to transition to the new system, given the antiquated technology in many offices. Some Republican lawmakers have said there needs to be a transition period during which the federal government would provide a flat amount per week, potentially $200.
Both Mnuchin and Meadows declined on Sunday to get into details of the unemployment language beyond providing a 70 percent match.
The introduction of the GOP proposal is expected to mark the start of bipartisan negotiations, which will likely be largely carried out by administration officials shuttling between leadership offices.
“We can’t go home without” a deal, she told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It’s so sad that people should have this uncertainty in their life.”
Meadows and Mnuchin, during separate TV interviews on Sunday, floated the idea of passing a “skinny” relief bill that would pair the unemployment piece with one or two other issues such as school funding and liability protection.
“I see us being able to provide unemployment insurance, maybe a retention credit to keep people from being displaced or brought back into the workplace, helping with our schools,” Meadows told ABC’s “This Week.”
“If we can do that along with liability protection, perhaps we put that forward and get that passed as we can negotiate on the rest of the bill in the weeks to come,” he added.
Pelosi previously rejected the idea of breaking the next coronavirus bill into pieces. Meadows told reporters late last week that he was floating the idea without Pelosi or McConnell weighing in first.
“We cannot piecemeal this,” Pelosi told reporters late last week.
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 20: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (L) listens to U.S. … [+] President Donald Trump talks to reporters while hosting Republican congressional leaders and members of Trump’s cabinet in the Oval Office at the White House July 20, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump and the congressional leaders talked about a proposed new round of financial stimulus to help the economy during the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
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The Senate returned last Monday after weeks of speculation about what could be in the next stimulus bill, we have our first concrete signs of what Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (K-KY) is calling CARES 2.
To set the stage, remember that the Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the Heroes Act in May. It was largely seen as too expensive, costing over $3 trillion. The bill to be presented by Senator McConnell is expected to be around $1 trillion.
That’s a big gap they need to cross during a short window for negotiations. Early in the negotiation process, there was dissent between even the White House and Senate Republicans over many aspects of the bill.
For example, President Trump had been very supportive of a payroll tax cut and a second stimulus check. Senate Republicans concerned about the price tag of the bill have insisted that including both a payroll tax cut and a second stimulus check would be too high.
But in the first week of negotiations, it appears that an agreement has been reached in principle including financial assistance to schools, funding towards testing and tracing, and favoring a stimulus check over a payroll tax cut.
This, however, does not include the support of the Senate or House Democrats… yet.
The Proposal To Be Presented by 8 Senators
In a floor speech last week, Senator McConnell named eight of his fellow Senators and explained who would be presenting each component of the bill. It’s not clear if these will be separate bills or different parts of a single bill. Breaking up the stimulus package into multiple bills something that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has said she opposes.
In fact, on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows suggested that they would try to pass unemployment insurance, a retention credit, liability shield, and additional funding for schools first and then negotiate on the rest of the bill “in the weeks to come.”
As for tomorrow, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Chairman of the Committee on Finance, will spearhead the aspects of the proposal that deal with jobs and the economy – including the next round of stimulus checks. This will also include how the next round of federal unemployment benefits will be implemented.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Chairman of the Small Business Committee, and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) are expected to present a “sequel” to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). They previously proposed the Keeping American Workers Paid and Employed Act in March and that could give us a preview of what would be in a sequel to the PPP.
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, along with Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) would present the funding package for schools and universities.
Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) would include a bill that would “help a future Congress evaluate bipartisan proposals for protecting and strengthening the programs that Americans count on.” This bill was recently sponsored by Senator Romney and is the S. 2733 – TRUST Act which establishes “congressional rescue committees to develop recommendations and legislation to improve critical social contract programs.”
These are not the official proposals. This is what I believe will be proposed tomorrow based on all the publicly available information. I will update these sections with the official proposal when they are made available.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed that the stimulus check in CARES 2 will match the stimulus check in the first Cares Act.
If so, the next stimulus check will be a $1,200 one-time payment to all Americans who earn less than $75,000 including $500 for each dependent. This would be structured similar to the first one, as an advance on a refundable tax credit.
Joint filers would get $2,400 for those who earned less than $150,000. If you earn more than those amounts, your stimulus check will be reduced by 5% of your adjusted gross income above those limits.
For insight on how Democrats would respond to this proposal, we can turn to the Heroes Act that was passed by the House of Representatives in mid-May.
The Heroes Act offered a similar check to the Cares Act – a $1,200 per person payment ($2,400 for joint filers) to those who earned less than $75,000 ($150,000 for joint filers) with a 5% phase out for those earning more than the limit. It increased the amount for dependents to $1,200 and included all dependents, up to three per household.
It appears that the stimulus check in this bill is not “more generous” than the Heroes Act but is more generous than only giving one to those who earned less than $40,000.
