 |  | | Washington, Fast. | | | | | | | Good Friday morning. Tips, comments, recipes? Reach out and sign up for the Power Up newsletter – thanks for waking up with us. | | | On the Hill ALL ABOUT WEST VIRGINIA: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) is the other senator from West Virginia everyone's paying attention to. As the Republican point person on infrastructure spending, Capito has been trying to hammer out a deal with President Biden to reach a bipartisan agreement. But after months of back and forth, the time to strike a deal is running out. - "Patience is not unending, and he wants to make progress. His only line in the sand is inaction," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday. "He wants to sign a bill into law this summer."
Capito, who met with Biden at the White House yesterday, will speak with the president again on Friday. While Capito "stressed the progress the Senate has already made," in a statement released by her office following the meeting, "the meeting concluded with no public signs of substantive progress," our colleagues Seung Min Kim and Tony Romm report. - A core disagreement over how to pay for the plan remains: "Biden wants to fund his infrastructure plans by boosting the corporate tax rate from the current 21 percent to 28 percent, which Republican lawmakers have repeatedly said is a non-starter," per SMK and Tony. "Republicans have pointed to other funding options, most recently hundreds of billions of dollars in unused coronavirus relief aid, but the White House has been cool to that idea, saying most of that money is already accounted for."
 President Biden speaks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (D-W.Va.) earlier this month. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) | How we got here: "Biden began with a $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal but the White House has since lowered that figure to $1.7 trillion, with some of the cuts coming from initiatives that will be funded in legislation that is already moving through Congress," per Seung Min and Tony. - "Senate Republicans — a group that includes Capito and Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.) — initially offered $568 billion in infrastructure projects and then raised it to $928 billion, although both figures include hundreds of billions of spending that was already planned."
Save the date: "White House officials have publicly and privately pointed to June 9 as a critical date that Biden is now closely watching. That's when the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will begin formally crafting legislation for surface transportation systems that could form one pillar of Biden's broader proposal. (The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works cleared its own version of the bill in a unanimous vote late last month.)" If a deal is not reached, it's not for lack of outreach: "As of late last week, the White House had held more than 530 phone calls or meetings with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, chiefs of staff and committee staff directors on the American Jobs Plan, in addition to nearly 100 briefings for congressional committees, according to a White House official," Tony and Seung Min Kim report. - "Meanwhile, the White House's legislative affairs shop, led by director Louisa Terrell, has made nearly 200 calls to lawmakers of both parties to discuss the American Families Plan, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the administration's private discussions."
- "But no effort has been as visible as Biden's direct engagement with a half-dozen Senate Republicans, whom the president has invited to the Oval Office several times and deputized his top aides to meet with privately in an effort to hash out an infrastructure agreement."
| | | The investigations ANOTHER TRUMP-ERA SEIZURE: "The Trump Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of four New York Times reporters spanning nearly four months in 2017 as part of a leak investigation, the Biden administration disclosed on Wednesday," the New York Times's Charlie Savage and Katie Benner report. - "It was the latest in a series of revelations about the Trump administration secretly obtaining reporters' communications records in an effort to uncover their sources. Last month, the Biden Justice Department disclosed Trump-era seizures of the phone logs of reporters who work for The Washington Post and the phone and email logs for a CNN reporter."
- "Seizing the phone records of journalists profoundly undermines press freedom," he said in a statement. "It threatens to silence the sources we depend on to provide the public with essential information about what the government is doing," Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement condemning the Trump administration's actions.
- "The Justice Department did not say which article was being investigated. But the lineup of reporters and the timing suggested that the leak investigation related to classified information reported in an April 22, 2017, article the four reporters wrote about how James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, handled politically charged investigations during the 2016 presidential election."
 | | | | | | The policies BY THE NUMBERS: "The U.S. economic recovery is unlike any in recent history, powered by consumers with trillions in extra savings, businesses eager to hire and enormous policy support. Businesses and workers are poised to emerge from the downturn with far less permanent damage than occurred after recent recessions, particularly the 2007-09 downturn," the Wall Street Journal's Gywnn Guilford and Sarah Chaney Cambon report. - "New businesses are popping up at the fastest pace on record. The rate at which workers quit their jobs—a proxy for confidence in the labor market—matches the highest going back at least to 2000. American household debt-service burdens, as a share of after-tax income, are near their lowest levels since 1980, when records began. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 18% from its pre-pandemic peak in February 2020. Home prices nationwide are nearly 14% higher since that time."
What the National Economic Council's Brian Deese is reading: "The U.S. is the only major country in which expectations for 2025 GDP among Wall Street forecasters are currently higher than they were in January 2020. In other developed countries that have embraced fiscal activism, such as Canada, Japan and Germany, the economy is expected to be between 0.8% and 0.5% smaller than in pre-pandemic projections. The figure is closer to 4% for the U.K. and France," the Wall Street Journal's Jon Sindreu reports. About those stimulus checks: "Julesa Webb resumed an old habit: serving her children three meals a day. Corrine Young paid the water bill and stopped bathing at her neighbor's apartment. Chenetta Ray cried, thanked Jesus and rushed to spend the money on a medical test to treat her cancer," the New York Times's Jason DeParle reports. - "In offering most Americans two more rounds of stimulus checks in the past six months, totaling $2,000 a person, the federal government effectively conducted a huge experiment in safety net policy. Supporters said a quick, broad outpouring of cash would ease the economic hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Skeptics called the policy wasteful and expensive…A new analysis of Census Bureau surveys argues that the two latest rounds of aid significantly improved Americans' ability to buy food and pay household bills and reduced anxiety and depression, with the largest benefits going to the poorest households and those with children. The analysis offers the fullest look at hardship reduction under the stimulus aid."
