Daily Political Briefing
July 29, 2021, 5:51 p.m. ET
July 29, 2021, 5:51 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a $2.1 billion emergency spending bill to pay for Capitol security costs stemming from the Jan. 6 attack and a push by the Biden administration to allow thousands of Afghans facing retribution for aiding American troops to be quickly evacuated to the United States.
The Senate voted 98 to 0 after leaders in both parties endorsed the stopgap spending bill, the product of weeks of wrangling between Republicans and Democrats over how broad the legislation should be, including the addition of more than $1.1 billion for Afghan refugees.
The House immediately took up the bill and passed it 411 to 11, clearing it for President Biden’s signature. Six of the most progressive Democrats and five Republicans, mostly from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, voted no.
Earlier, the White House issued a statement announcing the administration’s support, suggesting that Mr. Biden would sign it.
The bill steers $70.7 million to a U.S. Capitol Police force still reeling from the deadly riot, to cover the hiring of more officers, overtime and hazard pay, retention bonuses, mental health resources, training and equipment.
“The last six months have pushed those who protect the U.S. Capitol to the limits,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “In the face of unprecedented adversity, they responded heroically. We must support them now, as they so courageously supported us.”
The measure also provides $521 million to reimburse the National Guard for its response at the Capitol during the mob violence and months of patrolling afterward; $300 million for security upgrades to the complex, including hardening windows and doors and adding a new camera system; and $35.4 million for other agencies that helped respond.
On the House floor, Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, endorsed the bill, but argued that it fell short of the Capitol complex’s security needs. She noted that the Senate had stripped out money to prosecute those who stormed the building and for the creation of a quick reaction force of the National Guard, among other items.
“This bill is not perfect, but time is running short and the immediate need is dire,” Ms. DeLauro said. “In those harrowing moments of Jan. 6, the men and women of the Capitol Police protected us. Now we must protect them.”
Final passage came days after police officers who defended the Capitol that day told an investigative committee in excruciating detail of the horrors they endured when a pro-Trump mob stormed the building. Since the attack, the Capitol Police force has been in a state of crisis, with funding, staffing and operational problems plaguing a deeply demoralized agency.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, had been warning for weeks that the agency was in danger of running out of money and canceling necessary training if Congress did not quickly approve more funding.
“If we do not act, the Capitol Police will deplete salaries funding in a matter of weeks, and the National Guard will be forced to cancel needed training to carry out their mission at home and abroad,” he said on Thursday. “Doing nothing would be a security crisis entirely of our own making.”
The legislation passed after several Republicans who had been holding it up dropped their objections and the Senate agreed to a proposal by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, to require the administration to report to Congress on the Afghan special immigrant visa program.
The bill incorporates a measure passed by the House last week that adds 8,000 new visas for Afghans facing death threats from the Taliban for helping American personnel in Afghanistan as U.S. forces withdraw after a 20-year war. The House overwhelmingly approved the measure, which also expedites the application process and allows more Afghans to qualify. It also includes hundreds of millions of dollars for government programs that aid refugees and migrants and resettle them in the United States.
More than 18,000 Afghans who have worked as interpreters, drivers, engineers, security guards, fixers and embassy clerks for the United States during the war have been caught in bureaucratic limbo after applying for special immigrant visas, which are available to people who face threats because of work for the U.S. government.
“We intend to keep our nation’s promises to brave Afghans who have taken great risks to help America and our partners fight the terrorists,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said in floor remarks this week.
President Biden on Thursday announced that all civilian federal employees must be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be forced to submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel.
“We all want our lives to get back to normal, and fully vaccinated workplaces will make that happen more quickly and more successfully,” Mr. Biden said, speaking in the East Room. “We all know that in our gut. With incentives and mandates, we can make a huge difference and save a lot of lives.”
The federal government employs more than 4 million Americans, all of whom will need to attest to being fully vaccinated in order to avoid wearing a mask on the job, regardless of where in the country they work, and comply with screening tests once or twice a week.
The president also directed the Defense Department to study how and when to add the coronavirus vaccine to the list of required vaccinations for all members of the military. The announcement marked the first time he has suggested that a mandate could come for active-duty members of the military before any of the three federally authorized vaccines receives full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. And he called on states, territories and local governments to pay $100 to Americans who remain unvaccinated to get their shots.