Reduced Unemployment Benefits
The enhanced federal unemployment benefits of $600 per week that were set to expire at the end of the month are now guaranteed to expire in their current form. The Heroes Act extended the same federal unemployment benefits until January of 2021 but it appears that is too much for some Republican lawmakers.
Previously, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the White House was open to replacing the benefit with a smaller one. Most recently, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said that would be capped at 70% of the worker’s usual pay.
I expect the bill to propose a flat unemployment benefit of $100-$200 per week with the benefits lasting through the end of the year. After that, the benefit would drop to better align with the person’s actual lost income but capped at 70%. The challenge with this proposal is that it’s difficult to administer benefits capped at a percentage of previous income.
This is significantly lower than the $600 per week benefit offered in the Heroes Act, which was an extension of the unemployment benefits created in the Cares Act.
Moratorium on Evictions
The Cares Act put a moratorium on evictions that applied to buildings with a mortgage backed by the government. Landlords of those buildings were also not allowed to initiate eviction proceedings or charge additional fees or penalties for nonpayment of rent. Renters are still required to pay rent during the eviction grace period and may face repercussions for nonpayment, including eviction after the moratorium ends.
That moratorium expired on July 24th and on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kudlow also said that moratorium would be extended in the next package.
It’s unclear how long it would last but it could extend until the end of the year. The Cares Act had a 120 day moratorium and Cares 2 could repeat that figure or extend it even longer.
Additional Aid to States
I expected the proposal will not add additional funding to state and local governments but instead offer flexibility to the funds already allocated by the Cares Act. It may allow state and local governments to use Cares Act funding to make up for those lost revenues with some restrictions – such as states cannot use the funds for pensions or retirement benefits, to replenish a “rainy day fund.”
This is what was included in a draft proposal shared by the New York Times – the proposal also said that they “expect to get some added in negotiations.”
In the Heroes Act, House Democrats included approximately an $1 trillion aid to state and local governments impacted by the coronavirus. With so many areas shut down, tax revenues have gone down sharply and this funding was meant to help deal with that shortfall.
Adding more funding was a top priority of Democrats and so this sets up a big showdown in the final bill.
5-Year Liability Shield
Senator McConnell has said he wants to see a five-year liability shield for businesses, non-profits, schools, medical providers and professionals dating back to the start of the year. This would protect them from “frivolous” lawsuits arising from the pandemic.
The law would require that a plaintiff prove that the defendant was “grossly negligent” or “willful in their misconduct.” The plaintiff would also have to show that the defendant violated the relevant local public health guidelines at the time of the incident.
This won’t necessarily have a direct financial impact for many Americans but it does create a point of contention with Democrats, who called for more OHSA regulation in the Heroes Act, and is another speed bump in getting the bill passed.
Return to Work Bonuses
Several Republican lawmakers proposed “return to work” bonuses, including Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX). They saw enhanced unemployment benefits as a disincentive to return to work and a “return to work” bonus was seen as a way to add stimulus without the moral hazard. Both proposals would pay the employee a bonus for returning to work.
Larry Kudlow mentioned “retention bonuses” and “tax credits to small business and restaurants” on CNN’s “State of the Union” but didn’t expand either. If it’s like the Cares Act, then the bill will create tax credits for business and not direct payments to returning workers.
The Cares Act created an Employee Retention Tax Credit equal to 50% of qualified wages paid to an employee until January 2021 with a limit of $10,000 in wages per employees. This means the tax credit is limited to $5,000 per employee.
If we look at the Keeping American Workers Paid and Employed Act one-page summary, we see that it’s structured similarly to the first PPP. It does help businesses retain their employees with low cost loans that could be forgiven if used for payroll but nothing directly to employees returning to work.
There was no mention of a retention bonus paid directly to employees so we will have to wait and see what is proposed.
Payroll Tax Cut
President Trump had repeatedly called for a payroll tax cut and in a recent interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” he said that he may not sign a stimulus bill if it doesn’t include a payroll tax cut.
The payroll tax cut was a priority for the White House but it didn’t have a lot of support from Republicans. It will not be included in the next stimulus package.
On CNBC on last Thursday, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said that the payroll tax cut will not be included in the base bill. President Trump followed up with a tweet that blamed Democrats for its exclusion:
This sets up a scenario in which he can sign a bill without the payroll tax and still blame it on the Democrats – a positive development.
What’s The Timeline?
There wasn’t much time when Congress returned to work last week – there is even less time now after a week of negotiations between Senate Republicans and the White House.
The Senate is set to recess on August 7th and the House of Representatives is set to recess on July 31st. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she is willing to delay the recess to pass a stimulus bill but Senator McConnell has not. This leaves them with a deadline of August 7th. That’s only 10 business days to get a deal done.
If they cannot come to an agreement by then, and Senator McConnell does not extend the Senate work period, neither chamber is set to return until after Labor Day at the beginning of September.
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin seemed confident a deal could be made. On Saturday, he told reporters at the Capital that he expects that the majority of the checks would be out by August.
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