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  • Democratic senator urges Apple and Google to ban TikTok from their app stores | CNN Business

    Democratic senator urges Apple and Google to ban TikTok from their app stores | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee is calling on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over concerns about national security, in the latest indication of mounting scrutiny on the short-form video app from members of Congress.

    In a letter sent to the two tech giants on Thursday, Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet calls TikTok “an unacceptable threat to the national security of the United States” and cites the same concerns that have prompted the federal government and more than half of US states to restrict TikTok from official devices and networks.

    Writing to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Bennet highlighted fears that China could use its national security laws to force TikTok or its parent, ByteDance, to hand over the personal information of the app’s US users. The laws in question, Bennet wrote, require organizations in the country to “cooperate with state intelligence work” and to allow the government to access company resources. ByteDance’s founder is Chinese and the company has offices in China. TikTok has also disclosed to European users that their data may be accessed by employees based in China.

    China could potentially try to shape what US users see on the app, Bennet warned, with possible implications for foreign policy and democracy.

    “We should accept the very real possibility that [China] could compel TikTok, via ByteDance, to use its influence to advance Chinese government interests,” Bennet wrote, “for example, by tweaking its algorithm to present Americans content to undermine U.S. democratic institutions or muffle criticisms” of China’s handling of Hong Kong, Taiwan or ethnic minorities.

    Apple, Google and TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to testify before a House committee in March to discuss the company’s data security practices.

    There is no evidence that the type of spying or manipulation US officials fear has actually occurred, but security experts have warned that it is a possibility.

    TikTok has denied that it would ever hand over US user data to the Chinese government. It has increasingly moved to wall off its US operations from the rest of its business, technologically and organizationally — part of what the company has described as a good-faith effort to address the national security concerns.

    TikTok has also spent years negotiating a potential national security deal with the US government that would seek to resolve some of the concerns, but the talks have been mired by delays, leading to frustration among some members of Congress. In recent months, multiple US lawmakers have introduced bills that would ban TikTok from all US devices, including personal ones.

    Some other US officials have also called on Apple and Google to voluntarily remove TikTok from their app stores.

    Last year, Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, wrote a letter to the companies urging them to de-list TikTok. The FCC does not regulate app stores, but Carr has said that his agency’s experience dealing with Chinese telecom companies has informed his views on the matter. The FCC has moved to block Chinese firms including Huawei and ZTE from the US market, over fears that their wireless networking equipment could be used to collect information on US communications.

    Although the leading members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner and Florida Republican Marco Rubio, have also been outspoken critics of TikTok, the two lawmakers had not been invited to co-sign Bennet’s letter before it was sent, according to a spokesperson for Bennet. Rubio is an author of one of the bills seeking to ban TikTok from the United States, while Warner has said he would prefer to see a bill that targets a broader category of worrisome apps, rather than a single app such as TikTok.

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  • The deadly ice storm crippling much of the South leaves more than 300,000 Texans without power in the frigid cold | CNN

    The deadly ice storm crippling much of the South leaves more than 300,000 Texans without power in the frigid cold | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Treacherous road conditions are now linked to three deaths in Texas as a wave of ice and sleet continues to hammer parts of the southern and central US into the overnight hours.

    A 49-year-old woman was killed this week when she lost control of her truck on an icy road north of Eldorado, the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN on Wednesday.

    Two other deaths were previously linked to the storm that coated Texas cities with sleet or ice. In south Austin, one person died Tuesday morning in a 10-car pileup, the city’s fire department said. Another person died when their car rolled over in the Dallas-area city of Arlington, police said.

    The dangerous conditions are not over. A nasty combination of freezing rain, sleet and accumulating ice are expected hit parts of Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee through at least Thursday morning, forecasters said.

    “Road conditions will be AWFUL after sunset and overnight,” the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said. “DO NOT BE ON THE ROADS.”

    More than an inch of sleet has already piled up in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois since Monday.

    In Texas alone, more than 350,000 homes, businesses and other power customers had no electricity in the frigid cold Wednesday night, according to PowerOutage.US.

    Ice brought down multiple trees and large tree limbs Wednesday, causing power outages across the Austin metro area, the National Weather Service said.

    Dangerous conditions prompted Parkland Health system in Dallas to extend the closure of its clinics on Thursday.

    Here’s what’s on tap in the southern and central US:

    • Texas: The state has seen heavy freezing rain throughout Wednesday, which will continue steadily into overnight across much of northern and central Texas as temperatures remain below freezing.

    • Southern Oklahoma: Freezing rain continues to move across the region and will last through Thursday morning.

    • South-central Arkansas and Tennessee’s Memphis area: An additional tenth- to quarter-inch of ice could pile up through Thursday morning.

    • Across the region: Total ice accumulation of at least a quarter of an inch is likely from West Texas to western Tennessee through Thursday morning. Up to a half-inch could build up in parts of central and north-central Texas and southern Arkansas, the National Weather Service said.

    • Widespread flight cancellations: More than 2,400 flights within, into or out of the US were canceled Wednesday, according to the tracking website FlightAware.

    Jackknifed tractor-trailers blocked Interstate 10 in Reeves County, Texas, on Tuesday.

    In a state not accustomed to heavy ice, a group of Jeep enthusiasts used their vehicles to help stranded drivers.

    The Dallas-based “Carnales Off Road” group regularly supports those in need, founder Jorge Coronilla Muñiz told CNN.

    “It’s not the first time we’ve done this during bad weather. We try to help as often as possible,” Muñiz said.

    Several semi-trucks got stuck on Interstate 20 on Tuesday, and about 30 Jeeps helped tow them.

    “Before we got to I-20, we also helped a few other cars who were stuck on the streets,” Muniz said. “We eventually came across the standstill on Interstate 20 and helped an additional 20 trucks.”

    Muñiz said he and other group members helped stranded motorists from early Tuesday morning all the way until 10 p.m.

    “Everyone was very grateful for our help, especially the truck drivers. Some even asked if we were going to charge them for the help, but we told them we were just there to help.”

    The group is back out on the roads Wednesday and will help medical professionals having difficulty getting to and from work, Muñiz said.

    More than 12 million people across parts of southeastern Oklahoma, southern Missouri, central and eastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, northwestern Mississippi and Texas are under ice storm warnings Wednesday.

    The weather service issues ice storm warnings when ice accumulations of more than a quarter of an inch are possible.

    Unsafe travel conditions Tuesday led to hundreds of car crashes across Texas, officials said. Emergency workers responded to people suffering from hypothermia or those injured after slipping on ice. The Texas National Guard is prepared to help stranded motorists, clear roadways and provide welfare checks, Gov. Greg Abbott said. And Texas Parks and Wildlife has at least 30 responders ready for search and rescue operations.

    Meanwhile, a separate storm system will also send temperatures plunging across the Northeast.

    The National Weather Service predicts “dangerously cold temperatures” in the region Friday and Saturday, with freezing cold wind chills that can cause frostbite in just 10 minutes, it said.

    “Limit time outdoors and cover all skin if going out,” the service added.

    The service forecasts wind chills of -20 to -35 degrees Fahrenheit early Friday affecting parts of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, while Saturday morning could bring wind chills of -60 degrees Fahrenheit across northern New England, the weather service said.

    Leaders across states including Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine were coordinating resources ahead of the extreme weather and setting up warming centers, according to messages from the governors.

    “Temperatures this weekend will be extremely – and dangerously – cold across the state,” Maine Gov. Janet Mills said in a Tuesday news release. “Please take extra precautions, be careful if you go outside, and be sure to check on your family, friends, and neighbors to make sure they are okay.”

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  • Republicans slam Biden’s handling of the US-Mexico border in first congressional hearing | CNN Politics

    Republicans slam Biden’s handling of the US-Mexico border in first congressional hearing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican lawmakers slammed President Joe Biden’s border policies on Wednesday and laid the groundwork for an impeachment case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the first of a series of hearings on immigration since seizing control of the House.

    Over the course of Biden’s presidency, Republicans have repeatedly criticized the administration over the handling of the US-Mexico border, where an influx of migrants has stretched federal resources. Critics argue the historic number of arrests is evidence of Biden’s policies not working despite the administration largely using the same protocols as the Trump administration, principally a Covid-era border restriction.

    Now, with a House majority and leadership on key committees, Republicans plan to raise those criticisms in congressional hearings and seize on an issue that’s been a political vulnerability for the president, beginning with Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.

    House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan criticized Biden’s border policies at the outset of the committee’s first hearing this Congress, making clear the Republican’s intent to underscore what the GOP has described as a crisis on the US-Mexico border over the course of the more than three-hour hearing.

    Jordan kicked off the hearing with a series of figures, including the record number of migrant encounters at the border and number of people flagged for being on the terror watchlist – arguing that the data is evidence of the administration’s failed border policies.

    US border authorities encountered migrants more than 2.3 million times along the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2022, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. Of those, more than 1 million migrants were turned away at the border.

    “These numbers make clear that the Biden administration does not have operational control of the border,” Jordan said. “Month after month after month, we have set records for migrants coming into the country and frankly, I think it’s intentional.”

    Republican lawmakers have argued that Mayorkas’ claims of having operational control of the border are unfounded and that the record arrests mark a dereliction of duty – two themes that came up during Wednesday’s hearing and have been cited as reason to impeach the DHS secretary. The House Judiciary Committee would have jurisdiction over an impeachment resolution.

    The tone of the hearing didn’t sit well with New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the committee’s top Democrat, who lambasted Republicans for their approach.

    “I wish this hearing was starting off on a different note. This hearing is more of the same, haphazard chaotic style we have come to expect of this new Republican majority,” Nadler said in his opening remarks. “The first hearing will showcase the racist tendencies of the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the party,” he added.

    Over the course of the hearing, Democrats seized on disagreements over border policy within the GOP conference. Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson, of Georgia, called it “nothing more than a distraction.”

    The committee described Wednesday’s hearing – the first in a series – as an examination of “border security, national security, and how fentanyl has impacted American lives,” but it also served as a platform for GOP lawmakers to air their grievances over the administration’s immigration policies.

    Brandon Dunn, co-founder of Forever 15 Project, which seeks to raise awareness on fentanyl, Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County, Arizona, and El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego testified before the panel.

    The House Judiciary Committee is one of many committees that will be holding hearings over the situation at the US-Mexico border. The House Oversight Committee also intends to hold a hearing on the issue and has already engaged in a back and forth with the department over its witnesses.

    House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, accused DHS of “refusing to permit” four chief patrol agents to testify at an upcoming Oversight hearing that Comer invited them to the week of February 6.