Mr. Biden’s announcement of new mandates in a pleading speech was part of an attempt to reset expectations on the health scourge that just weeks ago he thought he had under control. On July 4, the White House celebrated the national holiday as a day of “independence from Covid-19.”
But now, the Delta variant is ripping through unvaccinated communities, threatening to undo the progress to stop the spread of the coronavirus made by the Biden administration in its first six months. About half of all Americans have been fully vaccinated, but the pace of vaccinations has declined significantly from early spring. Recent research has shown fully vaccinated people are protected against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including those involving the Delta variant. And cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still a fraction of their devastating winter peaks.
“Cases will go up further before they start to go back down,” Mr. Biden said Thursday, tempering expectations for what is to come. “There’s a challenge as you knew there could be.”
Mr. Biden acknowledged the news was frustrating. “I know we hoped this would be a simple straightforward line without problems or new challenges, but that isn’t real life,” he said.
On Tuesday, the C.D.C. revised its mask guidance, advising that even vaccinated people should resume wearing masks in public indoor spaces in parts of the country where the virus is surging. Some states and municipalities were quick to update their own mask rules, while others expressed outrage. Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., said Thursday that an indoor mask mandate would be reimposed on Saturday to comply with new federal guidance.
For vaccinated Americans worried about breakthrough cases, Mr. Biden reiterated that the pandemic was among the unvaccinated and that booster shots were not necessary. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been tracking breakthrough infections that result in hospitalization and death and the director said this week the agency is conducting outbreak investigations in clusters.
“As of now, my medical advisers say the answer is no,” he said of booster shots. “No American needs a booster now. But if science tells us there’s a need for boosters, that’s something we’ll do.”
The administration is stepping up its efforts to convince unvaccinated Americans to get their shots. The Biden administration is calling on states, territories and local governments to pay $100 to Americans who remain unvaccinated against the coronavirus to get their shots. And Mr. Biden announced Thursday that small- and medium-sized businesses will now be reimbursed for offering their employees paid leave to get their family members, including their children, vaccinated.
Some experts, especially in the early days of the vaccination campaign, have expressed concern over the idea of paying people to get vaccinated, worrying that it could be perceived as out of step with messaging that vaccines bring enormous benefits on their own.
Mr. Biden also called on school districts across the country to host at least one pop-up vaccination clinic over the coming weeks, with the goal of increasing vaccination rates among children 12 and older.
Other governments around the country are beginning to put in place similar arrangements as well, as the highly contagious Delta variant has caused case numbers to balloon in recent weeks. New York City will require all 300,000 city employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing, and New York State will require tens of thousands of state employees to show proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing and will mandate patient-facing health care workers at state-run hospitals to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment. California also unveiled a plan to require vaccinations for state employees.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will require all workers and volunteers at state-operated facilities to be fully vaccinated or receive an approved medical or religious exemption by Sept. 30, according to a statement sent to The New York Times on Wednesday. Officials had not responded to questions about whether those with exemptions will be required to undergo testing.
And the Department of Veterans Affairs will require 115,000 of its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in the next two months. But public health officials are hoping that the prospect of extra burdens for the unvaccinated will help persuade more people to get inoculated.
People familiar with Mr. Biden’s announcement said it was part of a longstanding discussion about how to bring most federal workers back to the office after nearly a year and a half in which hundreds of thousands of them worked from home because of the pandemic.
A team has been working on that plan for months, trying to juggle the concerns of employees and the need to keep the government functioning. One concern that officials confronted was how to require vaccinations without potentially prompting critical employees to quit, undermining the government’s mission.
Rebecca Robbins and Dan Levin contributed reporting.
Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington said on Thursday that an indoor mask mandate would be reimposed in the nation’s capital on Saturday, becoming the latest jurisdiction to change public health protocols after new federal guidance advised even vaccinated people in coronavirus hot spots to resume wearing face coverings in indoor public spaces.
The announcement from Washington came as some states and municipalities were quick to update their own mask rules, while others expressed outrage, another example of the political tensions that have often accompanied public health precautions during the pandemic.
The new federal guidance also suggested masks for all children, staff members and visitors in schools, regardless of their vaccination status and community transmission of the virus.
