NOTE: THE BELOW IS NOT ACTUALLY A MEMO FROM WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF RON KLAIN TO THE PRESIDENT THAT I OBTAINED FROM A SOURCE.
Or is it?
No, it isn’t.
****
TO: JRB
FROM: RON KLAIN
DATE: 1/27/21
RE: WHERE WE ARE
Nancy and Chuck were right.
We are going to have to do our COVID relief bill through reconciliation.
I know you have been in office for only a week, and you ran on your ability to bring about bipartisanship, but the MSNBC crowed is already impatient. Bernie is telling anyone and everyone it is time to get moving.
Once we start on reconciliation, the chances of returning to a bipartisan compromise becomes less likely rather than more.
By a lot.
And for two reasons.
First, Republicans are looking for every opportunity and excuse to put their own noses out of joint and return to their 2009 mode of reflexively opposing everything you are for. They are in full “we need to all hang together or we will hang separately” posture. As we say in Chevy Chase, they will squeal like stuck pigs as soon as the reconciliation process starts.
Second, once Nancy and Chuck introduce budget resolutions on Monday and then the House and Senate do party-line votes on those outlines, likely later in the week, Democrats on the Hill will start to think about pandemic relief exclusively as an intraparty negotiation. Any hope of building Democratic consensus to continue to negotiate across the aisle will go straight out the window, and pretending otherwise won’t help our situation.
We could try to follow Bill Galston’s advice in the Wall Street Journal and let the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House and Joe Manchin and Susan Collins in the Senate have a couple of weeks to try to rewrite our bill, but let’s be honest – the chances of that yielding anything but a wasted couple of weeks is nil, especially after Monday.
As Al Gore used to say, “The only group of people Susan Collins has consistently disappointed more than the Republicans…is the Democrats.”
So reconciliation it is, but, even starting down that path next week, it won’t be easy to make this happen before unemployment benefits expire on March 14.
And we have to be careful about how much we are seen ramming this through. Even our media allies will not buy the line that Republicans can still vote for the final package if we use reconciliation.
And as Bernie and others try to sneak provisions like the $15 minimum wage through the parliamentarian and the Byrd Rule, lines like this from the Wall Street Journal’s news story will not help us on the PR front:
One option is having Ms. Harris or President Pro Tempore Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) disregard the parliamentarian’s advice.
Speaking of Pat, David Carle says he is fine. You should call him today.
Just to note, in the 50-50 world in which our Senate life exists, this from a Vermont paper:
Leahy’s health has long been a matter of speculation due in part to his gravelly voice, which his staff has long blamed on chronic laryngitis. He has already received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine.
Also, recall that when it looked like Bernie might be giving up his Senate seat for the Oval Office (fun memories!), Vermont’s Republican governor Phil Scott made clear how he would fill the slot under the state’s law:
Under Vermont law, the governor has six months from the date a vacancy occurs to hold a special election. The winner would complete Sanders' term, which expires in January 2025. The governor is also empowered to appoint an interim senator to fill the post until the special election took place.
Scott, a Republican, said he would abide by Vermont's tradition of naming a replacement from the same party as the outgoing officeholder — in Sanders' case, an independent. The governor said he would not appoint anyone to the interim position who planned to run in the special election because doing so would give that person "a leg up" in the race.
So all good no matter what, although, no, I can’t explain why Vermont still has a Republican governor when you got 66% of the vote there.
As for impeachment, each day I learn more and more how right you were about Mitch McConnell, every bit as evil as you and Rachel Maddow have said.
All the Portman and Thune “caveats” notwithstanding, this thing is over.
It’s too late, I think, for us to reverse course and even privately convey that we should find a way to stop the runaway freight train trial that ends in Trump’s acquittal and political victory lap.
Tim Kaine is reportedly searching for an exit strategy, and Halperin’s sources have floated a bipartisan censure deal in lieu of a doomed trial.
But the managers say Tuesday’s Senate vote only means they have to present an even longer and more detailed case to remind Republicans how freaked out at Trump they were on January 6.
Nancy and Chuck and Chris Hayes are all pretty set on having a trial, so we will just have to grin and bear it. Your soft trial balloon try via CNN to say the votes for conviction won’t be there didn’t even clear the White House gates.
On the other hand, you have brilliantly executed the Dunn-Bedingfield-Psaki balance of optimism and realism on the pandemic this week.
Making nice with Peter Doocy (again, it’s Peter, not Steve) has gone over pretty well, as we suspected it would. And you can still blame Trump a lot of the time.
But the press is having you own COVID a bit more quickly than we anticipated.
Stay calm and sunny and we should be fine.
Jeff Zients is definitely more focused on vaccines than bagels, rest assured.
Besides the press turning on us a bit, the other concern I want to raise for you is federal judges.
The guy who temporarily blocked our attempt to put a moratorium on deportations for 100 days is indeed a Trump judge, and there are a lot of them out there. It’s only a fourteen day TRO, but Texas alone could start going to court to block everything we do, and we could lose more than we win.
Some of this stuff is substantive but some will be symbolic.
Speaking of which, Bruce Reed has some concerns that the symbolism of our executive actions and statements might be resonating in real America more than we realize. Of course, Bruce can’t say any of this out loud or the liberals will demand he be cancelled.
In Indiana, we call that irony.
And McConnell’s smart guy is for some reason all up in arms — and excited — about my suggesting on TV that the Chicago teachers have a point.
I will watch what I say and we need to maybe watch to sneak in a Sister Soulja move at some point soon on something you really care about.
I know we need to fulfill your campaign promises on all the culture stuff, but make no mistake, we are headed into a war, and the midterms are right around the corner.
The last thing I want to hear in November, 2022, is your taking responsibility for a shellacking.
Transgender, racial sensitivity, policing reform – all important stuff and/but all writing the script for a series of 2021 and 2022 Tucker Carlson monologues and Tea Party II rally speakers.
On the cabinet – great that Tony got confirmed and Governor Raimondo had a strong hearing.
The press is never going to care about foreign policy as much as you do, but the columnists, the Republicans, and the Europeans are all over what our positions are vis a vis Russia and China.
Your getting tough with Putin on the call is playing pretty well, especially juxtaposed with this crazy Daily Mail story about a book alleging Trump was groomed by the Russians for 40 years.
Tony and Jake are trying to figure out how to gain leverage over Putin, but we are dealing with much more political pressure at home over China.
Governor Raimondo got hammered over it at her hearing, Taiwan’s air force is being pretty confrontational, and Walter Russell Mead in the Journal (which I’m sure you have already read) frames our early China steps as provocative in the extreme.
Tony and Jake are trying to figure out how to gain leverage over Xi.
Oh, and speaking of enflaming the right, of intra-Democratic Party divides over tactics and strategy, of midterm peril, and of the search for leverage: we still have to figure out what to do about climate and immigration in 2021.
Once we dispose of the pandemic, the impeachment, and all this other stuff, we definitely need to figure out a strategy on those two issues that have in the past had devastating political consequences for our party when we have swung and missed at them.
Have a great workout.
****
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