    DHS, however, offered US Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, who oversees the four agents Comer requested, to testify before the House Oversight Committee and said it would make sector chiefs available for a member-level briefing, according to a letter from DHS to Comer obtained by CNN, citing its own assessment of who was appropriate to testify.

    The Biden administration faces unprecedented movement across the Western hemisphere that has contributed to a surge of migrants at the border, including more people from different countries, such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The US is largely barred from deporting migrants to Cuba and Venezuela, presenting a unique set of challenges for DHS.

    In early January, the Biden administration expanded a humanitarian parole program to include Haitians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans to provide a legal pathway for them to enter the US instead of crossing the border. The administration also made those nationalities eligible for Title 42, meaning they can now be turned away by authorities if they don’t apply for the program.

    Since then, there has been a significant decline in migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela crossing the US-Mexico border unlawfully, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which attributed the drop to new border measures.

    Encounters with migrants from those four nationalities declined 97% in January compared to December, officials previously told reporters, citing preliminary numbers. Border numbers often fluctuate depending on circumstances in the Western hemisphere, so it’s unclear how long the trend will hold.

    Already, though, Republican-led states have sued the administration over the program. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 19 other states, argued in a lawsuit that the administration didn’t go through the notice and comment rulemaking process before instituting the rule. As a result, the states are asking the court to block the program.

    Administration officials immediately pushed back.

    “It is incomprehensible that some states who stand to benefit from these highly effective enforcement measures are seeking to block them and cause more irregular migration at our southern border,” Mayorkas said in a statement.

    This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

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  • McCarthy hopeful after first meeting with Biden on debt limit: ‘I think that at the end of the day, we can find common ground’ | CNN Politics

    McCarthy hopeful after first meeting with Biden on debt limit: ‘I think that at the end of the day, we can find common ground’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not walk away from his highly anticipated White House meeting on Wednesday with an agreement in hand to address the debt limit, but signaled optimism that both he and President Joe Biden can reach consensus “long before” the United States reaches default.

    McCarthy called it “a good first meeting,” adding, “We both have different perspectives on this, but I thought this was a good meeting. We promised we would continue the conversation and we’ll see if we can get there. I think that at the end of the day, we can find common ground.”

    “I told the president I would like to see if we can come to an agreement long before the deadline and we can start working on other things,” McCarthy added in remarks outside the White House.

    Following his first White House meeting since he won the speakership, McCarthy said he believes that a funding agreement could be reached for the next two years and that “you won’t see omnibuses anymore.”

    “You’ll see the Senate and the House actually do what the American public has elected them to do,” he added.

    The highly anticipated meeting was expected to influence how the fight to raise the national debt limit unfolds as the White House and the new House GOP majority are at odds over how to resolve the critical issue.

    House Republicans say that lifting the borrowing cap must be tied to spending reductions. The White House, however, has countered that it will not offer concessions or negotiate on raising the debt ceiling.

    The US hit the debt ceiling set by Congress in January, forcing the Treasury Department to start taking extraordinary measures to keep the government paying its bills and escalating pressure on Capitol Hill to avoid a catastrophic default.

    The debt limit fight will be an early test of McCarthy’s leadership as House speaker, where he has to balance competing demands from different factions of his conference amid a razor-thin majority. It will also shed light on how, and to what extent, McCarthy and Biden are able to work with one another.

    Senate Republicans have indicated they will sit back and see how the House GOP maneuvers a way to raise the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit – before deciding if they need to insert themselves into the process.

    McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday the nation has reached “a critical point” with respect to the debt limit.

    Republicans face a political risk as they push to cut spending: If they propose cuts to popular government programs and services, they could face a public backlash.

    While McCarthy had not settled on any individual proposal ahead of the Biden meeting and was unlikely to make a specific offer, he had heard suggestions from key players in his conference.

    Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, McCarthy has been involved in extensive preparations, consulting regularly with allies on and off the Hill including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as well as his relevant committee chairs who he has been leaning on for their policy expertise, such as Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri and Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, sources familiar with the preparation told CNN.

    McCarthy and his House GOP allies are hashing out initial demands, discussing steep cuts to domestic programs and a trim to defense spending – all the while steering clear of two programs to avoid voter blowback: Medicare and Social Security.

    House Republicans had been hoping to strengthen their negotiating hand with the White House by uniting around a proposal, but finding conference-wide consensus on spending cuts has proved challenging.

    The view from Republicans heading into Wednesday’s meeting was that it is still early and there are still months of negotiations ahead – meaning there’s plenty of time for McCarthy to lay out specifics. Still, leaders have also been aware they have to begin laying the groundwork with their members now.

    The White House, meanwhile, has continued to emphasize the critical importance of avoiding a catastrophic default.

    McCarthy’s position that cuts to Medicare and Social Security are not on the table in exchange for a debt ceiling increase has drawn skepticism the White House. And when asked for his message to McCarthy in the meeting, the president told CNN, “Show me your budget and I’ll show you mine.”

    A White House spokesperson told CNN that Biden would remind McCarthy of his “Constitutional obligation to prevent a national default, as every other House and Senate leader in U.S. history has done, and as Leaders (Mitch) McConnell, (Chuck) Schumer, and (Hakeem) Jeffries have pledged to do.”

    “He will underscore that the economic security of all Americans cannot be held hostage to force unpopular cuts on working families,” they added.

    In a memo to “interested parties” dated Monday that was written by National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, Biden’s top economic advisers said the president intended to pose two questions to McCarthy on Wednesday: Whether McCarthy will commit to the US not defaulting on its financial obligations and when McCarthy and House Republicans will release their budget.

    Biden, the officials wrote, “will seek a clear commitment from Speaker McCarthy that default – as well as proposals from members of his Caucus for default by another name – is unacceptable.”

    They added, “President Biden will ask Speaker McCarthy to publicly assure the American people and the rest of the world that the United States will, as always, honor all of its financial obligations.”

    A day ahead of the meeting, the president suggested McCarthy was entering the talks from a weakened position, hampered by agreements he made with an unruly GOP conference.

    Calling McCarthy a “decent man,” Biden nonetheless said he had been forced to cater to extremist Republicans in his quest to become speaker.

    Biden said at a high-dollar fundraiser in Manhattan that McCarthy had to make commitments “that are just absolutely off the wall for the speaker of the House to make.”

    Responding to the president’s fundraiser comments, McCarthy told reporters, “Apparently, he doesn’t understand … I’m looking forward to sitting down with the president, negotiating for the American public, the people of America, on how we can find savings. We’ve watched what the spending has done, we watched it brought us inflation, we watched the challenge that it happened. We’re looking forward to changing the course.”

    Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate majority whip, told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday that Biden should “absolutely not” negotiate on raising the nation’s borrowing limit and raised fears a default could tank the US economy. He reiterated his support for Biden’s position, while leaving the door open for spending cuts during future negotiations.

    House GOP Whip Tom Emmer said he doubted there would be any agreement on Wednesday, but said,”Everything’s on the table” when asked about defense spending cuts.

    He also said he expected McCarthy to reassure the president that there will not be a default and that spending cuts for Social Security and Medicare will not be considered.

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  • Biden proposes ‘junk fee’ bill to cut hidden fees for credit cards and concert tickets | CNN Business

    Biden proposes ‘junk fee’ bill to cut hidden fees for credit cards and concert tickets | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden announced new progress Wednesday on his administration’s “competition agenda,” specifically taking aim at junk fees while calling on Congress to pass legislation targeting hidden fees across multiple industries.

    These costs can “drain hundreds of dollars a year from the pockets of hardworking American families, especially folks who are already struggling to make ends meet — but not anymore after today,” Biden said at the fourth meeting of the Presidential Competition Council on Wednesday.

    The proposed legislation in partnership with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, called the Junk Fee Protection Act, would target four types of excessive fees:

    • excessive online concert, sporting event and entertainment ticket fees
    • airline fees for families sitting together on flights
    • exorbitant early termination fees for TV, phone and internet services
    • surprise resort and destination fees

    In brief remarks before the meeting, Biden had called out credit card late fees in particular as “a junk fee if there ever was one,” saying the new guidance from the CFPB would reduce these fees.

    “Today’s rule proposes to cut those fees from $31 on average to $8,” he added. “That change is expected to save tens of millions of dollars for Americans, roughly $9 billion a year in total savings.”

    Biden called on Congress to pass the junk fee legislation, saying it would give “hardworking Americans just a little bit more breathing room.” It’s part of a plan, he added, to build “an economy that’s competitive and an economy that works for everyone.”

    Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, noted before the announcement that “over a decade ago, Congress banned excessive credit card late fees.”

    “But companies have exploited a regulatory loophole that has allowed them to escape scrutiny for charging an otherwise illegal junk fee,” he added in a statement to CNN. “Today’s proposed rule seeks to save families billions of dollars and ensure the credit card market is fair and competitive.”

    Another fee category that frustrates many customers is event tickets sold online, for which additional fees are frequently high — and typically appear late in the checkout process when a customer is about to make the purchase.

    For example, earlier this year, lawmakers grilled Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold following a ticket sales debacle over exorbitant ticketing fees. Although the company said Wednesday it supports reform, it also said it opposes the proposed legislation.

    “We stand ready to work with the President and Congress on many common sense ticketing reforms, while also speaking out against proposed legislation that would benefit scalpers over artists and fans,” the company said in a statement.

    Biden’s Transportation Department also took steps last fall during the previous meeting of the Competition Council to reduce “unnecessary hidden fees,” from airline and travel sites that the the President warned were “weighing down family budgets.”

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  • CDC advises against using EzriCare eye drops as it investigates dozens of infections and one death in 11 states | CNN

    CDC advises against using EzriCare eye drops as it investigates dozens of infections and one death in 11 states | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging health care providers and consumers to stop using EzriCare Artificial Tears as it conducts an investigation into at least 50 infections in 11 states that have led to instances of permanent vision loss, hospitalization and one death.

    Most of the people with these infections reported using artificial tears, and EzriCare was the most common brand, the agency says. These eye drops are preservative-free, meaning they don’t have ingredients to prevent bacterial growth.

    Testing of open EzriCare bottles identified Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria that were resistant to carbapenem antibiotics as well as the antibiotics ceftazidime and cefepime. Testing of unopened bottles is ongoing, the CDC says.

    “CDC recommends that clinicians and patients immediately discontinue the use of EzriCare Artificial Tears until the epidemiological investigation and laboratory analyses are complete,” the agency says.

