| Welcome to The Daily 202 newsletter! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1941, FDR announced he was declaring an "unlimited national emergency" to mobilize the United States against Nazi Germany. President Biden breathed new life yesterday into the theory that the pandemic began when the virus escaped from a Chinese lab — an unproven but politically potent scenario Republicans have used to attack Beijing and defend former president Donald Trump. Biden announced he had ordered the intelligence community to "redouble their efforts" to reach a "definitive conclusion" on whether a lab leak or human contact with an infected animal was to blame, and report back to him within 90 days. The president suggested two intelligence agencies favored the animal-to-human theory while one leaned toward the lab theory but most of them "do not believe there is sufficient information" to say one way or the other. Critics of America's fiercest global rival have cited the hypothesis as evidence of Beijing's failures and untrustworthiness, even as Trump's blame-China strategy aims to deflect blame for the American death toll on his watch. "It's China's fault, it should never have happened," Trump said of what he termed the "China plague" during his first debate with Biden.  President Biden, shown here at the White House earlier this month, said Wednesday he has asked U.S. intelligence agencies to "redouble their efforts" to determine the origin of the coronavirus. (Evan Vucci/AP) | With the 2022 midterm elections on the horizon and the 2024 contest just beyond that, Republicans eager to look tough on China (and defend Trump) are sure to keep the theory close at hand, even if a lack of cooperation from Beijing means the truth may never be known. Whether the 90-day investigation bolsters the lab theory, disproves it or remains inconclusive, Biden's announcement was a significant shift in his public posture. As my colleagues Annie Linskey, Yasmeen Abutaleb and David Willman noted yesterday: "As recently as Tuesday, the Biden administration had stressed that the WHO should lead efforts to uncover the cause. Biden "believes there needs to be an independent investigation, one that's run by the international community," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. But the WHO has struggled in the past to reach a definitive conclusion on the origin of the virus, partly due to what officials say is China's unwillingness to cooperate with investigators." The president's public description wasn't new — Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines had laid out the debate inside the intelligence community over the pandemic's origins in mid-April. "The intelligence community does not know exactly where, when, or how COVID-19 virus was transmitted initially," Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee at its annual "worldwide threats" hearing. U.S. intelligence agencies "have coalesced around two alternative theories. These scenarios are [it] emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals or it was a laboratory accident," she testified. "The one thing that's clear to us and to our analysts is that the Chinese leadership has not been fully forthcoming or fully transparent," CIA Director William Burns said at the same hearing. "We're doing everything we can, using all the sources available to all of us on this panel to try to get to the bottom of it." (Progress appears to be elusive. A DNI statement from April 2020 said U.S. intelligence sought to determine "whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory.") The theory that Chinese scientists working in a lab in the city of Wuhan, the pandemic's epicenter, lost control of the virus, has been around since at least January 2020, when the Daily Mail published this story. At the time, Trump was highlighting his "great relationship" with Chinese President Xi Jinping and praising Beijing's response. "China has worked very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and their transparency. Everything will work fine. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I would like to thank President Xi!" Trump tweeted in late January. From the Daily Mail, the theory made the news-media-to-human jump. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was an early proponent. From a scientific perspective, early rejection of the lab-leak theory centered on the absence of evidence the virus was created or manipulated by human scientists. But that wasn't necessarily assumed by the theory itself. (It's not that Cotton didn't raise the possibility that the virus was an engineered bioweapon, or the possibility that China deliberately unleashed the pandemic on the world. He did both.) Trump appears to have first floated the theory in late April, even as he changed his tune on China as the American virus caseload and death toll grew. A month earlier, a photographer captured Trump's speech notes, showing the term "Corona" crossed out in what appeared to be his trademark Sharpie and "Chinese" written in. By the time Trump himself got infected, the idea that China had deliberately (or close to deliberately) spread the virus had made the president-to-followers jump. But Trump had delivered maybe the most revealing remarks about his perspective in August, suggesting whereas criticizing him was "politicizing the virus," blaming China was, well, science. "We