When Covid comes to town
There’s a hot, must-have new accessory among Washington’s political elite this spring: a positive coronavirus test. Several recent swish DC get-togethers appear to have been super-spreader events and anyone who’s anyone is getting two red stripes on their antigen tests these days.
The Gridiron dinner, one of the top tickets in town, is, some think, the source of the outbreak. Its attendees are dropping like flies. Among the contagious A-listers: commerce secretary Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Other big names who have tested positive include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
That’s the bad news. But the good news is two-fold. First, everyone seems to be just fine. Pelosi, according to a statement from her spokesman Drew Hammill, is asymptomatic.
Second, the outbreak is a test of whether senior Democrats mean what they say when it comes to their belated acknowledgement that we must learn to live with the virus. And so far they appear to be walking the walk. Joe Biden, for example, is pressing ahead with a large event on the south lawn of the White House to celebrate the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
This just-get-on-with-it spirit also underscores the absurdity of a policy move the Biden administration made this week. The White House once again extended its Covid-induced student loan repayment pause on Wednesday. Just as the pandemic had enabled the administration to keep some Trump-era border restrictions in place, it had also allowed Biden to defer a fight with the left of his party by postponing the end of student loan forbearance. With the president urging a return to normal and senior Democrats bravely partying on through an outbreak, the pandemic fig-leaf is fooling no one.
This just-get-on-with-it spirit also underscores the absurdity of a policy move the Biden administration made this week. The White House once again extended its Covid-induced student loan repayment pause on Wednesday. Just as the pandemic had enabled the administration to keep some Trump-era border restrictions in place, it had also allowed Biden to defer a fight with the left of his party by postponing the end of student loan forbearance. With the president urging a return to normal and senior Democrats bravely partying on through an outbreak, the pandemic fig-leaf is fooling no one.
*** Sign up to receive the DC Diary in your inbox on weekdays ***
McConnell keeps schtum
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was grilled by Axios’s Jonathan Swan last night. There’s a lot of interest in the thirty-minute conversation, including McConnell’s famous talent for not saying any more than is strictly necessary.
Among the notable moments: McConnell said he would “absolutely” support Trump if he won the nomination in 2024, pointing out that he doesn’t “get to pick the Republican nominee.”
Asked by Swan what the top Republican policy priorities would be should the GOP win control of the Senate later this year, McConnell listed inflation, the border and crime as areas of focus. “The things that are front and center for the American people are the things that I think we ought to address,” said McConnell, adding, “We’re going to do everything we can to push this administration into domestic energy production.”
At one point Swan asked whether McConnell was “suggesting that you are developing an argument for not holding hearings for a Supreme Court nominee if it’s not an election year.”
“I’m suggesting I’m not going to answer your question,” replied McConnell.
If it looks like corruption, it’s probably corruption
The establishment media may have finally acknowledged the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the question marks that surround the president’s son’s tax affairs and overseas business dealings. But a great deal of water carrying for the first family still goes on in the fourth estate.
Consider the hilarious lengths to which one New York Review of Books writer goes to avoid drawing any unflattering parallels between the Bidens and the Trumps. In a piece largely dealing with the corruption of the Trumps, Benjamin Nathans at least has the honesty to acknowledge some of Hunter Biden’s lucrative foreign business, like the board seat at a Ukrainian energy firm he landed while his father was vice president. But then Nathans offers the following exculpatory explanation: “Technically this may not qualify as nepotism, but it bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the Chinese practice of placing relatives of senior leaders (so-called princelings) in lucrative business relationships with foreign companies. It looked a lot like the corruption the United States was pressuring Ukraine to eliminate.” Technically, it was nepotism. And maybe it looked a lot like corruption because it was corruption.
What you should be reading today
Teresa Mull: Stop hating on celebrity politicians
Jonah Goldberg: Say no to the populist war party
James Snell: The Kremlin’s clown prince
Ruy Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot: The Democrats’ Nevada problem
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: How to protect children from Big Tech companies
The Economist: Biden’s defense spending proposal is a muddle
Poll watch
President Biden Job Approval
Approve: 41.5 percent
Disapprove: 53.5 percent
Net approval: -12.0 (RCP Average)
Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary
David McCormick: 27 percent
Mehmet Oz: 21 percent
Jeff Bartos: 17 percent
Carla Sands: 11 percent (the Hill/Emerson)
