AS WE ALL KNOW BY NOW, the next several weeks will be filled with wrangling over another round of Covid relief. Expect negotiations to start somewhat immediately — we’ll probably see MARK MEADOWS and Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN on Capitol Hill in the coming days.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL has said he expects a bill out next week. By Monday, details will start trickling to members. Leadership anticipates briefing Senate Republicans on their bill Tuesday. That’s when talks will start in earnest.
THE ONE FIRM RED LINE has been drawn by MCCONNELL. He says that under no circumstance will a bill pass his chamber without an overhaul to liability laws. That policy has some interesting bedfellows: Business and education are both, generally speaking, on board.
WE GOT OUR HANDS on the draft summary for the liability piece. The WHITE HOUSE has it, and it’s floating around the Senate. The main two planks are:
— PROTECTIONS FOR, SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CHARITIES, LOCAL GOVERNMENT ENTITIES AND BUSINESSES that follow public health guidelines, and for FRONT-LINE HEALTH WORKERS. Entities and front-line health workers are liable only for “gross negligence” or “intentional misconduct.”
— PROTECTIONS FROM LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT LAWS for employers who follow public health guidelines. It would protect employers from liability for workplace testing.
JAKE and JOHN BRESNAHAN reported late Thursday that President DONALD TRUMP is telling people he will not sign a bill without the payroll tax cut. THE WASHINGTON POST’S ERICA WERNER and JEFF STEIN put that threat in a succinct frame: “Trump has also frequently threatened to veto congressional deals — such as those that left out funding for his border wall with Mexico — before caving.”
SO, in sum — pay a lot of attention to MCCONNELL’S liability play. Pay less attention to TRUMP’S payroll thing, because he always caves in legislative negotiations.
NYT’S MARK LEIBOVICH: “A Club of G.O.P. Political Heirs Push Back on Trump”: “[E]ven as Mr. Trump’s takeover of his party is largely complete, a trio of heirs to the old guard have been among the most prominent dissenting voices. A high-profile club of elected Republicans — all descendants of the Republican establishment of the past, whether rebellious or resolute — has emerged as a kind of shadow conscience of the party during these days of turmoil.
“Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland has been a leading voice of frustration over Mr. Trump’s management of the Covid-19 outbreak. He was also one of the few Republican governors to say, in 2016, that he would not support his party’s nominee. Instead he wrote in the name of his late father, Representative Lawrence J. Hogan, the only Watergate-era Republican in the House who voted to recommend all three articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon.
“Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has been perhaps her party’s most persistent critic of Mr. Trump’s national security program. … Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, has made plain his disgust for Mr. Trump on a variety of occasions. (The feeling is mutual.) His father, George Romney, was a three-term governor of Michigan and a Republican presidential candidate who repeatedly ran afoul of the party’s orthodoxy on civil rights and Vietnam.”
THIS WILL GET YOU TO NO. 1 ON THE BEST-SELLER LIST … LAT: “Mary Trump’s memoir sells 950,000 on first day, setting a record for publisher”
FRONTS: NYT … WSJ … N.Y. POST
DRIVING TODAY: House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY has a 1 p.m. tele-press conference with reporters.
Good Friday morning.
It’s time for updated internet regulations to prevent election interference. We’ve more than tripled our security and safety teams to 35,000 people, added 5-step political ad verification and partnered with security researchers, other tech companies and law enforcement to combat foreign election interference. What’s next? We support updated internet regulations.
ENGAGED — White House Director of Strategic Communications ALYSSA FARAH and JUSTIN GRIFFIN, managing director of the USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative and an incoming MBA student at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He proposed on his boat on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, where his family has a summer home. Griffin told Farah the boat battery had died, and then called her to the back of the boat to restart it — and he was on one knee. The rest of Justin’s family — brother, sister-in-law and parents — was on another boat nearby. They had dinner from Gusto Italian Cafe in Center Harbor, N.H. Pic … Another pic
THE EVER-SHRINKING CONVENTIONS … NYT: “Democratic officials are instructing House and Senate members and party delegates to skip attending their national convention this summer, a sign of the ever-shrinking aspirations for their big campaign event in the face of surging coronavirus cases in the United States.
“‘We have been working closely with state and local public health officials, as well epidemiologists, and have come to the hard decision that members of Congress should not plan to travel to Milwaukee,’ Chasseny Lewis, a senior adviser to the convention committee, wrote in an email to congressional aides. ‘No delegates will travel to Milwaukee and Caucus and Council meetings will take place virtually.’”
RECORD SET … WAPO: “[T]he number of new cases reported each day is reaching dizzying new heights — and topped 70,000 for the first time Thursday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. Nebraska, Utah and Oregon each shattered their previous single-day records, pushing the total number of infections detected nationwide past 3.5 million.”
HMM — “Who took down the CDC’s coronavirus data? The agency itself.” by Dan Diamond, Adam Cancryn, Rachel Roubein and Darius Tahir: “After the Trump administration ordered hospitals to change how they report coronavirus data to the government, effectively bypassing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials at the CDC made a decision of their own: Take our data and go home.
