| Welcome to The Daily 202 newsletter! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, triggering the sequence of events leading to Operation Desert Storm – a.k.a. the 1991 Gulf War. President Biden campaigned on promises to tame the pandemic and revive the economy — and now faces a test that combines both missions: the end of a federal eviction ban thought to have kept millions of Americans in their homes over the past year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-imposed moratorium lapsed Sunday — five weeks after the Biden administration said it would extend the measure "one final month" to July 31 and four weeks after the Supreme Court let the ban stand but signaled any new extensions would require Congress to act. But Congress didn't act. And while Americans may be done with the pandemic after a traumatic year and a half, the virus isn't done with Americans — the delta variant has sent case numbers soaring and driven thousands of unvaccinated people into hospitals. Political leaders are reimposing mask mandates and other precautions that many thought were a thing of the unpleasant past. And progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), are angry about it. Ocasio-Cortez called her fellow Democrats "cowards" and urged them to "put their names next to a 'yes' or 'no' vote, or the White House needs to do a damn thing about [eviction moratoriums]. … At the end of the day, the emergency is here. And so we need to exercise all avenues." In fact, members of "the Squad," a group of House progressives, have been camped outside of the Capitol to protest the end of the eviction moratorium.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), center left, speaks to Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) while protesting the expiration of the eviction moratorium outside of the Capitol (Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg) | At the New York Times, Glenn Thrush, Matthew Goldstein and Conor Dougherty reported this weekend: "The expiration was a humbling setback for President Biden, whose team has tried for months to fix a dysfunctional emergency rent relief program to help struggling renters and landlords. Running out of time and desperate to head off a possible wave of evictions, the White House abruptly shifted course on Thursday, throwing responsibility to Congress and prompting a frenzied — and ultimately unsuccessful — rescue operation by Democrats in the House on Friday." It was not, in other words, unforeseeable or unforeseen in Washington, where Democrats control the White House, the Senate and the House — as some in the president's party pointed out in the moratorium's final hours. "We cannot hide. When we have a Democratic majority that is capable of passing legislation, we cannot hide behind the Republican Party in the lack of ability to extend the eviction moratorium," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC on Friday. "I absolutely believe that in this moment, yes, we are failing the American people and the most vulnerable," Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) told CNN on Saturday night, urging action to avoid what she predicted would be an "eviction tsunami." The exact number of Americans suddenly threatened with losing their homes isn't completely clear, partly because some states have enacted their own protections and others are stepping up now. My colleague Rachel Siegel wrote about the end of the moratorium here and noted: "It's difficult to know how many people could be served with eviction notices in the coming days and weeks, housing experts say. Moody's data shows there are still well over 6 million renters behind on payments." The Census Bureau's Household Pulse survey for the period ending July 5 found nearly 6 million Americans behind on their mortgage payments, and another 7.4 million not caught up on rent. Some 2.9 million have "no confidence" in being able to pay next month's mortgage payment while 4,860,000 say the same about their rent, according to that survey. Rachel also highlighted this: "In June, the CDC extended the ban for one final month, intensifying pressure on the Biden administration, along with state and local governments, to significantly ramp up the amount of rental assistance reaching tenants and landlords. Altogether, Congress appropriated $46 billion toward emergency rental aid. Only a fraction has been spent. … Public pressure to extend the moratorium compounded as coronavirus cases rose in the past few weeks. But for months earlier, vulnerable households had waited for billions of dollars in unspent emergency rental assistance. Six months after the aid program was approved by former president Donald Trump in December, just 12 percent of the first $25 billion in funds had reached people in need due to loss of income from the pandemic, according to the Treasury Department. More than three months after President Biden signed a March relief package with another $21.5 billion for the program, even less of that has been spent, a Post investigation found." What does that look like at the state level? At the Tampa Bay Times, Emily L. Mahoney reported Saturday: "The state of Florida has received more than $870 million from the federal government to make landlords whole and keep renters in their homes during the pandemic, and expects to receive a grand total of more than $1.56 billion as more money is distributed. It's given out around 2 percent of what it's gotten so far." At the Texas Tribune, Allyson Waller reported: "It's not clear exactly how many evictions in Texas will proceed once the CDC moratorium ends. Thorough statewide data on evictions is scarce, but according to the Texas Office of Court Administration, the number of cases filed — evictions sought by landlords and demands for necessary repairs by tenants — fell 28% during the year that ended Aug. 31, 2020. But this year, from late June to early July, more than 600,000 Texas households said they were behind on their rent payments, according to a recent Census Bureau survey. The majority of those tenants were Black and Hispanic." At the White House, where officials have said the Supreme Court's June ruling meant Biden couldn't unilaterally extend the moratorium, the president's aides have put the onus on states to distribute the aid more quickly and completely. "This shouldn't be happening," deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday. "States should be making sure that these moneys are getting out as quickly as possible." To start your day with a full political briefing, sign up for our Power Up newsletter. | | | Lunchtime reads from The Post - "His campaign is over. But Trump's political groups are still spending donor money at his properties," by Isaac Stanley-Becker and David A. Fahrenthold: "Save America, the leadership PAC where former president Donald Trump is asking loyalists to direct their political contributions, paid for lodging about two dozen times in the first six months of 2021. Nine of those times, the payments went to properties owned by the former president, according to a filing made public on Saturday. All told, the PAC sent at least $68,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection, showing how the real estate mogul — long after ending his presidential campaign and leaving office — continues to use donor money at his own properties. Make America Great Again PAC, a repurposed campaign account, spent about $200,000 on office and restaurant space in Trump Tower, according to its filing for the first half of the year. Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, separately has spent $2,200 at Trump properties so far this year, according to a filing by that committee."
- "Federal monitors cost millions, with disputed results. Seattle's police watchdog was a case in point," by David Nakamura: "Merrick Bobb came to Seattle to oversee police reform in 2012, bringing impeccable credentials, broad authority and a deep expense account. He left last summer with the police department improved but still under federal oversight, and facing renewed criticism for its use of force against Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Bobb says city officials were at times hostile to his presence, while Seattle leaders and activists say his team was tone-deaf and lacked clear performance goals. Their clashes highlight the struggles of federal monitors who have been appointed more than two dozen times across the country since 1994 to force change in troubled police agencies, but who according to their critics have not achieved lasting, measurable results. The Trump administration abandoned federal consent decrees, which it viewed as Washington overreach. But Attorney General Merrick Garland has reauthorized the Justice Department to pursue the tactic in policing and other areas, including housing and the environment."
| | | … and beyond - "How local media spreads misinformation from vaccine skeptics," by the New York Times's Sheera Frenkel and Tiffany Hsu: "The Freedom's Phoenix, a local news site in Phoenix, and The Atlanta Business Journal, a news site in Atlanta, both published the same article about coronavirus vaccines in March. The author was Joseph Mercola, who researchers and regulators have said is a top spreader of misleading Covid-19 information. In the article, Dr. Mercola inaccurately likened the vaccines to 'gene therapy' and argued against their usefulness. A month later, The Freedom's Phoenix and The Atlanta Business Journal also published another article by Dr. Mercola. This time, he blamed the billionaire Bill Gates for the pandemic... Dr. Mercola and other superspreaders of anti-vaccine content, who have been listed by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate as the 'Disinformation Dozen,' have appeared in articles in local publications or as guests on local radio shows and podcasts, according to a review by The Times... As the local news industry has been hit by declining advertising revenues and cuts, some outlets have sometimes unknowingly run vaccine misinformation because they have fewer employees or less oversight than in the past, said Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst."
- "Jihadists flood pro-Trump social network with propaganda," by Politico's Mark Scott and Tina Nguyen: "Just weeks after its launch, the pro-Trump social network GETTR is inundated with terrorist propaganda spread by supporters of Islamic State, according to a POLITICO review of online activity on the fledgling platform. The social network — started a month ago by members of Trump's inner circle — features reams of jihadi-related material, including graphic videos of beheadings, viral memes that promote violence against the West."
