WASHINGTON — In President Joe Biden’s war against the coronavirus, former President Donald Trump hardly exists.
The Democratic president ignored Trump in his first prime-time address to the nation, aside from a brief indirect jab. It was the same when Biden kicked off a national tour in Pennsylvania on Tuesday to promote the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan.” Now, as his administration is on the cusp of delivering on his promise of administering 100 million doses of vaccine in his first 100 days, Biden is in no rush to the share the credit.
In Biden’s telling, the United States’ surging vaccination rate, economic recovery and the hope slowly spreading across the nation belongs to him and his party alone.
On Thursday afternoon, Biden is set to provide an update on the state of the vaccination campaign, with what is expected to be an early victory lap on reaching the milestone more than a month before he promised. While the official figures won’t be reported for days, the 100 millionth dose is likely to be administered on Thursday — his 58th day in office.
The president’s approach represents a determination to shape how voters — and history — will remember the story of America’s comeback from the worst health and economic crises in generations. In the short term, the debate will help decide whether Democrats will continue to control Congress after next year’s midterm elections. And in the longer term, each president’s legacy is at stake.
For now, the fight is framed by conflicting realities.
On the Democratic side, Biden and his allies see a nation still desperate for government intervention. They point to more than 9 million jobs still lost, thousands of Americans still dying every week, and state and local leaders in both parties seeking help.
Enter Biden’s relief package, which public polling shows has broad support. The package provides checks and tax breaks directly to Americans, and will add money to the pandemic fight, as well as help state and municipal governments close budget shortfalls.
On the other side, Republicans largely believe that most Americans are doing just fine after the GOP — under Trump’s leadership — put the country on a path to recovery before Democrats won the White House and both chambers of Congress in January. They note that hundreds of billions of dollars remain unspent from last year’s rescue packages.
In an interview, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey stopped short of endorsing the call by his Republican Senate colleague Rick Scott of Florida for states to return billions of dollars allocated in Biden’s pandemic-relief plan, which includes $1,400 checks for most Americans. But Toomey described the Democrat-backed package, which polling suggests is overwhelmingly popular, as “an embarrassment.”
“We certainly didn’t need it right now,” the Pennsylvania Republican said of Biden’s American Rescue Plan. ”I have heard from a lot of people receiving the check saying they didn’t need it.”
Toomey also mocked Biden’s attempts to take credit for the pandemic progress, saying: “I suppose roosters take credit for the sunshine sometimes.”
The truth is that both Biden and Trump deserve some credit, though Biden stands to benefit from being in power during the nation’s emergence from the pandemic.
Trump’s response to the virus last year was wildly inconsistent and divisive, but it’s undeniable that the former Republican president’s push for vaccine production, known as “Operation Warp Speed,” gave Biden something to build on as soon as he took over.
In his early days in the White House, Biden’s team made headlines as they said publicly that he had inherited no plan to combat the pandemic. The White House has since backed off that argument, however, because it’s not technically accurate.
The Biden administration inherited two effective vaccines, with others in the pipeline. And even a much-touted program to distribute vaccines through retail pharmacies has its roots in the last administration.
Even so, since taking over, Biden has overseen a dramatic increase in vaccine distribution and played a more active role in giving states consistent pandemic-related guidance. Late last week, for example, the new president announced that all Americans would be eligible for a vaccine by May 1, a directive meant to help cut through the patchwork of conflicting eligibility requirements across the country.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison charged that Trump played down the seriousness of the coronavirus for months, leaving states on their own to address the historic health and economic crises.
“Joe Biden has come in to clean it up, to clean up the mess,” Harrison told The Associated Press. “I have no room for giving Donald Trump any credit. This is a man who couldn’t even say, ‘You need to wear a mask.’ And right now, you see the people who are resisting the most are people who voted for him, in terms of taking the vaccine.”
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 42% of Republicans say they probably or definitely will not get the shot, compared with 17% of Democrats.
For all the GOP griping, Trump has not helped position himself as effective leader in public health.
The former president largely ignored the pandemic — and the success of the vaccine development — in his final months in office, consumed instead by spreading false claims of election fraud.
Trump’s White House aides all but begged him to focus on selling the promising vaccines in the weeks after the November election, believing he would be able to take credit for their development and rollout. But Trump rejected an aggressive plan to promote the vaccines that his team had planned.
Trump is the only living president who did not appear in a public service announcement released last week encouraging all Americans to get the vaccine. He addressed the issue briefly during a Tuesday interview on Fox News, acknowledging that a lot of his supporters are reluctant to be vaccinated.
“I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it. And a lot of those people voted for me, frankly,” Trump said. “But you know, again, we have our freedoms, and we have to live by that and I agree with that, also. But it’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine. And it’s something that works.”
Privately, some Biden aides are surprised that Trump hasn’t been more active in trying to sell the vaccines developed on his watch to help rehabilitate his legacy. It is an oversight they are not going out of their way to correct.
While publicly welcoming Trump’s engagement on the vaccines, the White House is content to have Trump recede from the spotlight. Biden has moved to turn the page on “the former guy,” rarely uttering Trump’s name in public since his inauguration — for good or ill.
White House officials note that Biden has taken pains to credit researchers and scientists who developed the technologies used in the three approved COVID-19 vaccines, though he has not extended that courtesy to the Republican administration that injected billions into their work over the last year.
While Trump is largely absent from the debate, the Republican National Committee hopes to undercut Biden’s message by flooding local media outlets with Republican critics in key states.
RNC talking points distributed to surrogates say that “just 1 per cent” of the rescue package (which would be roughly $20 billion) will go to vaccine distribution. But the Kaiser Family Foundation found that almost $93 billion in the legislation is focused on vaccine distribution and related public health measures.
The Republican talking points ignore the $1,400 checks for most Americans that carry a total price tag of $422 billion.
The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, has launched a modest national advertising campaign that declares, “Help is here,” and related billboards attacking Republicans in several states for opposing “$1,400 checks & shots in arms.”
Harrison, the DNC chairman, vowed that Democrats would not let voters forget Republican obstruction and Trump’s lack of leadership when the nation needed help the most.
“We are going to be a dog with a bone on this particular issue,” he said. “Joe Biden and the Democrats, they did it alone.”
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Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
Steve Peoples And Zeke Miller, The Associated Press
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