The mayors of Atlanta and Kansas City, Mo., both Democrats, reinstated mask mandates; Atlanta’s took effect immediately and Kansas City’s will start on Aug. 2. Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada, a Democrat, ordered that residents in counties with high rates of transmission — including Clark County, home to Las Vegas — wear masks in public indoor spaces starting on Friday. In Minnesota, health and education officials urged all students, staff and visitors to wear masks in schools, but held off making the guidance a state requirement.
Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, a Democrat, announced a mask requirement for state employees and visitors in public areas of state government buildings, starting on Aug. 2. She also recommended masks for all residents in counties with high transmission rates, while acknowledging the frustrations of vaccinated people.
“I take no pleasure in asking you to put a mask on again,” she said at a news conference on Wednesday, the same day a mask requirement went into effect in a central Kansas school district.
On Wednesday, at least six Republican governors, Greg Abbott of Texas, Doug Ducey of Arizona, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, and Ron DeSantis of Florida, signaled their opposition to the recommendation.
“It’s very important that we say unequivocally, no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions, and no mandates,” Mr. DeSantis said in a speech at a gathering held by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative lobbying group.
Nine states — Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — had already banned or limited face mask mandates, leaving cities and counties with few options to fight the virus spread.
Some municipalities in states that have resisted mandates faced headwinds even before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its new guidance. On Monday St. Louis County, Mo., reinstated a mask mandate, only to face a lawsuit hours later from Eric Schmitt, the state’s Republican attorney general.
Major employers are also struggling with how best to interpret the new mask recommendations. Apple announced that it would require masks for customers and employees in more than half of its U.S. stores and in some corporate offices, and MGM Resorts International, the casino and hotel giant, said it would require all guests and visitors to wear masks indoors in public areas.
Other companies have pushed back their return-to-office dates, while some that have already relaxed mask restrictions, like WalMart and Kroger, had not indicated their plans as of Wednesday.
Lauren Hirsch and Jack Nicas contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is calling on states, territories and local governments to pay $100 to Americans who remain unvaccinated against the coronavirus to get their shots. The move comes as concern has grown about rising cases across the country, and the administration has shifted its strategy to focus on more personalized approaches.
The Treasury Department said Thursday that the money to pay for the vaccine incentive payments could come from the $350 billion of relief funds that is being given to states and cities as part of the economic rescue package that Congress approved in March. The incentive is intended to “boost vaccination rates, protect communities, and save lives.”
The administration is also stepping up efforts to get to companies to give their employees time off to get the vaccine.
The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said that employers can claim tax credits to cover wages paid to workers who take family members to get vaccinated or care for members of their households who are recovering from the vaccination. Self-employed workers are also eligible to receive the tax credits.
The initiative expands on a program that was rolled out in April that offered a paid leave tax credit to offset the cost to companies with fewer than 500 workers incurred by giving paid time to workers getting vaccines.
The Biden administration has been tussling with some states over how the relief money can be used, but earlier this year issued guidance that made clear it can go toward programs that are expected to increase the number of people who choose to get vaccinated. The Treasury Department said it will provide technical assistance for states and cities to help them use the money to boost vaccinations in their communities and it will be working with the Department of Health and Human Services.
States and cities have been taking creative approaches, such as lotteries, to encourage people to get vaccinated. Some experts, especially in the early days of the vaccination campaign, have expressed concern, though, over the idea of paying people to get vaccinated, worrying that it could be perceived as out of step with messaging that vaccines bring enormous benefits on their own. Opponents of the idea have also questioned whether paying people is the best use of funds to encourage people to get vaccinated.
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said this week that the city will begin offering $100 payments as part of an incentive plan to spur more people to get vaccinated. The program is expected to start on Friday.
“I think when someone says here’s $100 for you, that’s going to make a big impact,” Mr. de Blasio said.
Dr. Elisa Sobo, an anthropologist at San Diego State University who studies vaccine hesitancy, said that the payment could be an incentive but suggested it was unlikely to sway every unvaccinated person. “Some folks will find the offer insulting; others will use it as ‘proof’ that the vaccine is no good,” she said. But, she added, “There are lots of people who will say ‘why not’ to $100. Some people who have until now been on the fence will see $100 as a good reason to get off of it.”
In guidance that was issued in May, the Treasury said that the relief funds can be used to encourage vaccinations “so long as such costs are reasonably proportional to the expected public health benefit.”
Rebecca Robbins and Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.