    New Jersey-based EzriCare says in a statement dated January 24 that it has not received any consumer complaints or adverse event reports.

    “We have not been asked to conduct a recall. EzriCare does not manufacture the Lubricant Eye Drops,” the statement says.

    “Nevertheless, and in an abundance of caution, EzriCare recommends that during this evolving situation you discontinue use of any portions of EzriCare Artificial Tears Lubricant Eye Drops you may have until we can discover more details about any potential safety concerns.”

    Pseudomonas bacteria are common in the environment, such as in soil and water. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is usually spread in health care settings, the CDC says, and is increasingly difficult to treat because of antibiotic resistance. It caused more than 32,000 infections in hospitalized patients and about 2,700 deaths in the US in 2017.

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  • George Santos tells House Republicans he wants off of his committees until issues are resolved | CNN Politics

    George Santos tells House Republicans he wants off of his committees until issues are resolved | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Rep. George Santos told the House GOP conference on Tuesday behind closed doors he wants off of his two committees until his issues are resolved, three members told CNN.

    The New York Republican who has faced calls for his resignation for false statements – including regarding his professional experience, education history and identity – is a member of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Committee on Small Business. Federal prosecutors are also investigating Santos’ finances, and he continues to face a myriad of questions about his personal finances.

    See Santos’ tense exchange with CNN reporter over campaign funds

    He was first elected last fall.

    Santos later told reporters the choice to step back from his committee posts was his.

    “Nobody tells me to do anything,” Santos said. “I made that decision on my own that I thought best represented in the interest of the voters.”

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters that Santos will “have a voice here in Congress, and until he answers all those questions, then at that time he’ll be able to be seated on committees.”

    “I met with George Santos yesterday and I think it was an appropriate decision that, until he can clear everything up, he’s off the committee’s right now,” McCarthy told reporters.

    Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told CNN that it was Santos’ decision that he made on his own to “abstain” from the committees. She said he told the conference he would step aside from the committees as the GOP is trying to oust Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

    Democrats have cited the mounting false statements and scrutiny facing Santos as an example of hypocrisy for Republicans booting Omar and two other House Democrats – California Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell – off committee assignments. While Schiff and Swalwell were able to be ejected from the House Intelligence Committee unilaterally by McCarthy, Omar’s position on House Foreign Affairs will need a vote on the House floor, one that Republican leaders have yet to force.

    “He just felt like there was so much drama really over the situation, and especially what we’re doing to work to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Greene told CNN.

    She added: “But Mr. Santos’ statement in there was just saying that he spoke with Speaker McCarthy and made this decision on his own.”

    Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams, a Republican from Texas, said that he thinks Santos “probably made the right decision” to step down from his committee assignments until the questions about his past and his financial irregularities are resolved.

    Leaving his office late last week on Capitol Hill, Santos told a reporter that he would put together a news conference “soon” to “address everything.”

    “We’ll give you all the answers to everything you’re asking for,” he said.

    In recent days, Santos has faced a series of questions regarding his campaign finances, including inquiries about donors as well as campaign disbursements, including dozens of expenses his campaign has reported at exactly $199.99, one cent below the threshold above which the campaign is required to retain receipts.

    The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC that describes his disbursements as “odd and seemingly impossible.” It notes that one of the $199.99 expenses was purported to be for a “hotel stay” at the luxury W Hotel South Beach in Florida in October 2021, where the lowest-price room typically would have cost more than $700.

    Last week, Santos also filed a slew of amended reports with the FEC that only added to the confusion about the source of loans he has said he made to his campaign.

    In some filings, the campaign did not check boxes denoting that two six-figure loans came from the candidate’s personal funds.

    Santos also is facing questions about who is serving as his campaign’s treasurer.

    His longtime treasurer, Nancy Marks, on Tuesday submitted letters to the Federal Election Commission, saying she had formally resigned the position January 25.

    The campaign had filed paperwork January 25 naming a Wisconsin-based consultant, Thomas Datwyler, as treasurer.

    But Datwyler’s lawyer told CNN that Datwyler had declined the post and had been listed as treasurer without his authorization. The lawyer, Derek Ross, said Datwyler told the agency on Friday that his name should be removed name from Santos’ filings.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Biden zeroes in on the newly powerful House GOP as a threat to the rebounding economy | CNN Politics

    Biden zeroes in on the newly powerful House GOP as a threat to the rebounding economy | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden is fine-tuning his argument for reelection in an intensive stretch of travel and fundraising, homing in on the newly powerful House GOP as a threat to the rebounding economy as the pieces of his expected campaign come together.

    With several weeks to go before Biden is expected to announce his intention to run again, White House officials have crafted a travel schedule and series of speeches that will see the president opening infrastructure projects, promoting union jobs and laying out the progress he believes the American economy has made under his watch.

    “It’s about good jobs. It’s about the dignity of work,” Biden said Tuesday in front of a tunnel on the West Side of Manhattan that will be improved with the help of the $1 trillion infrastructure law he signed in 2021. “It’s about respect and self-worth. And folks, it’s about damn time.”

    In a string of events along the eastern seaboard, from northern Virginia to Baltimore to Philadelphia to New York City, Biden is setting a multiple-days-per-week travel schedule that aides expect will continue as the presidential contest begins in earnest.

    Last week, he told a steamfitters union hall in Virginia that his agenda was about “seeing communities all over America, not just on the coasts, but all over America, reborn.” He stood at another tunnel on Monday, this time in Baltimore, where improvements will help Amtrak trains triple their speed on one of the busiest rail corridors in the nation.

    He also headlined a high-dollar Democratic fundraiser in Manhattan, kicking off what is expected to be a campaign cash blitz. Donors have been made aware of potential events over the coming months in multiple states, including traditional fundraising enclaves in California and Florida.

    “There’s two things that I think we have to run on: What we stand for – what we did – and what we need to do more of,” Biden told the donors, offering a tacit preview of his 2024 message. Recalling that he ran in 2020 to restore the soul of the country, rebuild the middle class, and unite the country, Biden suggested his work wasn’t finished.

    “The third is turning out to be the hardest thing to do, but we’re getting there,” he said.

    On Friday, Biden will tout lead removal efforts in Philadelphia before addressing the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting – a gathering where his likely reelection bid is top of mind.

    Speaking ahead of Biden in New York on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer underscored the progress Biden has made in implementing his infrastructure bill, readying a message that Biden has accomplished what his predecessor – and currently his only Republican challenger – Donald Trump could not.

    “For four years, the former president was shoveling you know what. And now, we’re gonna put real shovels in the ground, wielded by real American workers,” Schumer said.

    Biden’s aides and other Democrats have been working for months to put in place a campaign infrastructure that will be ready when he decides to make his intentions known. The campaign is expected to draw some staff from the DNC and the White House, and will need to coordinate with both.

    Already, Biden’s West Wing team is reorienting with the upcoming departure of chief of staff Ron Klain. Klain’s replacement, Jeff Zients, is expected to focus on managing the White House and implementing Biden’s legislative and policy agenda, while other top advisers – namely senior adviser Anita Dunn and deputy White House chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, who managed Biden’s successful 2020 campaign – will take the lead on Biden’s political operation.

    Other political hires are also expected as the likely reelection campaign takes shape, according to a White House official.

    Casting a shadow over Biden’s preparations is the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified material, which is expected to formally get underway this week. Biden has denied any wrongdoing after documents with classified markings were found at his private office and home, but the specter of the probe will hang over the White House for at least the coming months.

    White House aides have felt vindicated by polls showing the documents controversy hasn’t weighed down Biden’s overall approval ratings. And Biden himself shrugged off a question Monday about whether he would sit for an interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

    “I don’t even know about the special counsel,” Biden told reporters at the White House, moving quickly to another question.

    For now, Biden’s principal focus is next week’s State of the Union address, a speech his team has been crafting to act as a launchpad to his reelection run. His string of policy speeches this week have foreshadowed the expected themes of Tuesday night’s address.

    Afterward, Biden is expected to continue traveling the country – including potential stops in Michigan and Wisconsin, two battleground states – as he prepares for his formal campaign announcement.

    Officials said the yearly speech will continue to evolve as Biden and his advisers work on writing it. The text is not expected to be finalized until the final moments before he delivers it in the House chamber next week. The team working on the address, including senior advisers Mike Donilon and Bruce Reed, have held lengthy writing and preparation sessions with Biden over the last several days.

    White House officials said the president’s recent speeches touting the bipartisan infrastructure law that he signed into law in 2021 are designed to signal a shift: whereas much of Biden’s first two years in office was focused on what he hoped to accomplish, officials said now is the time to tout what he has achieved.

    The US jobs market is robust, GDP growth continues to be strong, wages are up, and critically, inflation finally seems to be moderating – all points Biden has made in his public remarks recently. In contrast, the president has warned that lawmakers who he calls “MAGA Republicans” are trying to reverse some of that very progress by proposing ideas like a national sales tax.

    He’s also offered sharp warnings to Republicans looking to use the national debt ceiling as leverage to negotiate spending cuts – setting up a battle that will play out in the opening weeks of his campaign.

    As Biden was speaking in Virginia last week, new Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote on Twitter that if Biden was “so eager to speak on the economy, then he should set a date to discuss a responsible debt ceiling increase.”

    He’ll get that date this week, when Biden and McCarthy sit down at the White House for their first one-on-one since McCarthy was elevated to the role earlier this month.

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  • New US ransomware strategy prioritizes victims but could make it harder to catch cybercriminals | CNN Politics

    New US ransomware strategy prioritizes victims but could make it harder to catch cybercriminals | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    US and European law enforcement’s disruption last week of a $100-million ransomware gang is the clearest public example yet of a new high-stakes strategy from the Biden administration to prioritize protecting victims of cybercrime – even if it means tipping off suspects and potentially make it harder to arrest them.

    The extent to which the FBI and Justice Department can carry out similar operations on other ransomware groups – and get the balance right between when to collect intelligence on hackers’ operations and when to shut down computer networks – could affect how acute the threat of ransomware attacks is to US critical infrastructure for years to come.

    In the case revealed last week, the FBI says it had extraordinary access for six months to the computer infrastructure of a Russian-speaking ransomware group known as Hive, which had extorted more than $100 million from victims worldwide, including hospitals. That covert access, officials said, allowed the FBI to pass “keys” to victims so that they could decrypt their systems and thwart $130 million in ransom payments.