“The sudden disappearance of the CDC’s coronavirus dashboards on Wednesday — which drew considerable scrutiny before the agency restored them on Thursday afternoon — has become the latest flashpoint in the extraordinary breakdown between the Washington, D.C.-based federal health department and the nation’s premier public health agency, located in Atlanta.
“While Democrats and health care groups spent Thursday blasting the Trump administration over the missing dashboards, which tracked critical data on coronavirus hospitalizations, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services insisted that they were just as shocked when the CDC’s data disappeared from public view.
“‘No one came out of our conversations believing that CDC was going to stop doing analysis,’ said one administration official who was involved in plans for shifting the data-reporting responsibilities away from CDC. The official, who requested anonymity, said the 24-hour disappearance of the agency’s dashboards was an unwelcome surprise. ‘All it did was feed into this narrative that we were cutting off the CDC when that’s not what happened at all,’ the official said.”
THE ECONOMY … REFINANCE! … WSJ: “30-Year Mortgage Rate Reaches Lowest Level Ever: 2.98%,” by Orla McCaffrey: “In a year of financial firsts, this one stands out: Mortgage rates have fallen below the 3% mark. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 2.98%, mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac said Thursday, its lowest level in almost 50 years of record keeping. It is the third consecutive week and the seventh time this year that rates on America’s most popular home loan have hit a fresh low.”
CNN’S MANU RAJU and JEREMY HERB: “GOP to Trump: Change tune on mail-in voting or risk ugly November”: “Republican officials throughout the country are reacting with growing alarm to President Donald Trump’s attacks on mail-in ballots, saying his unsubstantiated claims of mass voting fraud are already corroding the views of GOP voters, who may ultimately choose not to vote at all if they can’t make it to the polls come November.
“Behind the scenes, top Republicans are urging senior Trump campaign officials to press the President to change his messaging and embrace mail-in voting, warning that the party could lose the battle for control of Congress and the White House if he doesn’t change his tune, according to multiple GOP sources. Trump officials, sources said, are fully aware of the concerns.
“The impact could be detrimental to the GOP up and down the ticket, according to a bevy of Republican election officials, field operatives, pollsters and lawmakers who are watching the matter closely. Every vote will count in critical battleground states, they argue, fearful that deterring GOP voters from choosing a convenient option to cast their ballots could ultimately sway the outcome of races that are decided by a couple of percentage points.”
— “Tens of thousands of mail ballots have been tossed out in this year’s primaries. What will happen in November?” by WaPo’s Elise Viebeck and Michelle Ye Hee Lee
ELENA SCHNEIDER: “Biden cuts deep into Trump’s 2020 cash advantage”: “Joe Biden has nearly closed the once-yawning cash gap between him and President Donald Trump, with big donors flooding his campaign and the Democratic National Committee with money in recent months.
“Trump and the Republican National Committee have spent years building a formidable war chest, starting soon after he was elected and continuing as Democrats burned money in their own primary in 2019 and early 2020. The Trump campaign and its affiliated groups closed out June with $295 million in the bank. But Biden and the Democratic National Committee, which outraised Trump and the RNC for two consecutive months, has rapidly cut down that advantage to just $53 million, according to Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon.”
TRUMP’S FRIDAY — The president will participate in a credentialing ceremony for newly appointed ambassadors to the U.S. in the Oval Office.
TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week” with Bob Costa: Jonathan Karl, Asma Khalid, Toluse Olorunnipa and Amy Walter.
SUNDAY SO FAR …
FT: “U.S. weighs ban on TikTok as friction with China rises,” by Demetri Sevastopulo and James Politi in Washington and Hannah Murphy in San Francisco: “The White House is considering putting TikTok on a blacklist that would effectively prevent Americans from using the popular video app, as one option to prevent China from obtaining personal data via the social media platform.
“Three people familiar with the debate inside the Trump administration said one proposal being looked into was to place ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of the social media app, on the commerce department’s ‘entity list.’
“That move would make it exceptionally hard for US companies to provide technology to TikTok. The restrictions would include software, meaning that Apple and other app stores could no longer provide updates over their platforms.”
MICHAEL KRUSE: “Donald Trump’s Long, Losing War with the NFL”
We support updated regulations to set clear rules and hold companies, including Facebook, accountable for:— Combating foreign election interference— Protecting people’s privacy— Enabling safe and easy data portability between platforms
PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — “15 women accuse then-Redskins employees of sexual harassment,” by WaPo’s Will Hobson and Liz Clarke: “[Emily] Applegate is one of 15 former female Redskins employees who told The Washington Post they were sexually harassed during their time at the club. The other 14 women spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of litigation because some signed nondisclosure agreements with the team that threaten legal retribution if they speak negatively about the club.
“The team declined a request from The Post to release former female employees from these agreements so they could speak on the record without fear of legal reprisal. This story involved interviews with more than 40 current and former employees and a review of text messages and internal company documents.
“Team owner Daniel Snyder declined several requests for an interview. Over the past week, as The Post presented detailed allegations and findings to the club, three team employees accused of improper behavior abruptly departed, including Larry Michael, the club’s longtime radio voice, and Alex Santos, the team’s director of pro personnel.