have to stop politicizing the virus and instead be united in our condemnation of how this virus came to America, how this virus came into the world," he told reporters. "We're going to find out, and we're very angry about it." | | | What's happening now "Authorities in San Jose were searching for a motive after a transit worker on Wednesday fatally shot nine people and apparently killed himself at a local rail yard," Derek Hawkins and Brittany Shammas report. "Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said Thursday that the gunman was carrying two semi-automatic handguns and 11 loaded magazines during the early morning rampage at the Valley Transportation Authority facility. She called his actions 'very deliberate, very fast' but said investigators don't yet know whether he had specific targets. ... Law enforcement officials said investigators believe the gunman is Samuel Cassidy, a 57-year-old worker at the rail yard. ... After the area around the shooting was secured, police dogs alerted on what authorities said was the suspected gunman's locker. Inside, investigators found 'materials for bombs, detonator cords, the precursors to an explosive,' Smith said." Authorities named the shooting victims as Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63; Lars Kepler Lane, 63; and Alex Ward Fritch, 49. They confirmed that at least some worked with the shooter at the VTA. To start your day with a full political briefing, sign up for our Power Up newsletter. | | | Lunchtime reads from The Post - "Macron acknowledges some French responsibility in Rwandan genocide and asks forgiveness," by Rick Noack and Max Bearak: "French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday acknowledged that France bears partial responsibility for the Rwandan genocide, in a historic acknowledgment that could mark a watershed moment in the fragile relations between the two countries. Speaking at a memorial for the victims of the genocide in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, Macron said that France ignored warnings of a genocide in 1994, and that it bears 'overwhelming responsibility in a spiral that ended in the worst.' "
- "Influencers say they were offered money to discredit the Pfizer vaccine. In France, some suspect Russia is behind it," by Jennifer Hassan and Rick Noack: "Several European influencers say they have been offered money to use their social media presence to discourage their millions of followers from receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine by a suspicious agency that French officials reportedly think could be linked to Russia. According to the influencers, they were approached online and asked to tell their large followings that the Pfizer vaccine is dangerous and has sparked more deaths than the one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University."
| | | … and beyond - "Immunity to the coronavirus may persist for year, scientists find," by the New York Times's Apoorva Mandavilli: "Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived. Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response."
| | | The Biden agenda Senate Republicans unveiled an infrastructure counteroffer that outlines roughly $928 billion, though only a quarter of the price tag appears to represent new spending. - The sum is still far short of what the White House has proposed, Tony Romm and Seung Min Kim report. "Only about a quarter of the total price tag appears to represent new spending above existing or expected levels under the 'roadmap' put forward by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and her GOP counterparts. But lawmakers still stressed that their retooled approach "delivers on much" of what Biden had recommended in earlier talks between the two sides."
- "The Republican plan proposes more than $500 billion for roads, $98 billion for public transit, $46 billion for passenger rail and more than $70 billion for water infrastructure. Republicans recommended additional spending for ports, waterways, airports and broadband connectivity, maintaining their belief that any package should hew to what they describe as traditional infrastructure."
- "But the plan does not close the other gaps that exist with the White House, where Biden recommended more than $2 trillion in new spending on a wide range of areas, including elder care, parents and families."
- "Nor does it address the thornier disputes between the two sides over Biden's plan to finance it through tax increases on corporations, which the GOP vehemently opposes. Instead, Republicans maintained their preference to pay for infrastructure using unused stimulus funds. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), one of the lawmakers involved in the talks, said Thursday that they count about $700 billion in still-unspent funds under the last coronavirus relief package. That includes money designated for use between 2022 and 2031 to help state and local governments, bolster coronavirus testing and expand the child tax credit, all major Democratic priorities."
- "As it haggles with the GOP, the White House also faced new political demands from lawmakers from its own party on Thursday. More than 200 House Democrats banded together to issue a new warning as part of the contentious debate over infrastructure spending: Include strong union and labor protections, or possibly risk losing some of their support.