The proposed spending plan for the bipartisan infrastructure package may not be enough to foot the bill, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The fiscal watchdog group’s analysis, released on Thursday, found that the so-called pay-fors “appear to overstate savings or count savings that have already occurred,” meaning that the offsets might only cover about half the cost of the legislation.
Lawmakers have clashed for weeks over the $1 trillion package, finally coming to an agreement on Wednesday and voting to take up the bill in the Senate. The deal would provide about $550 billion in new federal money to help repair the nation’s aging roads and bridges, expand access to public transit and build out the nation’s electric vehicle charging stations. The pay-fors would largely repurpose already-approved funds, rely on accounting changes to raise funds and assume that some of the investments would eventually pay for themselves.
The largest source of funding is $205 billion that the group says will come from repurposing certain pandemic relief dollars. Lawmakers also project that the long-term projects will result in $56 billion in economic growth.
The analysis argued that some of the reported offsets come from savings that may have already occurred, including the $53 billion that is estimated to come from states that returned expanded unemployment benefits after ending that program early. The analysis also questioned whether the $205 billion estimated from repurposed Covid relief funds could actually be applied to funding for the infrastructure package given previous legislative efforts to repurpose some of that money.
The package also relies on pension smoothing, which the analysis called a “budget gimmick.” Although the bipartisan group has not yet estimated how much will come from reducing unemployment insurance fraud, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said it did not expect the measures to yield a hefty amount of savings, citing an Office of Management and Budget estimate that found that $5 billion of anti-fraud funding would save only $6 billion over a decade.
The group said the funding proposals were a good start, but more pay-fors will be needed.
“The legislation includes sensible reforms to lower prescription drug prices, extend or impose fees, and improve information reporting to reduce the tax gap,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement. “But it also relies on several phony offsets that will save little or no money.”
After weeks of debate and discussion, the White House and a bipartisan group of senators said on Wednesday that they had reached agreement on an infrastructure bill. The $1 trillion package is far smaller than the $2.3 trillion plan that President Biden had originally proposed and would provide about $550 billion in new federal money for public transit, roads, bridges, water and other physical projects over the next five years, according to a White House fact sheet.
Lawmakers have yet to release legislative text of the bill, which the Senate voted to advance in an initial vote Wednesday evening. But here’s a look at the bipartisan group’s agreement for the final package.
Funding for roads and bridges
The package provides $110 billion in new funding for roads, bridges and other major projects. The funds would be used to repair and rebuild with a “focus on climate change mitigation,” according to the White House.
That funding would only begin to chip away at some of the nation’s pressing infrastructure needs, transportation experts say.
Investments in public transit
Public buses, subways and trains would receive $39 billion in new funding, which would be used to repair aging infrastructure and modernize and expand transit service across the country.
While the amount of new funding for public transit was scaled back from a June proposal, which included $49 billion, the Biden administration said it would be the largest federal investment in public transit in history.
Big investments in rail and freight lines
The deal would inject $66 billion in rail to address Amtrak’s maintenance backlog, along with upgrading the high-traffic Northeast corridor from Washington to Boston (a route frequented by East Coast lawmakers). It would also expand rail service outside the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.
Other provisions in the bipartisan deal include $55 billion to fund clean drinking water initiatives and $7.5 billion toward building out the nation’s network of electric vehicle charging stations.
The $1 trillion infrastructure deal reached by a bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday would make a significant down payment on President Biden’s ambitious environmental agenda. But the money for provisions to cut the pollution fueling climate change is a fraction of the $2 trillion that Mr. Biden once vowed to spend.
The plan, which has $550 billion in new spending, includes the first federal funds designated for “climate resilience” — to adapt and rebuild roads, ports and bridges to withstand the damages wrought by the rising sea levels, stronger storms and more devastating heat waves that will come as the planet continues to warm.
Hours after the deal was reached on Wednesday, the Senate voted 67 to 32 to take up the infrastructure bill, as Republicans joined Democrats in clearing the way for action on a crucial piece of President Biden’s agenda.
Though it falls short of Mr. Biden’s goals, the White House sees the bipartisan measure as a first step toward passing a separate $3.5 trillion bill that Democrats hope to push through on a party-line basis, over the objection of Republicans.
“As climate policy, this is an appetizer,” Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, said of the package unveiled on Wednesday. “It’s not the main course.”