- "Inside the US military's pervasive culture of eating disorders," by Task & Purpose's Haley Britzky: "Dyal is not alone among U.S. military service members who have leaned on harmful or unhealthy habits in order to maintain 'body composition standards' that trained dietitians and health experts say are antiquated and have no bearing on physical fitness. While experts agree that there should be fitness and health standards for service members, they say the existing standards don't accurately measure those things. To meet those standards, service members often adopt unhealthy behaviors like starving themselves, working out excessively, taking diet pills or laxatives, or sitting in saunas for prolonged periods of time to drop weight quickly. An Army major who struggled with bulimia for years said taking drastic measures ahead of weigh-ins is 'so common that nobody looks at it as weird.'"
| | | On the Hill The infrastructure bill is here, and it is roughly 2,700 pages long. - "Virtually no part of the U.S. economy is untouched by the plan chiefly put together by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). Roughly half of its $1 trillion overall price tag constitutes new federal spending, with the rest coming from existing, planned investments in the country's roads, highways and bridges, according to details released in recent days by lawmakers and the White House, which supports the proposal," Tony Romm reports.
- "The proposal, called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, further seeks a significant tranche of funding to combat the threat of climate change, aiming to reduce emissions and respond to the deadly consequences of a fast-warming planet. Lawmakers have called for $73 billion to modernize the nation's energy grid and $21 billion to respond to environmental concerns, including pollution."
- "Democrats and Republicans say they have covered the full cost of their new spending, one of the thorniest fights among the lawmakers who helped construct the deal. ... [The deal] omits both new taxes as well as user fees. Instead, it recovers its costs through a pastiche of financing mechanisms, from reclaiming past coronavirus aid funds to collecting unpaid taxes on cryptocurrencies. But there nonetheless remains concern in both parties that some of the math is fuzzy."
- "With a proposal in hand, that debate began Sunday night under the fast-track timeline laid out by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). From here, though, Senate leaders hope to finish their work by the end of the week."
- "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of the chief negotiators of the infrastructure deal, sounded a note of optimism about the path forward on Sunday. Appearing on CNN's 'State of the Union,' she said it remains 'my expectation and my hope' that the $1 trillion proposal could pass the Senate this week."
- "Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), another negotiator, predicted that final passage could come as soon as Thursday — an ambitious timeline that may hinge on lawmakers deftly navigating what might be a difficult amendment process over the days ahead."
- Read the bill here.
More than 100 legislators from other states will join Texas lawmakers in D.C. to lobby for voting bills. - "The lawmakers represent more than 20 states, including some in which Republican-led legislatures have passed or are considering new voting restrictions, and will urge senators to pass the For the People Act, or at least show progress on a federal voting law, before their summer recess. They are scheduled to rally outside the Capitol on Tuesday and press their case during other public events and private meetings," Vanessa Williams reports. "The For the People Act, which would set voting standards and overhaul campaign finance and ethics rules, has stalled in the 50-50 Senate because it can't get the support of 60 members needed to pass most legislation there. And at least two Democratic senators — Manchin and Sinema — have resisted calls to eliminate that filibuster rule, or make an exception for the bill, and allow it to pass with a simple majority."
Democrats want House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to apologize to Speaker Nancy Pelosi after he said "it will be hard not to hit" her with gavel. - "McCarthy, who was the keynote speaker for the Tennessee GOP's annual Statesmen's Dinner on Saturday, was presented at the event with an oversize gavel. He then told members of the crowd that they would be invited to his swearing-in as House speaker if Republicans won back the House majority in 2022," Amy B Wang reports. "More importantly, I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel," McCarthy said to cheers.
- "Democrats immediately denounced McCarthy's remarks as misogynistic, 'disgraceful' and 'no laughing matter,' especially given that Pelosi was a target of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol."
| | | Quote of the day "I don't think we're going to see lockdowns. I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country — not enough to crush the outbreak — but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter," said Anthony S. Fauci, the White House's chief medical adviser, about the possibility of more lockdowns, Paulina Villegas reports. | | | The pandemic Tensions rise within the Biden team over the mask regulation's reversal. - "A season meant to mark the great reopening of society has, instead, been darkened by the next chapter of the disease. And it has left the Biden administration at a crossroads: eager to tout a country making strides but divided internally over how to handle the threats posed by the new strand of virus and what steps Americans should take to protect themselves from it," Politico's Natasha Korecki, Erin Banco and Adam Cancryn report. "Top Biden officials note that breakthrough infections among the vaccinated are exceedingly rare, unlikely to be severe, and more likely to occur in crowded indoor settings. They've been openly frustrated by what they see as overly alarmed coverage of these cases."