Biden will propose a $6 trillion budget to boost the middle class and infrastructure. - This budget "would take the United States to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II, while running deficits above $1.3 trillion throughout the next decade," the Times's Jim Tankersley reports.
- Documents obtained by the Times show Biden's "first budget request as president calls for the federal government to spend $6 trillion in the 2022 fiscal year, and for total spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2031." The growth is driven by the president's sweeping jobs and infrastructure plans, "along with other planned increases in discretionary spending."
- "Biden's plan to fund his agenda by raising taxes on corporations and high earners would begin to shrink budget deficits in the 2030s. Administration officials have said the jobs and families plans would be fully offset by tax increases over the course of 15 years, which the budget request backs up."
The administration is tapping into the private sector to invest in Central America. - "[Vice President] Harris on Thursday will unveil the agreements of 12 companies and organizations to invest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador as part of the administration's efforts to deal with a surge of migrants from Central America at the U.S. southern border," the Wall Street Journal's Tarini Parti reports.
- "Microsoft Corp. has agreed to expand internet access to as many as three million people in the region by July 2022 and to establish community centers to provide digital skills to women and youths. ... Nespresso, a unit of Nestlé SA, plans to begin buying some of its coffee from El Salvador and Honduras with a minimum regional investment of $150 million by 2025."
The Biden administration is defending a huge Alaska oil drilling project. - "The multibillion-dollar plan from ConocoPhillips to drill in part of the National Petroleum Reserve was approved by the Trump administration late last year," the Times's Lisa Friedman reports. "The project, known as Willow, set up a choice for the Biden administration: decline to defend oil drilling and hinder a lucrative project that conflicts with its climate policy or support a federal decision backed by the state of Alaska, some tribal nations, unions and key officials, including Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican senator seen as a potential ally of the administration in an evenly split Senate."
The Senate confirmed, unconfirmed and then confirmed again the first woman to lead the Army. - "The Senate unanimously approved Christine Wormuth as secretary of the Army, the first woman to have that job, on Wednesday night and then rescinded it a few hours later," Colby Itkowitz reports. "What appears to have been a procedural error only delayed Wormuth's confirmation until the next morning. By Thursday, whatever had caused the confusion — and it's still unclear exactly what transpired — had been dealt with and she was again unanimously confirmed."
| | | Quote of the day "I appreciate the historic nature. I really do, but I believe that being behind this podium, being in this room, being in this building is not about one person. It's about what we do on behalf of the American people," Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House's principal deputy press secretary, said when asked by a reporter about the historic nature of her leading the White House's daily press briefing, per Politico. Yesterday, she became the second Black woman behind the White House briefing lecturn. | | | The future of the GOP Senate Republicans are expected to today block a vote on the Jan. 6 commission. - The Senate is expected to vote on the House-passed bill to create the 10-person panel. "Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer argued on Wednesday that 'the real reason' Republicans are against the bill 'has nothing to do with the structure of the commission' and 'nothing to do with the details of the bill.' 'It all has to do with politics,' Schumer said," per CNN.
- Only three Republicans — Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah), Susan Collins (Maine), and [Lisa] Murkowski (Alaska) — have expressed their support for advancing the legislation.
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) called out Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over his opposition to the commission. - "There is no excuse for any Republican to vote against this commission since Democrats have agreed to everything they asked for," Manchin said in a statement, per Itkowitz. "Mitch McConnell has made this his political position, thinking it will help his 2022 election," Manchin added. "They do not believe the truth will set you free, so they continue to live in fear."
The GOP is fretting behind the scenes over a potential Trump 2024 bid. - "Trump is confiding in allies that he intends to run again in 2024 with one contingency: that he still has a good bill of health, according to two sources close to the former president," Politico's Olivia Beavers and Burgess Everett report. "And amid news that the Manhattan district attorney has convened a grand jury that could decide to indict Trump, other executives working for him or the business itself, Trump publicly signaled this week that he's considering another run."