Democrats intend to build significant climate programs into the second bill, including a provision that would essentially pay electric utilities to generate energy from nonpolluting sources, and tax incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles.
Mr. Biden has vowed to cut United States emissions roughly in half by 2030, and faces pressure to be able to demonstrate progress toward that goal when world leaders gather for a pivotal climate change summit in Glasgow in November. Analysts noted that the bipartisan package alone does not come close to moving the country to Mr. Biden’s goal, but called it an important step.
It would spend $7.5 billion on the first federal effort to build a network of electric vehicle charging stations around the country, though that is far short of the $174 billion that Mr. Biden wants to spend to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. The bill would also spend $39 billion to modernize the nation’s public transit systems, replacing many heavily polluting diesel buses with zero- or low-polluting electric buses.
But Mr. Schatz, who has pushed Mr. Biden to follow through on his ambitious climate pledges, issued a warning.
“If all we do is nibble around the edges and do some resilience programs,” he said, “we’re not solving climate change.”
President Biden announced on Thursday that he would nominate Francisco O. Mora, a prominent Cuban American Democrat, as the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, a position that would make him a leading administration voice on Western Hemisphere policy, including the civil unrest in Cuba and the aftermath of the presidential assassination in Haiti.
Mr. Mora was a fixture on Mr. Biden’s campaign in Florida last year, becoming a familiar face on television news programs in both English and Spanish on topics including the Caribbean diaspora and political disinformation.
Both issues are especially important in South Florida, home to the biggest population of Cubans and Haitians in the United States. Some Cuban Americans, including Cuban American Democrats, have urged Mr. Biden to be more outspoken about the massive street protests in Cuba, which Cuban exiles hope will destabilize the island’s Communist government.
Democrats have tried to re-examine their approach to Latino voters across the United States in light of the significant Hispanic support that Republicans won in last year’s elections. Democrats’ slide was particularly evident in the Miami area, where Republicans succeeded in attracting younger Cuban American and other Hispanic voters.
Nominating Mr. Mora for the role shows that the administration understands the importance of elevating an expert who understands those communities and the importance of bringing democracy and human rights concerns to the forefront of international diplomacy, said Manny Diaz, the chairman of the Florida Democratic Party and a former mayor of the city of Miami.
“When Latin America or the Caribbean sneezes, Miami catches a cold,” Mr. Diaz said. “It’s so important that we have someone that has lived through that, that is sensitive to that, that has been in the middle of it and really understands the hemisphere, the people of the hemisphere and their plight.”
Mr. Mora, who goes by Frank, speaks Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English. He is a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University in Miami, where he previously directed the university’s Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center. Before that, he worked as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere during the Obama administration.
If confirmed, Mr. Mora would succeed former Ambassador Carlos Trujillo, a fellow Cuban American from Miami, who served from March 2018 until the end of President Donald J. Trump’s term.
Republicans in Georgia’s General Assembly have requested a performance review of the top election official in Fulton County, the first step in a possible takeover of the county’s electoral process that could give the Republican-led legislature more control over an area with the largest concentration of Democratic voters in the state.
The request, submitted in a letter on Tuesday by State Senator Butch Miller and signed by about two dozen other Republican state senators, calls for a panel review of Richard Barron, the county election director, over what the lawmakers described as a failure to properly perform risk-limiting audits, a process that helps ensure the correct results and security, after the 2020 election.
“We do so as a measure of last resort, having failed to adequately assuage the concern that we, as elected officials, have regarding the integrity of the Fulton County elections process,” Mr. Miller wrote in the letter.
Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, has a record of problems with its elections. Most recently, its June 2020 primary contest was marred by voting machine difficulties that were exacerbated by the small size and poor training of its staff, causing lines to stretch for hours across the county.
But the November general election and the January runoff elections in the county ran relatively smoothly on each Election Day, with few reports of lengthy waits or other complications. There were no legitimate questions about the accuracy of the results in any of the three recent elections. In the presidential race, President Biden carried the county with more than 72 percent of the vote and more than 380,000 votes.
The review process for local election officials is a newly critical element to Georgia elections after state Republicans passed a sweeping new voting law in April. It includes several provisions that lay the groundwork for an extraordinary takeover of election administration by partisan lawmakers.
Under the new law, the State Elections Board is permitted to replace county election board members after a performance review or investigation. But the new law also restructures the state board, stripping the secretary of state of his authority and giving the legislature the ability to appoint members, including the chair.
