Finance Minister Janet L. Yellen made a concise case for President Biden’s $ 1.9 billion coronavirus relief package and said in a national television interview on Thursday morning that it was an economic lifeline for families, workers, teachers and will be healthcare professionals.
“It’s really an urgent need,” she told ABC News, “and we need to act big.”
Hours later, first-year Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia pulled live cable news while speaking on the House floor. Before voting in the chamber to revoke her instructions to the committee, she tried to deny her statements from the past that they denied the 9/11 terrorist attacks and shootings, attributing the California wildfires to ‘space lasers’ ‘which was controlled by Jews. But she did not apologize and introduced herself as a victim of a liberal ‘canceling culture’.
Her belligerent attitude and embrace of conspiracy theories, many of which are advocated by pro-Trump extremists who stormed the U.S. Capitol last month, have put her party in a bind as her leadership struggles over how to move forward after defeating the presidency and lost Congress.
The striking rift between two parties – the one eager to provide legal aid amid a pandemic and economic crisis, and the other being consumed by debates over conspiracy theories and loyalty to the bombastic former president – has become a defining feature of the first week of the reign of Biden. And it offers Biden a more comfortable honeymoon than new presidents usually enjoy.
‘It feels like there is now nothing but an open road for Biden. Republicans are just circling the drain, ”said Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic communications strategist and veteran of the Obama administration. “If you see them on television now, it’s fighting with each other. It would seem that they have to sort out a lot before they can have the organizational and ideological cohesion to be an effective opposition party. ‘
As the White House and Democrats focus on addressing a comprehensive response to the pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis, Republicans remain embroiled in the kind of internal strife that has dominated the Trump presidency, with a focus on fighting within the party and purity tests while together were only marginal and uncoordinated responses to the administration’s top priority.
Although GOP lawmakers have complained about the scale of the US rescue plan, they have not launched a coherent campaign to defeat it, just as they did just over a decade ago by taking action against the Obama administration. show as sowing that of ‘great government’ and sowing the seed of public opposition by arousing the fear of a takeover of health care full of ‘death panels’.
With the party’s populist wing distracted from attacking the president, a small group of policy-oriented IDP senators – at least for now – have enabled him to show an interest in duality by conducting substantive policy talks with them. .
Biden seems to have an agenda that is sharply focused on what most Americans see as the most important issues facing the country, ‘said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster in Washington. Ayres is concerned that the ongoing battles between the populist wing of the IDP and the more government-oriented elements of the party will hamper efforts to put pressure on the government.
At the moment, Biden’s plan is generally popular, something that administrative associates have pointed out as having a dual public appeal, even if the support of Republicans from Congress is uncertain. According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, 68% of Americans support the massive emergency relief plan. The president also saw his job approval rise to 61% Thursday in an Associated Press-NORC survey.
At the White House, Biden met with Democrats on Friday to plan the relief of the emergency relief package through the House. The president then made remarks emphasizing its components and explaining why he gives priority to moving quickly above the support of two parties.
Biden promises not to diminish the size of the $ 1400 direct relief tests in his package, and tries to put some political pressure on Republicans, arguing that ‘some in Congress think we’ve had enough did to deal with the crisis. This is not what I see. I see tremendous pain in this country. ”
Republican lawmakers have largely remained silent in response, a pattern that has drawn frustration from some party strategists, who say the IDP should draw more sustained, focused criticism on the government’s plan. The strategists say that it would be easy to attack the plan, for example by arguing that it includes too much funding for schools commissioned by teachers’ unions, or that its minimum wage increase is poorly integrated and will harm struggling small businesses.
Instead of shooting such holes in Biden’s proposal, the Republicans embarked on a circular firing squad. Wednesday night, after minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) admonished Greene in a private meeting, but chose not to punish her himself, he survived another challenge to his authority and an ultimately unsuccessful vote on a controversial party conference meeting held to replace Rep Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her leadership position. Trump allies tried to remove her from the party’s No. 3 post in the House because she voted to accuse the former president of his role in inciting the January 6 siege of the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the election of Biden.
Less than 24 hours later, the House voted 230 to 199 to remove Greene from her committee posts, with 11 Republicans breaking up with McCarthy and sending the controversial first-year message along with the Democrats.
On Friday morning, Greene drew dozens of reporters for a news conference outside the Capitol, declaring that the GOP is Trump’s party and “does not belong to anyone else.”
“For the past four years, Republicans have been conditioned to spend more time fighting each other than to fight real Democratic policies,” GOP strategist Rory Cooper said in frustration that the party no longer had sustained criticism of Biden’s proposal. did not deliver. “President Trump was usually most obsessed with Republicans who were not subservient to him, so there are still some PTSDs who forget what it’s like to be a minority party and how to push a Democratic agenda while pursuing your own solutions. offer.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), One of the lawmakers who admitted Trump’s denial of the election results and the false allegations of voter fraud that incited the mob, was rewarded with almost every night’s appearance on Fox News for raging about ‘cancel’ culture. ”
Other Republican lawmakers appearing in prime time have largely deviated from the attack on Biden or the coronavirus proposal. Instead, they raised well-known criticisms of cultural lightning rods such as New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“I do not think many Republicans accept this package, but they are so addicted to the world they have now created from conspiracy theories and extremist issues, that they can not even focus in one place on their opposition to the president,” Julian said. E. Zelizer said, whose book “Burning Down the House” outlines the rise of the modern GOP.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Whose militant loyalty to Trump earned him a political reputation enjoyed by some back-benchers, flew to Wyoming last week to face Cheney. Despite the failure of the attempt to oust her, Gaetz and Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) are bearing the fruit of printing the case: TV invitations, Twitter fans and online contributions from the former president’s base .
“The incentive structure is wrong for members to pursue a genuinely conservative agenda, and that is not changing,” Cooper said. ‘And we are now electing members of Congress who fit into the terrible incentive structure, rather than members who can change it. That’s why we have Marjorie Taylor Greene. ”
In general, however, the party can claim a toll that is good for individual IDP legislators in safe districts. Only 26% of the country agrees with Republicans in Congress, while 64% do not approve, according to the Quinnipiac poll this week.
As the House’s GOP conference facilited, a group of ten moderate Republican senators engaged the White House in policy discussions and began looking for areas of possible compromises such as the legislative process.
The group expressed optimism about future talks after leaving a meeting with Biden with Oval Office on Monday. They avoided criticism, even though the government stressed that the president was not responding to Republicans’ requests to scale down the size of the package.
Mitt Romney (R-Utah), one of ten, on Thursday presented a review of a section of the government bill, a proposed child tax credit. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain responded by tweet that he ‘really looked forward to seeing what @SenatorRomney is going to propose here’, which the outreach ” is an encouraging sign that dual action to reduce child poverty is possible. ‘
Although the potential development was overshadowed by the vote in the House to deprive Greene of her committee assignments, the dual conversations for Biden could be just as beneficial as the stricter voices on the right that focus their anger elsewhere.
‘The ability to act against the more extreme [Republican] voices are helpful. But what’s most helpful to Biden is that he goes beyond the optics of duality and actually had meetings with the ten Republicans and still has candid communication, “said Kevin Madden, a communications consultant who is a former House spokesman. of the IDP was, said, majority.
Biden has “put the promise of duality into practice for the time being,” Madden said. “That’s what helps him the most.”