- "But he may face skepticism from surprising corners of the GOP, as some Republicans who supported him consistently during his presidency have mixed opinions about the possibility of a Trump 2024 campaign, according to interviews with 20 Republicans in both the House and Senate."
- "'President Trump did a lot of good. But he squandered a lot of his legacy after what happened after Nov. 3. And I think that's a shame,' said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). 'Running for president, you're under a lot of scrutiny. And all I can say is there's a lot to talk about.'"
- "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the middleman between Trump and the Hill GOP these days, said that the ex-president's plans to devise a still-nascent 'America First' messaging drive will put Trump 'in charge of the policy agenda.' … 'It's more likely than not that he does' run, Graham said. 'How we do in 2022 will have a big effect on his viability. If we do well in 2022, it helps his cause. I want him to keep the option open.' "
Eighty-five percent of Republicans want candidates to agree with Trump, a new Quinnipiac University poll found. - While more than 8 in 10 Republicans would prefer to see 2022 candidates that mostly agree with Trump, overall, a majority of Americans — 53 percent — would rather see candidates that mostly disagree with the former president, the poll found.
- When asked whether they'd like to see Trump run for president, 66 percent of Republicans said they would. Overall, 66 percent of Americans say they'd rather not.
Despite little evidence of fraud, a Wisconsin Republican leader hired retired police to probe the 2020 election. - "Rep. Robin Vos, Wisconsin's state assembly speaker, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the investigators would spend three months probing tips about election problems or voter fraud and pursuing the most credible ones," Katie Shepherd reports. "A sizable chunk of people believe the election was illegitimate," Vos told the Journal Sentinel. "And democracy cannot flourish if both sides don't believe in the end both sides had a fair shot."
- "Yet Vos also acknowledged that Biden won his race in Wisconsin and said he does not anticipate the taxpayer-funded inquiry will lead to changes in the election results."
| | | Where Republican senators stand on a Jan. 6 commission, visualized Democrats will need the support of 10 Republicans to reach a final vote on the commission and avoid a possible filibuster. See the list of Republican senators and their position on the commission. | | | Hot on the left Amy Cooper, the White woman who called 911 on a Black birder, is suing her former company for firing her. Cooper filed a lawsuit this week against the investment firm Franklin Templeton, "which terminated her employment a year ago after she was captured on a widely shared video in a tense encounter with a Black bird-watcher," the Times's Jonah Bromwich and Ed Shanahan report. "Despite what the video shows, Ms. Cooper argues in her suit that she was not motivated by racial animus when she called the police on Mr. Cooper. She says in the suit, which was filed in federal court in Manhattan, that she 'did not shout at Christian Cooper or call the police from Central Park on May 25, 2020, because she was a racist — she did these things because she was alone in the park and frightened to death.'" Online, some criticized Cooper for the lawsuit, claiming she did not learn a lesson: | | | Hot on the right A new book reveals Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) hotel demands, which include king-size beds and a preference for dark blue blankets. "In an excerpt from 'Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Trump,' author Edward-Isaac Dovere reports that following Sanders' surprisingly strong 2016 presidential campaign, the democratic socialist's staffers put together a 'Senator Comfort Memo' detailing his specifications for each hotel stay on his travels," the New York Post writes. The senator required that his room be kept at 60 degrees. "Dovere recounts one incident on a trip to California when a hotel worker tried and failed to get the room to the required coolness. 'So, Chloe,' Dovere writes an 'annoyed' Sanders told the employee. 'You don't want me to sleep tonight?'" | | | Today in Washington Biden will travel to Ohio today, where he will visit Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland at 1:50 p.m. and deliver remarks on the economy at 2:20 pm. Harris will meet private sector leaders today at 4 p.m. to discuss economic development in the Northern Triangle. | | | In closing | Seth Meyers said what's funny about the investigations into Trump is that, if he hadn't run for president, he would've probably "gotten away with all of this stuff":  | | | | | | |
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