The letter, which was earlier reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was signed by three Republican members of the Fulton County delegation in the State Senate. The letter’s authors said they expected members of Fulton County’s House delegation to join them, which would automatically begin the review.
State Representative Chuck Martin, a Republican member of the Fulton County House delegation, said he supported the request for the performance review. Jan Jones, the speaker pro tempore and another member of the delegation, said that she would send a letter on Friday to the State Elections Board requesting a performance review of Fulton County elections officials, and that it would be signed by four members of the Fulton delegation.
“Mine is not with an eye on taking over elections,” Mr. Martin said in an interview on Thursday. “This just seems to be the only way we can get data to get answers for the people we represent.”
Mr. Barron, the Fulton County election director, did not respond to requests for comment.
Democrats quickly denounced the move, warning that it undermined the sanctity of future elections.
“After giving themselves unprecedented power under Senate Bill 202, Republicans wasted no time in waging an anti-democratic, partisan power grab, attempting to seize control of elections in Georgia’s largest county, home to the greatest number of voters of color in the state,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, the chief executive of Fair Fight Action, a Democratic voting rights group based in Georgia. “Their partisan efforts risk election subversion.”
Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, supported the review.
“I have called repeatedly for change in Fulton’s elections leadership, so I’m glad Republican legislators are joining me in this effort,” he said in a statement. “After Fulton’s failures last June, I required Fulton to accept a monitor during the general election and runoffs, and forced the county into a consent agreement to start fixing their management problems.”
President Biden is pushing Congress for a second one-month extension of the moratorium on residential evictions, a long-shot request needed to buy time to stand up a $47 billion rental relief program plagued by delays and red tape.
The decision to throw responsibility to Congress — just two days before the freeze expires — took Democratic leadership by surprise, and a rushed attempt to pass an extension by a voice vote this week is expected to fail, according to several people close to the situation.
White House officials, under pressure from tenants’ rights groups, agreed to a one-month extension of the ban, which was issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just ahead of its previous expiration date of June 30. The freeze is now set to expire on Saturday.
Last month, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by landlords, saying it would allow the moratorium to continue until July 31, as planned, to give the Treasury Department and the states time to disburse cash to landlords to cover back rent accrued that tenants did not pay during the pandemic.
But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that any future extension of the moratorium would require Congressional action.
On Thursday, Mr. Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, citing the steep rise in coronavirus infections around the country, pressed Congress to extend the freeze for another month to avoid a health and eviction crisis.
“Given the recent spread of the Delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the C.D.C. to further extend this eviction moratorium,” she wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available.”
Mr. Biden “calls on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay,” she added.
The last-minute timing of the request virtually ensures such an effort will not succeed, Democratic congressional aides said. The one fast-track method of quickly passing an extension, through a procedure known as unanimous consent, can be blocked by a single dissenting vote.
“There’s no way I’m going to support this. It was a bad idea in the first place,” said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, reflecting the view of many Republicans in the chamber. “Owners have the right to action. They need to have recourse for the nonpayment of rent.”
The Biden administration’s effort to head off a crisis when the federal moratorium expires gained modest momentum in June, with 290,000 tenants receiving $1.5 billion in pandemic relief, according to Treasury Department statistics released last week.
But the flow of cash provided under two pandemic relief packages remains sluggish and hampered by confusion at the state level, potentially endangering tenants who have fallen behind in their rent over the past year. So far, only about $3 billion of the $47 billion program has been allocated, assisting about 600,000 tenants.
In recent days, White House officials have been working the phones to pressure officials in New York, and other states that have not yet begun to allocate the aid, to move more quickly.
“There can be no excuse for any state or locality not to promptly deploy the resources that Congress appropriated to meet this critical need of so many Americans,” Ms. Psaki said.
President Biden will travel with Jill Biden, the first lady, to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Thursday evening as she undergoes surgery on her foot.
Dr. Biden was walking on a beach in Hawaii over the weekend when she stepped on an object that became lodged in her left foot, Michael LaRosa, her spokesman, said on Thursday. Dr. Biden stopped over in the state after spending part of the week in Tokyo for the Summer Olympics. While in Hawaii, she participated in an event to promote Covid vaccinations at a high school in Honolulu.
