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Bird E-CommerceModerna and Pfizer plan to significantly boost vaccine shipments to the U.S. government by this spring, according to written testimony from company executives released Tuesday ahead of a House committee hearing on vaccines.
Where it stands: Pfizer expects to increase its weekly vaccine delivery from 4-5 million doses at the start of February to more than 13 million doses by mid-March, said John Young, Pfizer's chief business officer.
Of note: Both companies are studying potential booster shots in response to emerging coronavirus variants. Their vaccines have shown to be effective against the highly transmissible strains first seen in the U.K. and South Africa.
Pfizer is also studying booster effects in trial participants who have been fully vaccinated, Young said.
Be smart: The more Americans that are fully vaccinated, the faster that herd immunity will be reached — making it more difficult for the virus to spread.
What's next: Executives from the companies are slated to testify before the Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday morning.
Go deeper on vaccines with our video short course.
Frustration among many Senate Republicans, not to mention Democrats, toward the White House has hit a fever pitch, with many lawmakers — including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — admitting they could break for the August recess without a stimulus bill.
The latest: The Senate left for the weekend Thursday evening without even circulating a draft bill that McConnell says will be used as a starting point for negotiations — and many blame the White House.
Behind the scenes: Multiple GOP Hill aides involved in the stimulus negotiations tell me they feel Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have undermined the legislative process.
There was also early skepticism among GOP lawmakers about their role in the talks, according to conversations with seven Republican Hill staffers involved in the crafting of the bill.
Meadows has taken a bigger role in stimulus talks this time around and is viewed as Mnuchin's foil, two administration officials told Axios. But it's taken him a while to get the president on the same page as GOP senators.
The other side: "Meadows and Mnuchin have been working closely with Senate GOP leadership. They spent the afternoon on the Hill yesterday working on priorities the White House and Senate R’s can unite around. They’ll be back on the Hill today. They’re also in constant contact with McConnell and [House GOP Leader Kevin] McCarthy," a White House official told Axios.
The bottom line: Republican leaders privately admit that if negotiations are a failure, the White House and Republicans will take the political hit since they're running the show.
Rudy Giuliani and other key members of President Trump's outside legal team won't be attending today's meeting with two Michigan lawmakers because they've been exposed to the coronavirus, two sources familiar with the internal discussions tell Axios.
Why it matters: This added turmoil inside the president's legal operation comes at a time when the president is urging Republican state lawmakers to interfere with the electoral process and reverse Joe Biden's victory to a Trump win.
Behind the scenes: Top Trump campaign officials held a conference call this morning with Eric Herschmann, a lawyer on the White House staff, in which they candidly discussed their legal conundrum.
This raised the obvious question of which member of Rudy Giuliani's legal team would join the White House meeting.
Trump's campaign lawyers have been holed up for days in a conference room at Trump campaign headquarters in Arlingon, Va., one of the sources said, Andrew Giuliani had been around all of them.
What's next: A source familiar with the situation told Axios that another campaign attorney is planning to attend the White House meeting in place of the COVID-infected members of the Giuliani legal team.