    Justice officials are still trying to arrest the people behind Hive and know where some of them are located, a senior Justice Department official told CNN. But sometimes waiting for an arrest before seizing hacking infrastructure “may mean waiting for a very long time – perhaps an unacceptably long time,” the official said in an interview granted on the condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

    The decision to go public with a splashy news conference, fronted by FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, before making any arrests is evidence of a new approach to ransomware attacks which cost the US hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, annually.

    The strategy shift toward doing more to help victims of cybercrime – announced a year ago – is loosely based on the US government’s approach to counterterrorism, which centers around disrupting plots and thwarting attacks.

    “I was preparing for this to be public long, long ago and was kind of surprised that we were able to do this for this long,” the senior Justice Department official said of US officials’ covert access to Hive computer servers.

    After multiple ransomware attacks hobbled US critical infrastructure firms in 2021, pressure grew on US law enforcement from Congress, the White House and the public to do more to disrupt the hackers’ operations.

    Still, the FBI announcement raised questions about why the bureau decided to go public with the action now rather than continuing to lurk in the Hive hackers’ networks and collect intelligence. And it is possible or even likely, US officials concede, that Hive’s operators will set up new infrastructure to try to resume their extortion attempts.

    One law enforcement source told CNN the timing made sense because US officials may have exhausted the intelligence they were going to glean from Hive’s servers.

    The senior Justice Department official explained the decision this way: “We saw significant value in the reputational damage we were going to incur against Hive by announcing this.”

    Like in other businesses, customers of ransomware gangs have a choice of who they buy hacking tools from. One goal of the operation, the senior Justice official said, was to “discredit” Hive in the eyes of other ransomware criminals and have a psychological effect on their operations.

    “Other [ransomware] groups will watch this and have to spend more time and money securing their infrastructure,” said Bill Siegel, CEO of Coveware, a cybersecurity firm that works closely with victims and the FBI.

    The spate of significant ransomware attacks in the US in 2021 brought more scrutiny to how quickly the FBI and its partners can mitigate the impact the attacks.

    After a July 2021 ransomware attack on a Florida-based software firm compromised up to 1,500 businesses, multiple US government agencies, including the FBI, deliberated about how and when to get the decryptor to victims. At least one victim organization, a Maryland tech firm, complained that they could have used the decryption key earlier to save on recovery costs, the Washington Post reported.

    US officials weigh a number of factors when considering law enforcement operations to disrupt cybercriminal groups, a senior FBI official told CNN, including how the disruption will impact the broader cybercriminal ecosystem, how the FBI can help victims of the hackers recover, and the long-term “pursuit of justice” for the victims.

    “Each case is different as far as what access [to the hackers’ infrastructure] looks like … what can be done quietly versus noisily,” the senior FBI official said. “Those all go into it.”

    John Riggi, a former senior FBI official who is now national adviser for cybersecurity and risk at the American Hospital Association, applauded the disruption of Hive and hoped the crackdown on ransomware groups would continue. But ransomware attacks on health care organizations will likely continue as long as the hackers are getting paid off and are willing to tolerate the risk of carrying out the attacks, Riggi said.

    Some cybercriminals “still view their attacks on hospitals as primarily data and financially motivated,” he told CNN.

    One lingering problem for the FBI: Not enough victims are reporting ransomware attacks, leaving the bureau in the dark about the scope of the threat. Just 20% of Hive’s victim reported an incident to the FBI, Director Christopher Wray said last week.

    “I still think that people have concerns that when they call the FBI that we’re going to come in with coats and we’re going to take their servers and they’re going to lose control of their business,” the senior FBI official told CNN. “And that’s so far from the truth, but most people are not interacting with the FBI on a daily basis.”

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  • Retired Air Force officer set to plead guilty to storing classified information at his Florida home | CNN Politics

    Retired Air Force officer set to plead guilty to storing classified information at his Florida home | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who stored files with classified information at his Florida home is set to plead guilty in February to one count of unlawful retention of national defense information, according to court documents.

    The defendant, Robert Birchum, served in the Air Force for more than 30 years and previously held top secret clearance. According to his plea agreement, he stored hundreds of files that contained information marked as top secret, secret or confidential classified outside of authorized locations.

    In 2017, investigators found a thumb drive, two hard drives and paper documents containing classified information in Birchum’s possession, including at his home, court documents state. Two of the files on the thumb drive at Birchum’s home contained information on the National Security Agency’s “methods of collection, and identify targets’ vulnerabilities,” according to the plea.

    CNN has reached out to Birchum’s attorney for comment.

    A plea hearing is set for February 21 in a district court in Florida, and he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.

    The Daily Beast first reported on the plea agreement.

    The case comes to a close as Washington is embroiled in controversy over the handling of classified documents by President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. Two special counsels are investigating Biden and Trump, and the Justice Department is reviewing the Pence case.

    While Birchum had top secret clearance through his various positions in the Air Force, including as an Intelligence Officer, “(t)he defendant’s residence was not a location authorized to store classified information, and the defendant knew as much,” the plea agreement states.

    On a hard drive at his home, investigators found 10 files that had “information marked as Secret,” according to the agreement, as well as 48 paper documents that also contained information marked as secret. On the thumb drive recovered from his home, investigators say they found 135 files marked as containing classified information.

    Separately, in a temporary residence overseas outside of a designated sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), investigators say they found another hard drive containing 117 files with classified national defense information.

    According to court filings, Birchum retired from the Air Force in 2018. An Air Force spokesperson declined to comment.

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  • Developments in Trump documents probe foretell a 2024 campaign clouded by legal tangles | CNN Politics

    Developments in Trump documents probe foretell a 2024 campaign clouded by legal tangles | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    There’s never been a presidential campaign like it.

    Donald Trump is taking every step of his bid for a third consecutive Republican nomination amid a darkening storm of legal uncertainty.

    The twice-impeached former president, who tried to steal an election and is accused of fomenting an insurrection, launched his first two-state campaign swing on Saturday as he seeks a stunning political comeback.

    Then on Monday, Trump’s potential exposure – in two of his multiple strands of legal peril – appeared to grow, foreshadowing a campaign likely to be repeatedly punctuated by distractions from criminal investigations.

    In a new twist to his classified material saga, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Katelyn Polantz reported that two people who found two classified documents in a Trump storage facility in Florida testified before a federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors are also pushing to look at files on a laptop of at least one staff member around Trump at Mar-a-Lago, CNN reported. The former president has not been charged with a crime, but these developments are the latest sign of an aggressive approach by special counsel Jack Smith in probing the matter. And it shows how a regular drumbeat of legal problems could detract from the former president’s attempts to inject energy into a so-far tepid campaign – especially given the multiple criminal threats he may face.

    On another front, The New York Times reported that a district attorney in Manhattan is presenting evidence to another grand jury probing Trump’s alleged role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Last week, a district attorney in Georgia said decisions are imminent on charges related to Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. It is not known whether the ex-president is directly targeted by the investigation. This all comes as Smith is also probing Trump’s role in the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.

    The unique and extraordinary legal tangle surrounding Trump means that a third straight US election will be tainted by controversies that will drag the FBI and the Justice Department further into a political morass. (President Joe Biden is also facing a special counsel investigation over his handling of documents from his time as vice president, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who’s eying a 2024 bid, is under DOJ review for similar issues.) This follows the Hillary Clinton email flap in 2016 and investigations into the Trump campaign’s links with Russia during that White House bid, as well as Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in 2020.

    The fact that Trump is seeking the presidency again, under an extraordinary legal cloud, could have significant consequences for the wider 2024 campaign. Some of his potential Republican rivals, wary of trying to take him down, might hope that his legal troubles will do the job for them. Perceptions that Trump is caught in a web of criminal investigation might also further tarnish his personal political brand, which has already contributed to some Republican loses in national elections in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

    Still, Trump is a master of leveraging attempts to call him to account, legally and politically. He’s already built a central foundation of his new presidential quest around the idea that he’s being political persecuted by Justice Department investigations and what he claims are rogue Democratic prosecutors.

    “We’re going to stop the appalling weaponization of our justice system. There’s never been a justice system like this. It’s all investigation, investigation,” the ex-president said on the trail over the weekend.

    This is a message that may be attractive to some of Trump’s base voters who themselves feel alienated from the federal government and previously bought into his claims about a “deep state” conspiracy against him. It’s also a technique, in which a strongman leader argues that he is taking the heat so his followers don’t have to, that is a familiar page in the authority playbooks of demagogues throughout history.

    As is normal, it is not known what the people who found the classified documents at the Florida storage facility may have said to the grand jury. But the ex-president is being investigated not just for possible violations of the Espionage Act, but also for potential obstruction of justice related to the documents.

    The two individuals, who were hired to search four of Trump’s properties last fall months after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago resort over the summer, were each interviewed for about three hours in separate appearances last week. The extent of information they offered the grand jury remains unclear, though they didn’t decline to answer any questions, one of the sources familiar with the investigation said.

    Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the Department of Defense, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday that the latest development was a sign of an advanced special counsel investigation and could indicate that Smith was leaning toward indictments.

    “It sounds like he is trying to lock in their testimony, to understand how they would testify at trial, whether it is incriminating evidence against Trump or exculpatory evidence that the prosecutors would then have that and have it solidified.”

    The simple, politically charged act of investigating an ex-president was always bound to create a political furor. The fact that Trump is running for the White House again multiplies the stakes and means profound decisions are ahead for Attorney General Merrick Garland if evidence suggests Trump should be charged.

    On a more granular level, the report about the grand jury underscores that for all the political noise, the investigation into Trump’s haul of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is taking place inside its own legal bubble.

    This remains the case, despite the political gift handed to Trump with the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home and at a Washington office he once used that should have been handed back when he left the vice presidency. Some classified material was also found at Pence’s Indiana home.

    Those discoveries allowed Trump to claim that he was being unfairly singled out, even if the cases have significant differences. Any Trump attempt to argue that he, like Biden and Pence, inadvertently took documents to his home will be undermined by the fact that he claimed the material belonged to him, and not the government, and what appears to be repeated refusals to give it back.

    Fresh indications of the momentum in the Trump documents special counsel probe followed the latest sign of a lopsided approach to the controversy over classified material by House Republicans, who are hammering Biden over documents but giving Trump a free pass.

    House Oversight Chairman James Comer was, for example, asked by CNN’s Pamela Brown this weekend why he had no interest in the more than 325 documents found at Trump’s home but was fixated upon the approximately 20 classified documents uncovered in Biden’s premises by lawyers and an unknown number also found during an FBI search of the president’s home this month.