“She will undergo a procedure today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to remove the object,” Mr. LaRosa said. “The president will join her.”
Mr. Biden has made it a point to travel with his wife to medical procedures. In April, he attended an appointment for what her office called a “common medical procedure” at a medical facility in Washington. Dr. Biden returned to her normal schedule shortly after that procedure.
Paul N. Whelan, the former U.S. Marine sentenced in Russia to 16 years in prison on espionage charges, has not been able to contact his family or the U.S. Embassy since July 4, and relatives and members of Congress are increasingly concerned about his well-being.
“He’s not been heard from,” said Representative Haley Stevens, Democrat of Michigan who represents Mr. Whelan, said in an interview. “We haven’t heard from him, or really been able to talk to him since the beginning of July.”
Ms. Stevens and family members of both Mr. Whelan and Trevor Reed, another former Marine sentenced to prison in Russia, are set to hold a news conference to talk about the prison conditions and push for new congressional resolutions calling for their release.
Speaking in front of the Capitol on Thursday, Ms. Stevens said Mr. Whelan was being made to work six days a week at a prison garment factory, injuring his arm, and has been held by Russia for 944 days.
“That is 944 days he has been away from his friends, his family,” Ms. Stevens said at the news conference. “It is 944 days too long.”
In early June, Mr. Whelan did an interview with CNN, after which Russian authorities restricted his access to cellphones, though he was still allowed to call his family. President Biden raised the cases of Mr. Whelan, 51, and Mr. Reed, 30, during his June summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Mr. Whelan made a call to his parents in early July and then a second on July 4.
“At that time he said, ‘If you don’t hear from me tomorrow there’s been some trouble,’” said Elizabeth Whelan, his sister, in an interview.
Since then neither the U.S. Embassy in Moscow nor Mr. Whelan’s parents have been able to contact him, Ms. Whelan said.
Joey Reed, Mr. Reed’s father, said Thursday that his son had been suffering from Covid and that he had not heard from him for more than two weeks. “We are very concerned about his health,” he said. “Both our families are concerned that Paul and Trevor might die in a Russian prison because of the poor conditions and lack of medical care.”
The evidence against Mr. Whelan is thin, and nothing presented by the Russian prosecutors has convinced American officials that he was engaged in spying on Russia.
Mr. Whelan was arrested in late 2018 and after his sentencing last year, he was placed in IK-17 work camp in Mordovia, about eight hours from Moscow.
Ms. Whelan said that they assume her brother has been returned to the camp after being moved to a hospital for treatment of an arm injury. But Ms. Stevens said it was not clear where the Russians were holding him now. She also said that he had been put in solitary confinement.
Ms. Stevens, the congresswoman, said: “The reality is there’s been no contact with him. This is reaching another pivotal moment.”
Congress passed a resolution on Mr. Whelan in 2019, but a new measure is in order, Ms. Stevens said. She added that a vote would hardly force Mr. Whelan’s release but it would demonstrate bipartisan opposition to Moscow’s tactics and get “under the Russian skin.”
Representative August Pfluger, the Texas Republican who represents the district where Mr. Reed is from, called on Mr. Biden to increase the pressure on Russia.
“We will not compromise until we bring Trevor and Paul home,” he said. “We will not tolerate American citizens being unlawfully held by the Putin regime.”
Ms. Stevens said that Moscow was trying to use Mr. Whelan and Mr. Reed for its own advantage.
“Americans absolutely cannot be used as political pawns for other countries, period, end of story, not acceptable,” she said. “This is the Russians engaged in the dark arts of political interference. I think that this is part of an attempt to toy with the inner psychology of our political structure.”
Iran’s top leader injected new doubts Wednesday into the stalled effort to save the country’s 2015 nuclear pact with major powers, accusing the United States of duplicity and chastising the outgoing Iranian president as naïve.
The remarks by the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, come as President Hassan Rouhani — an architect of the original nuclear accord — prepares to step down next week after eight years.
The fate of Iran’s negotiations with the United States to revive the accord, which have been suspended for more than a month, now falls to Mr. Rouhani’s successor, Ebrahim Raisi, an arch-conservative disciple of Mr. Khamenei.
The tone and timing of Mr. Khamenei’s remarks, which he delivered in person to Mr. Rouhani and his cabinet in a meeting reported by Iranian state media, amounted to a public rebuke of the departing president. They also sent a message that the negotiations are likely to face further challenges under Mr. Raisi.