“In a statement, the team said it had hired D.C. attorney Beth Wilkinson and her firm, Wilkinson Walsh, ‘to conduct a thorough independent review of this entire matter and help the team set new employee standards for the future.’” WaPo
MEDIAWATCH — MICHELLE OBAMA not only beat BARACK to a memoir, but she’s also getting in on the podcast game first. “The Michelle Obama Podcast” launches July 29. Video announcement
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IN MEMORIAM — “Legendary Foreign Correspondent Chris Dickey Dies in Paris,” by The Daily Beast’s Barbie Latza Nadeau: “Chris, The Daily Beast’s foreign editor, died suddenly in Paris at the age of 68. … His stories were of a type of journalism that no longer seems to exist, in which reporters embedded with terrorists and secret forces for weeks at a time to produce a single article. And those articles of his were awe-inspiring. …
“Chris started his career at the Washington Post as a book review editor. Later, as a foreign correspondent covering the bloody guerilla war in El Salvador, he got to know Joan Didion, who would be his mentor and confidante … Chris covered every war and conflict from Central America to Iraq, from the 1960s until the 1990s.”
SPOTTED at a Zoom party for Capricia Marshall’s new book, “Protocol: The Power of Diplomacy and How to Make It Work for You” ($24.92 on Amazon), hosted by Lee Satterfield and Patrick Steel, Robyn and Jeremy Bash, Toni and Dwight Bush, Gwen and Stuart Holliday, Diana and Michael Allen, Evan Ryan and Tony Blinken, Rachel and Phil Gordon, Alexis Herman, Philippe Reines, Andrew Shapiro, and Ann and Stuart Stock …
… Jordanian Ambassador Dina Kawar, Valerie Jarrett, Robbie Myers, Heather Podesta, Omar Vargas, Pete Selfridge, Jonathan Spalter, Suzy George, Amy Weaver, Kimberley Fritts, Don Baer, Sahra English, Charlie Rifkin, Terry Fariello, Maria Pica-Karp and Rick Karp, Ali Rubin, Natalie Jones, Fred Hochberg, Virginia Shore, Brian Bartlett, Steve Morrisey, Missy Owens, Betsy Fischer Martin, Susan Brophy, David Steel and Sally Paxton.
TRANSITION — Peggy Grande is now deputy executive director of the White House Fellows program and executive secretary of the Office of Personnel Management. She was executive assistant to Ronald Reagan for a decade after his presidency.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Blair Taylor, comms director for Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Fulton Taylor, director of client services at i360, welcomed Jack Hall Taylor on Saturday. Pic
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Emma Loop is 3-0. How she got her start in journalism: “I landed a summer reporting job at the Windsor Star, the paper I read growing up. I didn’t have any experience working in journalism, but the editor decided to take a chance on me — in large part because I got into a car accident on my way to the job interview. She said that if I could crash my car minutes before the interview and still nail it, I’d be able to work well under pressure.” Playbook Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is 66 … Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) is 57 … Josh Barro … WaPo’s Katie Zezima … Kathy “Coach” Kemper … Kayla Tausche, CNBC Washington correspondent … Kyle Dropp, co-founder and chief research officer at Morning Consult … Ben Shannon (h/ts Ben Chang) … Katherine Smith, chief of staff at the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council … former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios is 55 … Seth Bringman, spokesperson for Stacey Abrams, is 39 … Reuters’ Mike Stone … POLITICO’s Jessica Cuellar, Collin Greene, David Hackney, Samantha Garretto and Alba Perez … Foreign Policy’s Caitlin O’Connell Fitchette … Opal Vadhan … Ben Deutsch … Roz Leighton, chief of staff to Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) … Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan … Jon Monger … Lou Penrose is 52 … Chris Buki, director of government affairs at Fresenius Medical Care North America, is 31 … Chris Berardi …
… R. Kevin Ryan, COS for Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) … Matt Berger, VP of strategic action programs and comms at Hillel International … Eeda Wallbank … Cathie Levine … Stacy Helen Schusterman … Maxime Schlee … Anna Bross, senior director of comms at The Atlantic … Saguaro Strategies’ Andy Barr … Steve Spinner … Curt Mills … Caitlin Klevorick … Michael Presutti … The Guardian’s Lawrence Wakefield … Dan Comstock is 36 … Andrew Bowen is 35 … Katherine Beck … Dani Simons … Shannan Butler Adler … Steph Anderson … Jonathan Lee … Laura MacInnis … David A. Steinberg … Annabel Ascher … Myrna Lim … Shell’s Marnie Funk … Suzy Wagner (h/t Tim Burger) … Nicole Tarbet … Lizzie Ivry Cooper of EMILY’s List (h/t Sandy Maisel) … Susan Kennedy … Josh Nathan-Kazis … Melanie Beatus … Stacy Schusterman is 57 … John Frank, VP of U.N. affairs at Microsoft, is 62 (h/t daughter Carla) … Rich Judge (h/t Teresa Vilmain)