    “If someone can show me evidence that there was influence peddling with those classified documents that were in the possession of President Trump, then we would certainly expand it,” the Kentucky Republican said. He went on to accuse Biden and his family of being “very cozy” with people from the Chinese Communist party but offered no evidence of such links or that they had anything to do with classified documents. His remarks left the impression that his committee is seeking to find evidence to condemn Biden but is treating Trump differently – exactly the kind of double standard the GOP has claimed the DOJ is employing toward Trump.

    The two special counsel investigations probing Trump and Biden’s retention of secret documents are unfolding independently. In a legal sense, there is no overlap between them. But they will both be subject to the same political inferno if findings are made public.

    Were Trump, for instance, to be prosecuted – over what so far appears to be a larger haul of documents and conduct that may add up to obstruction – and Biden is not, the ex-president would incite a firestorm of protest among his supporters. Even though the sitting president enjoys protections from prosecution because of historic Justice Department guidance, it’s hard to see how the political ground for prosecuting just one of them could hold firm – especially if Biden and Trump are rival presidential candidates in 2024.

    From the outside, it appears as if Biden and Pence were far more cooperative with the DOJ and the FBI after some classified documents were found at their properties than Trump has been. It took a search warrant for FBI agents to get into Mar-a-Lago, and the ex-president claimed that presidential documents that belonged to the federal government when he left office belonged to him. But voters might find it hard to understand nuanced legal differences between the two cases – a factor the House Republican counter-attack based on Biden’s documents made more likely.

    As the political fallout from the classified documents furor deepened on Monday, the country got a reminder of the treatment that can await lower-ranking members of the federal workforce when secret material is taken home.

    CNN’s Holmes Lybrand reported that court documents show that a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, who stored files with classified information at his Florida home, will plead guilty in February to one count of unlawful retention of national defense information.

    Robert Birchum served in the Air Force for more than 30 years and previously held top secret clearance. According to his plea agreement, he stored hundreds of files that contained information marked as top secret, secret or confidential classified outside of authorized locations. A plea agreement stated that “the defendant’s residence was not a location authorized to store classified information, and the defendant knew as much.”

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  • Biden and his team ramp up travel to highlight effects of infrastructure law ahead of State of the Union | CNN Politics

    Biden and his team ramp up travel to highlight effects of infrastructure law ahead of State of the Union | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden and senior administration officials are embarking on a travel swing this week, showcasing what they see as successful measures to rebuild America’s ailing infrastructure.

    In what’s been described as a preview of some of the messaging for next week’s State of the Union address, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Cabinet secretaries are all hitting the road to highlight the implementation of the landmark legislation signed into law during the president’s first two years in office. Among those accomplishments are the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

    The president traveled to Baltimore on Monday to showcase the implementation of his policies, and later this week, he’ll head to New York City and Philadelphia for similar remarks.

    The trips are taking place in the lead up to Biden’s State of the Union speech in Washington next week – a national platform where he’s expected to illustrate how his policies are successfully going into effect – and a prospective reelection announcement in the coming months. Biden’s approach is expected to be focused on touting the rebound of the American economy and taking aim at Republican proposals – while still underscoring his desire to work across the aisle.

    In Baltimore on Monday, he discussed how the infrastructure law will fund replace the 150-year-old Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, addressing the largest bottleneck for commuters on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D C, and New Jersey. The new tunnel will be named in honor of civil rights leader and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

    Speaking from a presidential podium set to the backdrop of an American flag and an Amtrak train on the tracks, Biden recalled that he’d made a thousand trips through the tunnel and walked through it in the 1980s.

    “When folks talk about how badly the Baltimore tunnel needs an upgrade, you don’t need me to tell you. I’ve been there and you’ve been there, too,” Biden said.

    “You ought to get inside and see,” he remarked, discussing his tour of the tunnel decades ago. “This is a 150-year-old tunnel. I wonder how in the hell it’s still standing.”

    “The structure is deteriorating. The roof is leaking. The floor is sinking. This is the United States of America, for God’s sake. We know better than that,” he continued.

    When the project is done, Biden said, trains will roll through the tunnel at 110 mph instead of 30 mph, shortening regional MARC train commutes from Baltimore to Washington to 30 minutes.

    At Monday’s project kickoff, the president announced an agreement between the state of Maryland and Amtrak, which includes a $450 million commitment for the tunnel replacement project, according to the White House. A project labor agreement between Amtrak and the Baltimore-DC Building and Construction Trades Council was unveiled to cover the first phase of the project. And he also announced an agreement between Amtrak and the North American Builders’ Trade Union “that ensures Amtrak’s large civil engineering construction projects controlled by Amtrak will be performed under union agreements,” according to the White House.

    The program is expected to cost approximately $6 billion, of which Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding could contribute up to $4.7 billion, the White House said. Biden was joined by labor leaders, state and local officials, as well as members of Congress and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

    On Tuesday, Biden travels to New York City to discuss how Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding will improve the Hudson River Tunnel, which sees 200,000 passengers passing through each weekday on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit.

    On Friday, Biden and Harris are scheduled to travel to Philadelphia to discuss how Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding is removing lead pipes and ensuring clean water across Philadelphia and the country, the official told CNN.

    According to the White House, the pair “will discuss the progress we have made and their work implementing the Biden-Harris economic agenda that continues to deliver results for the American people.”

    Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge will also travel to Chicago to discuss progress made to address homelessness as a result of provisions within the American Rescue Plan, according to the official.

    While Biden has often embarked on domestic trips to highlight his policies in action, these stops have served as a significant messaging platform since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives this year.

    In a speech at a union hall in Virginia, Biden, for example, sought to contrast his economic policies with House Republicans’ effort in the debt limit standoff.

    He asked the crowd, “(Why) in God’s name would Americans give up the progress we’ve made for the chaos they’re suggesting?”

    “MAGA Republicans,” he added, “are literally choosing to inflict this pain on the American people.”

    Despite that heavy emphasis on his warnings about GOP plans, Biden this week is expected to hone in on his ability to work across the aisle to push legislation into law. Specifically, in a preview of the travel, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre underscored Biden’s “success (in) bringing Republicans and independents and Democrats together to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”

    In Baltimore on Monday, the president brought up his recent trip to Kentucky, where he stood alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to herald the implementation of the massive $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that McConnell and 18 other Senate Republicans supported.

    The policy messaging trips also carry more weight as the prospect of a presidential reelection campaign looms large over the White House.

    Biden has been working intensively on his State of the Union Speech speech – including over the weekend – which his team views as a launching pad for the reelection bid. His speeches around the East Coast week will offer a preview of his message as he touts new infrastructure projects.

    Behind the scenes, aides are building up a campaign infrastructure and the West Wing is in the process of restructuring for a politically intense two years.

    Peppered in between stops to visit projects funded though the proposals which were the bedrock of his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden will participate in events that are part of an intense fundraising push ahead of the campaign announcement.

    The travel comes as Biden also contends with a number of simmering issues in Washington – House Republican probes, investigations into classified documents found at his residence and former office and the debt ceiling standoff. The US Treasury is already taking extraordinary measures to keep the government paying its bills after the US hit the debt ceiling set by Congress.

    While the president is in Washington on Wednesday in between travel stops, he’s scheduled to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

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  • Biden intends to end Covid-19 and public health emergencies on May 11 | CNN Politics

    Biden intends to end Covid-19 and public health emergencies on May 11 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden intends to end the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11, the White House said Monday.

    The White House, in a statement of administration policy announcing opposition to two Republican measures to end the emergencies, said the national emergency and public health emergency authorities declared in response to the pandemic would each be extended one final time to May 11.

    “This wind down would align with the Administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the (public health emergency),” the statement said.

    The statement added, “To be clear, continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19. They do not impose mask mandates or vaccine mandates. They do not restrict school or business operations. They do not require the use of any medicines or tests in response to cases of COVID-19.”

    The statement came in response to a pair of measures before the House that would end the public health emergency and the Covid-19 national emergency.

    The White House weighed in because House Democrats were concerned about voting against the Republican legislation to end the public health emergency that is coming to the floor this week without a plan from the Biden administration, a senior Democratic aide told CNN.

    “Democrats were concerned about the optics of voting against Republicans winding down the public health emergency, absent an understanding of whether and how we intended to do so from the White House,” the aide said. “As soon as we saw this bill, it obviously concerns the White House. So, it was important for them to weigh in.”

    The administration argues that the bills are unnecessary because it intends to end the emergencies anyway. The White House also noted the passage of the measures ahead of May 11 would have unintended consequences, such as disrupting the administration’s plans for ending certain policies that are authorized by the emergencies.

    The White House said it would extend the Covid-19 emergencies one final time in order to ensure an orderly wind-down of key authorities that states, health care providers and patients have relied on throughout the pandemic.

    A White House official pointed to a successful vaccination campaign and reductions in Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths as a rationale for lifting the emergency declarations. The official said a final extension will allow for a smooth transition for health care providers and patients and noted that health care facilities have already begun preparing for that transition.

    The administration is actively reviewing flexible policies that were authorized under the public health emergency to determine which can remain in place after it is lifted on May 11.

    The aide told CNN that it will be up to every member to decide what is best for their district and how they will vote on the legislation this week. Declaring an end to the public health emergency will also end the border restriction known as Title 42, which will also likely set up a showdown on Capitol Hill.

    The public health emergency has enabled the government to provide many Americans with Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines at no charge, as well as offer enhanced social safety net benefits, to help the nation cope with the pandemic and minimize its impact.

    “People will have to start paying some money for things they didn’t have to pay for during the emergency,” said Jen Kates, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “That’s the main thing people will start to notice.”

    Most Americans covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance plans have been able to obtain Covid-19 tests and vaccines at no cost during the pandemic. Those covered by Medicare and private insurance have been able to get up to eight at-home tests per month from retailers at no charge. Medicaid also picks up the cost of at-home tests, though coverage can vary by state.

    Those covered by Medicare and Medicaid have also had certain therapeutic treatments, such as monoclonal antibodies, fully covered.

    Once the emergency ends, Medicare beneficiaries generally will face out-of-pocket costs for at-home testing and all treatment. However, vaccines will continue to be covered at no cost, as will testing ordered by a health care provider.

    State Medicaid programs will have to continue covering Covid-19 tests ordered by a physician and vaccines at no charge. But enrollees may face out-of-pocket costs for treatments.

    Those with private insurance could face charges for lab tests, even if they are ordered by a provider. Vaccinations will continue to be free for those with private insurance who go to in-network providers, but going to an out-of-network providers could incur charges.