“A very important experience in this period that the future generations should use is distrust of the West,” Mr. Khamenei said in lecturing the outgoing president and his aides, according to an account reported by Iran’s Fars News Agency.
China’s new ambassador to the United States arrived in Washington on Wednesday — Qin Gang, a diplomat whose record of vigorously contesting Western criticism suggests that Beijing is steeling for extended tensions with Washington.
In his new role, Mr. Qin will be at the front of efforts by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to reshape Beijing’s relationship with Washington, which has spiraled to its lowest point in decades. Beijing sees the Biden administration as continuing to challenge China’s rise, and Mr. Qin will be navigating an increasingly thorny and politically charged relationship.
Chinese diplomats have furiously denounced Washington’s sanctions over Mr. Xi’s hard-line policies in the far western region of Xinjiang and the city of Hong Kong. But they are also trying to find common ground on international challenges like limiting global warming.
Mr. Qin will most likely convey to Washington that Mr. Xi expects his country to be treated as a great power, reflecting a confidence that stems in part from China’s success in controlling the coronavirus epidemic. In a message on the Chinese Embassy’s website, Mr. Qin said that both countries should “treat each other with mutual respect and equality, and pursue peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.”
Unlike nearly all of China’s ambassadors to Washington since the 1980s, Mr. Qin has never specialized in dealing with the United States, nor been posted there previously. But as the head of the information office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and later the chief of protocol, Mr. Qin appears to have won the trust of Mr. Xi, who has sought to position Beijing as an increasingly powerful counterweight to an international order dominated by the United States.
“For the last 20 years you’ve had a string of America experts posted to Washington,” said Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official responsible for China. “Somebody whose career has been staked more on upholding the dignity and equal treatment of Chinese senior leaders will come to the job potentially with a different mind-set.”
A review of 2020 election ballots cast in Arizona’s largest county, billed as strictly nonpartisan when Republicans in the Arizona State Senate ordered it late last year, has been financed almost entirely by supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, according to a statement released late Wednesday by the private firm overseeing the review.
The firm, Cyber Ninjas, said that it had collected more than $5.7 million from five pro-Trump organizations for the widely disparaged review, in addition to $150,000 that the State Senate had allotted for the project. An Arizona county court had ordered the sources of the audit’s funding released after Republicans in the Senate resisted making them public.
The review of 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and roughly 80 percent of the state’s population, has covered only votes last November for president and for the state’s two seats in the United States Senate, all of which were won by Democrats. The president of the State Senate, Karen Fann, said this week that results of the audit should be released next month.
Ms. Fann and other senators said the recount, whose findings have no authority to change the winners of any race, was needed to reassure supporters of Mr. Trump that the vote was fairly conducted. But the effort has come under growing attack in the wake of disclosures that the chief executive of Cyber Ninjas and other purported experts involved in the review had ties to the “stop the steal” movement spawned by Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.
Election experts have called the recount amateurish and error-ridden, and ridiculed its efforts to verify allegations by conspiracy theorists that fake ballots could be identified by traces of bamboo fibers or invisible watermarks. One Republican senator withdrew his backing of the effort in May, calling it an embarrassment, and a second senator accused Ms. Fann last week of mismanaging the process, and said its results could not be trusted.
It had been apparent since the review began in April that supporters of Mr. Trump were both donating money to the effort and recruiting volunteers to work on it. But the sources and size of the donations had not been disclosed until Wednesday.
According to the Cyber Ninjas statement, the largest donation, $3.25 million, was made by a newly created group, America Project, led by Patrick M. Byrne, the former chief executive of the Overstock.com website and a prominent proponent of false claims that the November election was rigged.
Mr. Byrne resigned his post at Overstock in 2019 after it was disclosed that he had an intimate relationship with Maria Butina, a gun-rights activist who was jailed in 2018 as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia and later deported. He later said he had contributed $500,000 to the Arizona review, and produced a film featuring the Cyber Ninjas chief executive, Doug Logan, that alleged that the November election was fraudulent.
The statement said that another pro-Trump group, America’s Future, contributed $976,514 to the review. An additional $605,000 came from Voices and Votes, a group organized by Christina Bobb, an anchor for the pro-Trump television network One America News, who solicited donations for the review while covering it.
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