10 March 2021
President Biden's inner circle has spent a ton of time thinking about how to sell his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan around the country — long after he signs it into law this week.
Why it matters: Total opposition from elected Republicans in Washington renders public popularity and bipartisanship across the U.S. vital to maintaining support for the president's agenda.
Details: Team Biden is planning a large and long-running sales campaign, including local media outreach and the cultivation of coalition media campaigns.
- Cabinet officials will join White House aides in publicly selling the impact of the package — on schools, vaccine distribution and food supply for poor families, a senior administration official told Axios.
- Cedric Richmond, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, is tasked with mobilizing the myriad outside groups that make up the Democratic coalition. Their job will be to ensure communities connect the help they're receiving to the federal government.
- A White House official familiar with the planning said they'll be leveraging the groups and leaders who have endorsed the package, "including over 400 bipartisan mayors and governors, organized labor and the business community, as well as economists and experts from across the political spectrum."
Behind the scenes: Biden views it as strategically important that Americans understand the checks and other forms of assistance they'll be receiving are products of the new law.
- The fact he can't claim he got a bipartisan deal in Washington makes it essential he maintain broad public support for the package.
- The aim isn't just short-term political gain — such as a boost in the 2022 midterms — but so Biden can build on the legislation and make it harder for the next Republican president to unwind.
The big picture: Team Biden's hope is this strategy will net the new president political rewards President Obama never saw for his 2009 financial recovery package.
- Biden thought Obama should have taken a big victory lap after passing the $840 billion package and doesn't plan to repeat that political mistake.
- Currently, about 70% of Americans support Biden's rescue plan. It's far more popular than Obama's plan, even though it's more than double the cost.
- Last year, several senior Democrats told Axios they could learn a few things about retail politics from Donald Trump. The former president loudly took credit for his stimulus bills, including demanding his name be added to the checks mailed to Americans.
- White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that Biden's name won't appear on the new $1,400 stimulus checks, but his team won't be sheepish about claiming credit in other ways.
The bottom line: For the very definition of a Washington insider, Joe Biden may find his outside game to be his political lifeline while in the White House.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.