- "Among households with children, reports of food shortages fell 42 percent from January through April. A broader gauge of financial instability fell 43 percent. Among all households, frequent anxiety and depression fell by more than 20 percent."
| | | The people "GET A SHOT AND HAVE A BEER": "Dangling everything from sports tickets to a free beer, President Joe Biden is looking for that extra something — anything — that will get people to roll up their sleeves for COVID-19 shots when the promise of a life-saving vaccine by itself hasn't been enough," the Associated Press's Zeke Miller reports. - "Biden on Wednesday announced a 'month of action' to urge more Americans to get vaccinated before the July 4 holiday, including an early summer sprint of incentives and a slew of new steps to ease barriers and make getting shots more appealing to those who haven't received them. He is closing in on his goal of getting 70% of adults at least partially vaccinated by Independence Day — essential to his aim of returning the nation to something approaching a pre-pandemic sense of normalcy this summer."
- "The Biden administration views June as 'a critical month in our path to normal,' Courtney Rowe, the director of strategic communications and engagement for the White House COVID-19 response team, told the AP."
- Where we're at: "To date 62.9% of the adult U.S. population have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 133.9 million are fully vaccinated. The rate of new vaccinations has slowed to an average below 555,000 per day, down from more than 800,000 when incentives like lotteries were announced, and down from a peak of nearly 2 million per day in early April when demand for shots was much higher."
"The White House also announced the launch of a handful of community-based outreach initiatives, including blanketing local media, providing colleges with resources and launching an effort to recruit 1,000 Black-owned barbershops and beauty salons across the country," the Post's Tyler Pager, Lena Sun, and John Wagner report. - "Biden also tasked Vice President Harris with leading a "We Can Do This" national tour to highlight ways to get vaccinated. The White House said her focus will be on Southern states, where vaccinations lag much of the rest of the country."
- "To increase vaccine accessibility for parents, the White House said that four of the nation's largest child-care providers will offer free child care to all parents and caregivers getting vaccinated or recovering from vaccination from now until July 4."
| | | Outside the Beltway FLORIDA MAN: "Former president Donald Trump remains relentlessly focused on the false claim that the November election was stolen from him and is increasingly consumed with the notion that ballot reviews pushed by his supporters around the country could prove that he won, according to people familiar with his comments," our colleagues Josh Dawsey and Rosalind Helderman report. - "Trump has rebuffed calls from some advisers to drop the matter, instead fixating on an ongoing Republican-commissioned audit in Arizona and plotting how to secure election reviews in other states, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Georgia, according to advisers. He is most animated by the efforts in Fulton County, Ga., and Maricopa County, Ariz., according to two advisers who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
- "Trump's interest has been fueled by conversations he has had with an array of figures who have publicly touted false claims of election fraud. Among them, according to advisers, is Christina Bobb, a host at the One America News network who has privately discussed the Arizona audit with the former president and his team; Mike Lindell, the chief executive of the company MyPillow; and Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), who urged the state's congressional delegation to reject Biden's victory there last fall."
- "Trump has become so fixated on the audits that he suggested recently to allies that their success could result in his return to the White House this year, according to people familiar with comments he has made. Some advisers said that such comments appear to be just offhand musings. A Trump spokesman declined to comment on the record."
 For some conspiracy theorists, the 2020 election still hasn't ended: Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 general election are examined and recounted by contractors working for Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix last month. (AP Photo/Matt York) | 🎶 NEW YORK, NEW YORK 🎶: "With less than three weeks until New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, the eight leading candidates came together on Wednesday night for their first in-person debate -- a salty affair that included a series of tense, often personal clashes that underscored just how wide open the race remains after months of campaigning," CNN's Gregory Krieg reports. - "Polling of the contest has been sparse, but if the candidates' cross-examinations of one another -- prompted by the moderators -- are any indication, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and businessman and former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang are the perceived front-runners. The pair squared off in the evening's most cutting exchange, with Yang questioning Adams' ethics and Adams saying Yang was unqualified for the job they are both seeking."
- "The Bronx borough president, a retired former police captain, scorched Yang over his decision to leave the city with his family during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic last year -- and suggested that Yang might 'flee again during a difficult time.'"
- "How the hell do we have you become our mayor with a record like that?" Adams asked.
- "But Yang, whose upbeat, positive campaign style has of late included more pointed remarks about his rivals, gave as good as he got. In this case, he questioned Adams' ethical record, which has come under scrutiny in the past by local, state and federal entities."
- "Eric, we all know that you've been investigated for corruption everywhere you've gone," Yang said. "You've achieved the rare trifecta of corruption investigations."
| | | Global power OUCH-STED: "Israeli opposition parties announced on Wednesday that they had reached a coalition agreement to form a government and oust Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history and a dominant figure who has pushed his nation's politics to the right," the New York Times's Patrick Kingsley reports. - "The announcement could lead to the easing of a political impasse that has produced four elections in two years and left Israel without a stable government or a state budget. If Parliament ratifies the fragile agreement in a confidence vote in the coming days, it will also bring down the curtain, if only for an intermission, on the premiership of a leader who has defined contemporary Israel more than any other."
- "The new coalition is an unusual and awkward alliance between eight political parties from a diverse array of ideologies, from the left to the far right. While some analysts have hailed it as a reflection of the breadth and complexity of contemporary society, others say its members are too incompatible for their compact to last, and consider it the embodiment of Israel's political dysfunction."
- "The alliance would be led until 2023 by Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader and standard-bearer for religious nationalists, who opposes a Palestinian state and wants Israel to annex the majority of the occupied West Bank. He is a former ally of Mr. Netanyahu often described as more right wing than the prime minister," per Kingsley. "If the government lasts a whole term, it would then be led between 2023 and 2025 by Yair Lapid, a centrist former television host considered a standard-bearer for secular Israelis."
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