The major news story Sunday was the U.S. Senate passing a $750 billion health care, tax and climate bill. Every Republican voted against the bill and the 50-50 tie was broken by Vice President Kamala Harris. The House is expected to pass the bill, which will then be signed by President Joe Biden.
The New York Times’ Emily Cochrane wrote that it’s the “most significant federal investment in history to counter climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs, as Democrats banded together to push through major pieces of President Biden’s domestic agenda over unified Republican opposition.”
Cochrane and Lisa Friedman have more in “What’s in the Climate, Tax and Health Care Package.” And CNN’s Alex Rogers, Clare Foran, Ali Zaslav and Manu Raju have a good roundup of what’s in the bill.
Sunday’s vote caps what has been arguably the best run in the Biden administration. In the past week, the U.S. killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Biden had several legislative victories, gas prices have continued to drop and there was good news on the most recent jobs report.
Then came Sunday’s news.
In an opinion piece for CNN, former CNN producer and correspondent Frida Ghitis wrote, “… there’s little sign that the President’s standing has enjoyed a meaningful lift. Biden is winning battles, but he’s not getting a lot of love. Is it only a matter of time before Biden’s polls catch up with the new wave of accomplishments?”
Ghitis added, “For as long as he’s president, Biden will face the headwinds of shameless distortion by right-wing operatives, and he will suffer from not being the most charismatic, eloquent president at a time when the country’s very democracy is under threat. At this moment in his presidency, however, he can enjoy having scored a string of victories, and hope he has turned the tide.”
New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote, “Biden has had some bad months, to be sure, but there is no way to get around the fact the last month or so has been stellar for the administration.”
Blow added, “Biden’s string of victories may not yet be enough to shift the narrative about him from spiraling to rebounding, but a fair read of recent events demands some adjustment.”
Most noteworthy of the Sunday morning comments
Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina had a strong warning for her fellow GOP lawmakers on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC. She said, “I am staunchly pro-life. I have a 100 percent pro-life voting record. I do think that it will be an issue in November if we’re not moderating ourselves, that we are including exceptions for women who’ve been raped, for girls who are victims of incest and, certainly, in every instance where the life of the mother is at stake. Somewhere in the middle is where we’ve got to meet.”
Mace added, “‘Handmaid’s Tale’ was not supposed to be a road map, right? This is a place where we can be in the center. We can protect life, and we can protect where people are on both sides of the aisle.”
Mace has been public about being raped when she was 16.
“You've got states that are going to try to ban women from traveling, that if you're raped that you've got to report it to the police,” Mace said, “Well, I was raped when I was 16, and it took me a week to tell my mother. By that time any evidence would've been gone.”
Mace told moderator Chuck Todd, “On the far left you have folks that want abortion for any reason up until birth, and then on the far right we have states that are trying to ensure that no abortion for any reason including rape and incest victims in girls. Somewhere in the middle is where we've got to meet, and I do believe that Congress has a role, and I want to play a part in that role in shaping policy for the future for every American in our country.”
Meanwhile …
Last week, by a resounding 59% to 41% vote, voters in Kansas rejected an amendment to the state constitution that would have eliminated the right to an abortion.
The headline on Peggy Noonan’s column in The Wall Street Journal: “What Pro-Lifers Should Learn From Kansas.”Noonan writes, “I found myself unshocked by the abortion vote in Kansas, and I don’t understand the shock of others.”
She added, “In Kansas, pro-lifers asked for too much. People don’t like big swerves and lurches, there’s enough anxiety in life. They want to absorb, find a way to trust. Dobbs was decided only six weeks ago.” She went on to call the proposed amendment in Kansas, “gross, ignorant and extreme. It excited their followers but hurt the cause they supposedly care about. There was an air of misogyny, of hostility to women.”
But there could be some irony here, Politico’s John F. Harris points out, about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade. Harris wrote, “Alito’s long-term legacy may well be as the justice who facilitated a national consensus on behalf of abortion rights. Quite unintentionally, today’s hero of the ‘pro-life’ movement could end up being a giant of the ‘pro-choice’ movement.”
A new View
Catching up on this news from late last week: “The View,” as expected, has officially added two Republican commentators to its panel. Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked in the communications department during the Trump administration, and Ana Navarro, a frequent panelist over the past several years, have been named regular panelists.
The two will join current panelists Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines, although Navarro will not appear on the show every day.
To be clear, while both lean right and are Republicans, both also have been quite outspoken against former President Donald Trump. Farah Griffin quit her job in the Trump White House before the Jan. 6 insurrection and pretty much disavowed him after that.
On the show last week, Farah Griffin said, “The last couple of years have been a bit turbulent for me. I am so proud to have found my voice. Now it is my voice and I’m here to join this table.”
The two — especially Farah Griffin — will replace the opening left a year ago by Meghan McCain, the conservative voice who often clashed controversially with the rest of the panel. But already Farah Griffin’s voice seems to mesh in a way that isn’t quite as combative as McCain.
Farah Griffin told her co-workers that it’s going to “get sporty sometimes.” But she added, “… we can demonstrate what our elected leaders can’t, which is disagreeing but doing so respectfully. We don’t need these conspiracies and lies that have overtaken so much of news.”
Behar, perhaps the strongest of the liberal panelists, told “Entertainment Weekly,” “Alyssa's got a whole different personality. So I think it will be smoother, frankly.”
Meanwhile, Farah Griffin’s hiring is drawing some pushback. The Associated Press’ David Bauder points out, “Not everyone has been quick to turn the page, and there’s a social media campaign to boycott ‘The View’ because of her hiring, with some fans unwilling to forgive the new host’s service to Trump.”
For example, MSNBC’s TIffany Cross said on her show, “Many in the media are still trying to normalize these folks. And why?”
He just doesn’t get it