    Covid-19 vaccinations will be free for those with insurance even when the public health emergency ends because of various federal laws, including the Affordable Care Act and pandemic-era measures, the Inflation Reduction Act and a 2020 relief package.

    Americans with private insurance have not been charged for monoclonal antibody treatment since they were prepaid by the federal government, though patients may be charged for the office visit or administration of the treatment. But that is not tied to the public health emergency, and the free treatments will be available until the federal supply is exhausted. The government has already run out of some of the treatments so those with private insurance may already be picking up some of the cost.

    The uninsured had been able to access no-cost testing, treatments and vaccines through a different pandemic relief program. However, the federal funding ran out in the spring of 2022, making it more difficult for those without coverage to obtain free services.

    The federal government has been preparing to shift Covid-19 care to the commercial market since last year, in part because Congress has not authorized additional funding to purchase additional vaccines, treatments and tests.

    Pfizer and Moderna have already announced that the commercial prices of their Covid-19 vaccines will likely be between $82 and $130 per dose – about three to four times what the federal government has paid, according to Kaiser.

    The public health emergency has also meant additional funds for hospitals, which have been receiving a 20% increase in Medicare’s payment rate for treating Covid-19 patients.

    Also, Medicare Advantage plans have been required to bill enrollees affected by the emergency and receiving care at out-of-network facilities the same as if they were at in-network facilities.

    This will end once the public health emergency expires.

    But several of the most meaningful enhancements to public assistance programs are no longer tied to the public health emergency. Congress severed the connection in December as part of its fiscal year 2023 government funding package.

    Most notably, states will now be able to start processing Medicaid redeterminations and disenrolling residents who no longer qualify, starting April 1. They have 14 months to review the eligibility of their beneficiaries.

    As part of a Covid-19 relief package passed in March 2020, states were barred from kicking people off Medicaid during the public health emergency in exchange for additional federal matching funds. Medicaid enrollment has skyrocketed to a record 90 million people since then, and millions are expected to lose coverage once states began culling the rolls.

    A total of roughly 15 million people could be dropped from Medicaid when the continuous enrollment requirement ends, according to an analysis the Department of Health and Human Services released in August. About 8.2 million folks would no longer qualify, but 6.8 million people would be terminated even though they are still eligible, the department estimated.

    Many who are disenrolled from Medicaid, however could qualify for other coverage.

    Food stamp recipients had been receiving a boost during the public health emergency. Congress increased food stamp benefits to the maximum for their family size in a 2020 pandemic relief package.

    The Biden administration expanded the boost in the spring of 2021 so that households already receiving the maximum amount and those who received only a small monthly benefit get a supplement of at least $95 a month.

    This extra assistance will end as of March, though several states have already stopped providing it.

    Congress, however, extended one set of pandemic flexibilities as part of the government funding package.

    More Medicare enrollees are able to get care via telehealth during the public health emergency. The service is no longer limited just to those living in rural areas. They can conduct the telehealth visit at home, rather than having to travel to a health care facility. Plus, beneficiaries can use smartphones and receive a wider array of services via telehealth.

    These will now continue through 2024.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • First on CNN: Biden administration to strengthen Obamacare contraceptive mandate in proposed rule | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Biden administration to strengthen Obamacare contraceptive mandate in proposed rule | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration wants to make it easier for women to access birth control at no cost under the Affordable Care Act, reversing Trump-era rules that weakened the law’s contraceptive mandate for employer-provided health insurance plans.

    The proposed rule, unveiled Monday by the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury, would remove an exemption to the mandate that allows employers to opt out for moral convictions. It would also create an independent pathway for individuals enrolled in plans offered by employers with religious exemptions to access contraceptive services through a willing provider without charge.

    The proposed rule would leave in place the existing religious exemption for employers with objections, as well as the optional accommodation for contraceptive coverage.

    The administration crafted the proposed rule keeping in mind the concerns of employers with religious objections and the contraceptive needs of their workers, a senior HHS official told CNN.

    “We had to really think through how to do this in the right way to satisfy both sides, but we think we found that way,” the official said, stressing that there should be no effect on religiously affiliated employers.

    Students at religiously affiliated colleges would have access to the expanded accommodation, just like workers in group health plans where the employer has claimed the exemption.

    Now that the proposed rule has been announced, the public will have the opportunity to comment during the next few months. Officials expect there to be many thousands of public comments, and it will be “many months” before the rule could be finalized.

    HHS expects the proposal would affect more than 100 employers and 125,000 workers, mainly through providing the proposed independent pathway for employees to receive no-cost contraception.

    Women using that pathway would obtain their birth control from a participating provider, who would be reimbursed by an insurer on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. The insurer, in turn, would receive a credit on the user fee it pays the government.

    “If this rule is finalized, individuals who have health plans that would otherwise be subject to the ACA preventive services requirements but have not covered contraceptive services because of a moral or religious objection, and for which the sponsoring employer or college or university has not elected the optional accommodation, would now have access,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a news release.

    How many people benefit, however, would depend on whether women and their health care providers know the independent pathway exists and whether providers and insurers are willing to set it up.

    “We’ll just have to see how widely that information is spread and in what way to providers and individuals,” said Laurie Sobel, associate director for Women’s Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, noting that the proposed rule would not require data collection to show the pathway’s takeup.

    But the Planned Parenthood Federation of America cheered the initiative.

    “Employers and universities should not be able to dictate personal health care decisions and impose their views on their employees or students,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the group’s CEO. “The ACA mandates that health insurance plans cover all forms of birth control without out-of-pocket costs. Now, more than ever, we must protect this fundamental freedom.”

    The requirement to provide no-cost contraception is not in the Affordable Care Act itself. Instead, HHS under former President Barack Obama included it as one of the women’s preventive services that all private insurance plans must offer without charge.

    The mandate was controversial from the start, sparking lawsuits from religiously affiliated employers and closely held companies that said it violated their beliefs. Exemptions and accommodations have been available for such employers.

    The Trump administration, however, weakened the mandate. Under the rules issued in 2018, entities that have “sincerely held religious beliefs” against providing contraceptives are not required to do so. That provision also extends to organizations and small businesses that have objections “on the basis of moral conviction which is not based in any particular religious belief.”

    The rules also include an optional accommodation that lets objecting employers and private universities remove themselves from providing birth control coverage while still allowing their workers and dependents access to contraception. But the employer or university has to voluntarily elect the accommodation, which risks leaving many without access.

    The Trump administration changes were temporarily blocked after a Pennsylvania district court judge issued a nationwide injunction in 2019. But the following year, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could expand exemptions for employers who have religious or moral objections to covering contraception.

    At the time, the National Women’s Law Center estimated that the ruling would impact about 64.3 million women in the United States with insurance coverage that included birth control and other preventive services without out-of-pocket costs.

    Employers are not required to notify HHS if they have a moral objection. The agency estimates about 18 employers have claimed that exemption and around 15 employees are affected.

    Still, if the rule is finalized, senior HHS officials say it is “plausible” there could be potential lawsuits brought by religiously affiliated employers – similar to what has been seen in the past.

    “There’s no new obligation on them to participate in any sort of process. This is simply an additional channel for employees in those employer health plans to receive access to contraceptive services,” another senior HHS official said.

    The contraceptive mandate has taken on increased importance now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing many states to impose severe restrictions on abortion access.

    The Biden administration in turn has focused on continuing access to birth control at no cost. The Health, Labor and Treasury department secretaries last year met with health insurers and issued guidance underscoring Obamacare’s contraceptive coverage requirements for private insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

    “Now more than ever, access to and coverage of birth control is critical as the Biden-Harris Administration works to help ensure women everywhere can get the contraception they need, when they need it, and – thanks to the ACA – with no out-of-pocket cost,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a news release.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • New year, new voters in Fed policymaking | CNN Business

    New year, new voters in Fed policymaking | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    Every year the Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee — aka the officials who decide interest rate moves — gets a slight refresh, with four of the district presidents rotating out as official voting members and four rotating in.

    The 2023 rotation brings a more dovish-leaning flock, and it comes during a critical year for the US central bank and the American economy.

    This year the Federal Open Market Committee’s new voting members include the newest district president Austan Goolsbee, head of the Chicago Fed; Patrick Harker, of the Philadelphia Fed; Lorie Logan, the Dallas Fed president who started in August 2022; and Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed.

    Rotating out as voting members are James Bullard of the St. Louis Fed; Susan Collins of the Boston Fed; Esther George, the Kansas City Fed chief who’s also retiring this month; and Loretta Mester of the Cleveland Fed.

    On the whole the FOMC contingent remains largely similar, with eight of the 12 voting members continuing from 2022. The non-voting members still lend their voices and perspectives to the proceedings.

    Following a stretch of seven consecutive heavy-handed interest rate hikes last year to battle rising prices, the Fed this year is expected to take a more delicate approach to its blunt monetary policy tools by downshifting on rate increases to an eventual idle.

    For new Fed members, be they governors or district presidents, it can take a while to stake out their territory and potentially differ from consensus, said Ellen Meade, a Duke University economics professor who had a 25-year career at the Fed.

    History has shown that the Reserve bank presidents typically tend to dissent more than board members; however, even that is a small percentage — about 7% — of votes cast, she added.

    “I’m not expecting that we will see a lot of dissent in terms of votes,” she said. “I think where we might see it is how they color the data that they’re seeing.”

    “Hawks” and “doves” are commonly used terms to describe Fed members’ differing monetary policy approaches. Doves tend to favor looser monetary policy and issues like low unemployment over low inflation. Hawks, however, favor robust rate hikes and keeping inflation low above all else.

    “If I had to qualify them as the hawkish- or dovish-leaning, I would say that last year’s constellation was a reasonably hawkish one, and this year’s constellation is almost certainly not quite as hawkish,” Meade said.

    That could change, however, if Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard leaves to head President Joe Biden’s economic council. Brainard has been considered as leaning more dovish than Powell and others, so her departure could result in a more hawkish shift in ideology at the top of the Fed.

    U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting on December 14, 2022, in Washington, DC.

    This particular Fed is obviously not quite as well known, Meade noted, adding that “because we have some new policymakers voting in 2023, we don’t have as much information on their policy inclinations as we did for last year’s voters.”

    For any potential split to occur would take some large moves in labor market outcomes – something not seen to this point, Meade said.

    “If [moderating inflation] holds up and the labor market softens but doesn’t take a very negative turn, then I think consensus is with us,” she said. “I think the question is what happens if the labor market starts to turn quickly?”

