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"No experience": Biden's pick for health secretary heads to the hot seat

22 February 2021
Dan Ackermann

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is more likely than not to be confirmed as the next secretary of Health and Human Services, especially now that another of President Biden's nominees is in hot water.

Yes, but: Becerra's confirmation hearings this week are likely to become political brawls over abortion, Medicare for All, California's pandemic response and Becerra's qualifications for the job.

Driving the news: Becerra will face the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday and the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday.

  • Crossing the finish line may have gotten easier for Becerra on Friday, when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced his opposition to Neera Tanden, Biden's choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

What they're saying: "In my conversations with Senate Democrats, what I'm hearing is a huge sense of relief that in Attorney General Becerra, we’ll have a qualified, experienced leader," Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Axios' Hans Nichols.

The other side: "He's literally the least qualified nominee in the history of the agency," said a senior GOP aide working on the nomination, a preview of what we're likely to hear this week.

  • "No experience in health, no experience in managing something of this size, no expertise in pandemic issues," the aide added.

What we're watching: One area of strong disagreement between Becerra and more moderate Senate Democrats is Medicare for All, which the nominee has supported in the past.

  • But the HHS secretary can't ram through a single-payer health care system on his own.
  • However, the secretary can make significant policy changes via waivers, as NYT wrote last year, and will be central to shaping Biden's regulatory health care agenda.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly 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.