    The Fed has indicated, through its economic projections, that it would tolerate unemployment rising to the 4.5% to 4.75% range. But if that grows closer or past 5% and inflation hasn’t moderated as much as desired, “then I think we’re in a place where we’re going to see more signs of disagreement.”

    As it stands now, Fed officials have largely been singing from the same songbook, said Claudia Sahm, a former Fed economist and founder of Sahm Consulting.

    “Whether it was voting members or non-voting members, you didn’t see a lot of pushback in public,” she said. “There was really a unified force of ‘we’re going to go big, and we’re going to go fast.’”

    That unified messaging continued during recent speeches on how the Fed would slow it down, be patient and stay the course, Sahm added.

    “The Fed is being very clear across the board, even people you would think of as more ‘dovish,’ that they do not want to let up too soon and get us into a situation where then they have to come back and do even more,” she said. “I don’t think that switching up who’s voting will matter much.”

    “They’re all hawks now,” Sahm added.

    The Fed also does not want to be in a position where it is lulled into a false sense of security by positive inflation data, she added. Fed Governor Christopher Waller put it bluntly in a speech last week: “We do not want to be head-faked.”

    “It’s going to take months and months of good news, and frankly, we’re in store for a bumpy ride this year,” Sahm said. “It’s not like every month is going to be good news on inflation.”

    Patrick Harker, Philadelphia Fed president and CEO, new 2023 FOMC voting member

    Austan Goolsbee, Chicago Fed president and CEO, new FOMC voting member for 2023

    Lorie Logan, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas president and CEO, and new voting member for 2023.

    Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis Fed president and CEO, and new FOMC voting member for 2023

    2023 Federal Open Market Committee

    Permanent voting members (Board of Governors):

    Jerome Powell, chair

    Lael Brainard, vice chair

    Michael Barr, vice chair for supervision

    Michelle Bowman, governor

    Lisa Cook, governor

    Philip Jefferson, governor

    Christopher Waller, governor

    Voting Districts:

    John Williams, New York (permanent voting district)

    *Austan Goolsbee, Chicago

    *Patrick Harker, Philadelphia

    *Lorie Logan, Dallas

    *Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis

    Non-voting districts:

    Helen Mucciolo, interim first vice president, New York

    Loretta Mester, Cleveland

    Thomas Barkin, Richmond

    Raphael Bostic, Atlanta

    Mary Daly, San Francisco

    James Bullard, St. Louis

    Esther George, Kansas City (plans to retire this month)

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  • TikTok CEO to testify before Congress in March | CNN Business

    TikTok CEO to testify before Congress in March | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify at an upcoming hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a committee spokesperson confirmed to CNN Monday.

    Chew will be the sole witness at the hearing, scheduled for March 23. He is expected to testify on TikTok’s privacy and data security practices, its impact on young users, and its “relationship to the Chinese Communist Party,” according to a hearing announcement on the committee’s website.

    “We’ve made our concerns clear with TikTok,” said the committee’s chair, Washington Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, in a statement. “It is now time to continue the committee’s efforts to hold Big Tech accountable by bringing TikTok before the committee to provide complete and honest answers for people.”

    Chew’s upcoming testimony was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The high-profile hearing underscores the rising political risk for TikTok as its negotiations with the US government on a national security deal continue to drag on.

    US officials have raised concerns that China could use its laws to pressure TikTok or its parent, ByteDance, to hand over US user data that could be used for intelligence or disinformation purposes. Those concerns have prompted the US government to ban TikTok from official devices, and more than half of US states have taken similar measures, according to a CNN analysis.

    Chew, who took over as TikTok CEO in April 2021, has largely stayed out of the spotlight at a time when the app he leads can’t seem to avoid it. Members of Congress previously grilled TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas, arguably the public face of the company in the United States, during a Senate hearing last year.

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  • DOJ tells senators it is working to satisfy Trump and Biden document demands without harming special counsel probes | CNN Politics

    DOJ tells senators it is working to satisfy Trump and Biden document demands without harming special counsel probes | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department has told lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee that it is working to satisfy their demands for information about classified documents found at properties of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump without harming ongoing special counsel investigations into both matters, according to a new letter obtained by CNN.

    The DOJ letter, dated Saturday, responds to the committee’s August request for information about the documents recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and follow-up inquiries by the panel about classified material found at the Penn Biden Center as well as Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.

    “We are working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to support the provision of information that will satisfy the Committee’s responsibilities without harming the ongoing Special Counsel investigations,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote to Democratic Sen. Mark Warner and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, the Intelligence panel’s top lawmakers.

    “Although one of the Special Counsels was appointed only on January 12, prosecutors on both matters are actively working to enable sharing information with the Committee,” Uriarte said.

    The letter also notes that the DOJ “worked in good faith to schedule a briefing in September 2022,” but since that time, there have been “significant developments, including the appointment of two separate Special Counsels to handle the respective matters.”

    “The Department looks forward to continuing to engage with the Committee to meet its needs while protecting the Department’s interests,” the letter states.

    The DOJ’s response, which was also sent to the top lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, comes with Warner and Rubio reiterating their call for department to share the classified documents obtained from the properties of Biden and Trump.

    In an interview Sunday with “Face the Nation” on CBS, Warner and Rubio objected to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s policy to withhold the documents until the special counsels handling each investigation give authorization. Warner said the DOJ policy “doesn’t hold water.”

    “Our job is to make sure there’s not an intelligence compromise, and while the Director of National Intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you’ve got the special counsel, the notion that we’re going to be left in limbo, and we can’t do our job, that just cannot stand,” the Virginia Democrat said.

    Rubio called into question the logic behind the Justice Department’s position to not share the documents with the committee, arguing that as members of the Senate Intelligence panel, it’s likely they already have the proper clearance to view the documents.

    “I don’t know how congressional oversight on the document, actually knowing what they are, in any way impedes an investigation,” the Florida Republican said. “These are probably materials we already have access to. We just don’t know which ones they are.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Video of Nichols’ beating prompts renewed calls for police reform | CNN Politics

    Video of Nichols’ beating prompts renewed calls for police reform | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    New York to San Francisco. Baltimore to Portland. Boston to Los Angeles, and countless cities in between.

    Protesters once again took to the streets over the weekend to decry police brutality after the release of video capturing the violent Memphis police beating that led to the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols.

    On Sunday morning, Nichols’ family attorney made note of the outrage as he aimed a simple but pointed message at Washington.

    “Shame on us if we don’t use [Nichols’] tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed,” Ben Crump said on CNN’s “State of Union.”

    President Joe Biden referenced the failed legislation in his statement about Nichols on Friday, and many leaders – from the chairs of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio – are acknowledging a potential role for federal legislation.

    The Congressional Black Caucus is requesting a meeting with Biden this week to push for negotiations. “We are calling on our colleagues in the House and Senate to jumpstart negotiations now and work with us to address the public health epidemic of police violence that disproportionately affects many of our communities,” CBC Chair Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat, wrote in a statement on Sunday.

    Gloria Sweet-Love, the Tennessee State Conference NAACP president, called on Congress to step up during a Sunday evening news conference in Memphis. “By failing to craft and pass bills to stop police brutality, you’re writing another Black man’s obituary. The blood of Black America is on your hands. So stand up and do something.”

    But with Congress as divided as ever, it appears public outrage is once again on a collision course with Washington partisanship.

    Here’s what you need to know about the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, why it failed, and what chances it stands in the current political climate.

    The legislation, originally introduced in 2020 and again in 2021, would set up a national registry of police misconduct to stop officers from evading consequences for their actions by moving to another jurisdiction.

    It would ban racial and religious profiling by law enforcement at the federal, state and local levels, and it would overhaul qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that critics say shields law enforcement from accountability.

    According to a fact sheet on the legislation at the time, the measure would also allow “individuals to recover damages in civil court when law enforcement officers violate their constitutional rights by eliminating qualified immunity for law enforcement.”

    The fact sheet also states that the legislation would “save lives by banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants” and would mandate “deadly force be used only as a last resort.”

    The bill twice cleared the House under Democratic control – in 2020 and 2021 – largely along party lines. But it never went anywhere in the Senate, even after Democrats won control in 2021, in part, because of disagreements about qualified immunity, which protects police officers from being sued in civil court.

    Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina spent some six months trying to hash out a deal that could win 60 votes in the Senate, but talks were stymied by a number of complicated issues.

    “It was clear at this negotiating table, in this moment, we were not making progress,” Booker told reporters in the spring of 2021. “In fact, recent back-and-forth with paper showed me that we were actually moving away from it. The negotiations we were in stopped. But the work will continue.”

    With the legislation stuck, Biden signed a more limited executive order to overhaul policing on the second anniversary of Floyd’s death. It took several actions that can be applied to federal officers, including efforts to ban chokeholds, expand the use of body-worn cameras and restrict no-knock warrants, among other things.

    But the president cannot mandate that local law enforcement adopt the measures in his order; the executive action lays out levers the federal government can use, such as federal grants and technical assistance, to incentivize local law enforcement to get on board

    And since then, little has happened on the federal legislative front.

    Here’s the reality: the road for police reform has only become more challenging in the new Congress now that House Republicans, who have placed their priorities elsewhere, are in the majority.

    Senate Democrats picked up one more seat in last year’s midterm elections to pad their majority, but they’re still far short of the 60 votes that would be need for such an effort to succeed. That means any policing overhaul that can find meaningful support in Congress will likely be stripped of the kind of measures that protesters are calling for.

    State officials have been initiating investigations into local police departments, recognizing that the federal government can’t take on every case nationwide.

    And, in some cases, local governments have taken their own steps. In the year after Floyd was killed, at least 25 states had considered some form of qualified immunity reform. In 2021, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed into law a series of police reforms that created a system to decertify law enforcement officers found to have engaged in serious misconduct – joining the majority of states that have similar decertification authorities.

    But, for many, it’s not nearly enough. Read this CNN Opinion piece from Sonia Pruitt, a retired Montgomery County, Maryland, police captain:

    “Many have noted the police assault on Nichols is reminiscent of that on Rodney King, a Black man whose beating at the hands of Los Angeles police officers in 1991 was captured on video. But the beating of Nichols is actually much worse because it shows that after nearly 32 years, the needle of police reform has barely moved, and seemingly minor traffic violations continue to lead to the deaths of Black and other minority men and women in police encounters.”

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  • House Democrats targeted by McCarthy defend their committee assignments | CNN Politics

    House Democrats targeted by McCarthy defend their committee assignments | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The trio of Democrats whom House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has targeted for removal from committee assignments offered a unified rebuke in a joint interview on CNN that aired Sunday.

    Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, who were stripped of their positions on the House Intelligence Committee, and Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom McCarthy is seeking to oust from the House Foreign Affairs panel, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that the California Republican’s actions were nakedly partisan.

    “This is some Bakersfield BS,” Swalwell said in the interview, referring to the speaker’s hometown. “It’s Kevin McCarthy weaponizing his ability to commit this political abuse, because he perceives me, just like Mr. Schiff and Ms. Omar, as an effective political opponent.”

    Schiff similarly cast their ouster as “all pretextual” and a result of McCarthy “catering to the most extreme members of their conference.”

    “And I don’t accept the premise that this has anything to do with the conduct of any of the Democratic members. This is merely the weakness of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, that he’s so reliant on these extreme members,” Schiff said.

    McCarthy has cited a “new standard” from Democrats for why he was stripping Schiff and Swalwell, both fellow Californians, of their Intelligence Committee assignments.

    The speaker said in a letter to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that it was his “assessment that the misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congresses severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions – ultimately leaving our nation less safe.” He said he wants the panel to be one of “genuine honesty and credibility that regains the trust of the American people.”

    McCarthy specifically targeted Schiff over his handling of the first impeachment of then-President Donald Trump. Among other things, McCarthy said: “Adam Schiff openly lied to the American public. He told you he had proof. He told you he didn’t know the whistleblower.”

    Yet there is no evidence for McCarthy’s insinuation that Schiff lied when he said he didn’t know the anonymous whistleblower who came forward in 2019 with allegations – which were subsequently corroborated – about how Trump had attempted to use the power of his office to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, then a looming rival in the 2020 election.

    “Apparently he believes I was very effective in exposing his misconduct, Donald Trump’s misconduct. And that’s what they’re trying to stop,” Schiff told Bash. “So, I think that he benefits from having these smears repeated. And that’s part of what he gains from it. But this is a pretext, and nothing more.”

    Swalwell, meanwhile, rebuffed GOP claims that he shared sensitive information with a suspected Chinese spy – a charge McCarthy has repeatedly put forward.

    “There’s nothing there,” the California Democrat said, noting that the FBI has relayed that “all I did was help them, and, also, I was never under any suspicion of wrongdoing.”

    McCarthy was able to use his authority as speaker to unilaterally keep Schiff and Swalwell off the Intelligence panel because it is a select committee. Ousting Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee would require a vote of the full House. If all Democrats vote to oppose the move, it would only take a handful of GOP critics to block McCarthy from moving forward, given House Republicans’ razor-thin majority.

    Asked Sunday about her past comments, which were condemned by both sides of the aisle as antisemitic, Omar noted that she had apologized and said she’s hopeful that any vote against her as a result of those comments will fall short.

    “I might have used words at the time that I didn’t understand were trafficking in antisemitism. When that was brought to my attention, I apologized, I owned up to it. That’s the kind of person that I am,” the Minnesota Democrat said.

    “What I do know is that the two Republicans that have been public and some that have privately said that they are not going to vote to remove me are doing so because they don’t want to be seen as hypocrites,” she added.

    Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana said last week that she opposed the push to strip the three Democrats of their committee assignments, stressing the importance of ethics probes before taking disciplinary action against any elected member of Congress. South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace has said she has concerns about the resolution to oust Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. A third Republican, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, has told NBC News he was “opposed to … the removal of Congresswoman Omar from committees.”

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  • Jobs report to give further clues about where economy is headed | CNN Business

    Jobs report to give further clues about where economy is headed | CNN Business

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    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Federal Reserve is going to raise interest rates again on Wednesday. But will it be another half-point hike or just a quarter-point increase? And what about the rest of the year?

    The Fed’s actions beyond this week’s meeting will depend primarily on whether inflation is truly slowing. Investors will get another clue when the January jobs report is released on Friday.

    Economists predict that 185,000 jobs were added last month, a slowdown from the gain of 223,000 jobs in December and 263,000 in November. A further deceleration in the labor market would likely please the Fed, as it would show that last year’s rate hikes are successfully taking some air out of the economy.

    The Fed knows it’s in a tough situation. Inflation pressures are partly fueled by wage gains for workers. In an environment where the unemployment rate is at a half-century low of 3.5%, employees have been able to command big increases in pay to keep up with rising prices of consumer goods and services.

    Along those lines, average hourly earnings, a measure of wages that is also part of the monthly jobs report, are expected to increase 4.3% year-over year. That’s down from 4.6% in December and 5.1% in November.

    As wage growth cools, so do price increases. The Fed’s favorite measure of inflation – the Personal Consumption Price Index or PCE – rose “just” 5% over the past 12 months through last December, compared to a 5.5% annual increase in November.

    That is still uncomfortably high, but the trend is moving in the right direction.

    The problem for the Fed, though, is that it may need to keep raising interest rates until there is further evidence that the labor market is cooling off enough to push the rate of inflation even lower.

    Several other job market indicators continue to show that the US economy is in no serious danger of a recession just yet. The number of people filing for weekly jobless claims dipped last week to 186,000, a nine-month low. Investors will get the latest weekly initial claims numbers on Thursday.

    The market will also be closely watching reports about private-sector job growth from payroll processor ADP and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) from the Department of Labor this week. The last JOLTS report showed that more jobs were available than expected in November.

    Still, some expect that wage growth should continue to fall, which should take pressure off the Fed somewhat.

    “Wage growth has been on a slowing trajectory, and we suspect that softer wage growth will be a trend in 2023 as jobs available contract,” said Tony Welch, chief investment officer at SignatureFD, a wealth management firm, in a report.

    Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Organized labor has been winning bigger pay increases lately in the transportation industry. And more workers at tech and retail giants have been unionizing as of late.

    “Workers will be loath to relinquish the bargaining power they perceive to have gained over the past year,” said Jason Vaillancourt, global macro strategist at Putnam, in a report.

    Vaillancourt also pointed out that many consumers are still flush with cash that they saved up during the early stages of the pandemic. That could mean that inflation isn’t going away anytime soon.

    And even though the pace of jobs gains may be slowing, it’s not as if economists are starting to predict monthly job losses like the US has had in previous recessions.

    “Combine a strong labor market with a still substantial reserve of excess savings, and you have all the components in place to keep the Fed up at night,” Vaillancourt said.

    So as long as hopes for an economic “soft landing” persist, the Fed will have to keep worrying that inflation is too high. That increases the chances the Fed could go too far with rate hikes and ultimately lead to a recession.

    Wall Street is clearly buying into the “soft landing” argument. Just look at how well tech stocks have done so far this year, despite a series of high-profile layoff announcements from top Silicon Valley companies in the past few months.

    The Nasdaq is up 11% so far in January, putting it on track for its best monthly performance since July.

    Some argue that more tech layoffs won’t be a problem. Investors seem to be (somewhat perversely) taking the view that companies cutting costs is a good thing for profits and that revenue likely won’t be impacted in a negative way because consumers are still spending.

    “A theme that can’t go unnoticed this month is how traders are rewarding firms for cutting jobs. With corporate layoffs making headlines each evening, you might think the consumer is strained. Maybe not so much. It turns out that demand is decent,” said Frank Newman, portfolio manager at Ally Invest, in a report.

    But a continuation of the Nasdaq’s surge may depend a lot on how well a quartet of tech leaders do when they report fourth quarter earnings next week: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms, Apple

    (AAPL)    , Google owner Alphabet

    (GOOGL)     and Amazon

    (AMZN)    .

    “A set of much weaker-than-expected reports from these firms could dent the market’s strong start to 2023,” said Daniel Berkowitz, senior investment officer for investment manager Prudent Management Associates, in a report.

    So far, tech earnings season is not off to an inspiring start, with Microsoft

    (MSFT)    , Intel

    (INTC)     and IBM

    (IBM)     all reporting weak results. But it’s important to note that that trio is part of the “old tech” guard while Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta all have more rapidly growing businesses.

    Tesla

    (TSLA)     reported strong results last week, which could be a sign of good things to come from other more dynamic tech companies.

    Monday: IMF releases world outlook; earnings from Philips

    (PHG)    , GE Healthcare, Franklin Resources

    (BEN)    , SoFi, Ryanair

    (RYAAY)    , Whirlpool

    (WHR)     and Principal Financial

    (PFG)

    Tuesday: China official PMI; Europe GDP; US employment cost index; US consumer confidence; earnings from Exxon Mobil

    (XOM)    , Samsung

    (SSNLF)    , GM

    (GM)    , Phillips 66

    (PSX)    , Marathon Petroleum

    (MPC)    , UPS

    (UPS)    , Pfizer

    (PFE)    , Sysco

    (SYY)    , Caterpillar

    (CAT)    , UBS

    (UBS)    , McDonald’s

    (MCD)    , Spotify

    (SPOT)    , Mondelez

    (MDLZ)    , Amgen

    (AMGN)    , AMD

    (AMD)    , Electronic Arts

    (EA)    , Snap

    (SNAP)     and Match

    (MTCH)

    Wednesday: Fed meeting; US ADP private sector jobs; US JOLTS; China Caixin PMI; Europe inflation; earnings from AmerisourceBergen

    (ABC)    , Humana

    (HUM)    , T-Mobile

    (TMUS)    , Novartis

    (NVS)    , Altria

    (MO)    , Peloton

    (PTON)    , Meta Platforms, McKesson

    (MCK)    , MetLife

    (MET)     and AllState

    (ALL)

    Thursday: US weekly jobless claims; US productivity; BOE meeting; ECB meting; Germany trade data; earnings from Cardinal Health

    (CAH)    , ConocoPhillips

    (COP)    , Merck

    (MRK)    , Bristol-Myers

    (BMY)    , Honeywell

    (HON)    , Eli Lilly

    (LLY)    , Stanley Black & Decker

    (SWK)    , Hershey

    (HSY)    , Sirius XM

    (SIRI)    , Penn Entertainment

    (PENN)    , Ferrari

    (RACE)    , Harley-Davidso

    (HOG)    n, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Ford

    (F)    , Qualcomm

    (QCOM)    , Starbucks

    (SBUX)    , Gilead Sciences

    (GILD)    , Hartford Financial

    (HIG)    , Clorox

    (CLX)     and WWE

    (WWE)

    Friday: US jobs report; US ISM non-manufacturing (services) index; earnings from Cigna

    (CI)    , Sanofi

    (SNY)    , LyondellBasell

    (LYB)     and Regeneron

    (REGN)

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