- "Inside the administration, the emergence of the Delta variant has caused friction, leading to behind-the-scenes finger-pointing and weeks-long tensions between the CDC and the White House. Two senior Biden officials familiar with the matter said the administration is still trying to balance messaging in a way that underscores the severity of the Delta variant while simultaneously reiterating that vaccinated individuals are overwhelmingly not at risk."
- "'We thought we were going to move past this,' one senior administration official said. 'It's just like, here we go again.'"
A Tennessee Republican lawmaker who once spurned masks urged people to take coronavirus seriously after an eight-month illness. - "'It is a disease that wants to kill us,' state Rep. David Byrd (R) said in a statement Friday. Byrd, 63, described an ordeal that included 55 days on a ventilator in which covid-19 ravaged his memory, his muscles and his organs — it led to him having a liver transplant in June; his condition was so grave that his family at least once began planning for his funeral. Stressing that covid-19 is real and 'very dangerous,' Byrd encouraged people to get vaccinated," Kim Bellware reports.
"I should have gotten the damn vaccine": A woman says her fiance texted her this before dying of coronavirus. - "Micheal Freedy was not opposed to vaccination, his fiancee said. Like many Americans who have yet to get their coronavirus shots, the 39-year-old father just wanted to wait and learn more about how people reacted to the vaccines," Hannah Knowles reports. "'All we were doing is waiting one year,' Jessica DuPreez, 37, told The Post. Then everything changed. This weekend — DuPreez's grief days old and her voice breaking — the Las Vegas mother of five gave interview after interview to spread the same message: Get the vaccine. She said Freedy came to the same conclusion early on in the fight with covid-19 that put him in an intensive care unit in July."
- "'I should have gotten the damn vaccine,' he texted DuPreez, according to a picture she shared with The Post. Freedy, who is listed in her phone as 'My Heart,' died on Thursday, leaving behind young children, including a 17-month-old. … 'I would take a bad reaction to the vaccine over having to bury my husband. I would take that any day,'" DuPreez said."
Florida broke a record for coronavirus hospitalizations. - "The Sunshine State had 10,207 people hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to data reported to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The previous record was from July 23, 2020, more than a half-year before vaccinations started becoming widespread," the AP's Mike Schneider reports. "Florida is now leading the nation in per capita hospitalizations for COVID-19, as hospitals around the state report having to put emergency room visitors in beds in hallways and others document a noticeable drop in the age of patients."
| | | Hot on the left Hundreds of climate experts left the government during the Trump administration. Six months into Biden's term, their jobs remain unfilled, stunting the president's climate plans. "From the Agriculture Department to the Pentagon to the National Park Service, hundreds of jobs in climate and environmental science across the federal government remain vacant," the Times's Coral Davenport, Lisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle report. "Scientists and climate policy experts who quit have not returned. Recruitment is suffering, according to federal employees, as government science jobs are no longer viewed as insulated from politics. And money from Congress to replenish the ranks could be years away. The result is that President Biden's ambitious plans to confront climate change are hampered by a brain drain." | | | Hot on the right The next test of Donald Trump's influence on the Republican Party: A crowded GOP primary fight for an Ohio House seat. "Tuesday's contest — in which 11 candidates are vying to replace longtime GOP congressman Rep. Steve Stivers — has caused serious consternation among the former president's advisers and even Trump himself," Josh Dawsey and David Weigel report. "Trump railed at aides after Susan Wright, the candidate he backed in a special Texas congressional race to replace her late husband, Rep. Ron Wright, lost to a state Republican lawmaker last week, they said. The defeat was an embarrassing setback for the former president. ... Trump is now making last-minute moves to bolster support for coal lobbyist Mike Carey, his pick in the Ohio special election, including hosting a get-out-the-vote tele-rally for him Monday night. A super PAC run by Trump's allies made a last-minute buy of $350,000 in text messages and other ads for Carey last week. ... "Aides say Trump is hypercompetitive about the races he's involved in and regularly brags about his endorsement record while in the White House. His decision to tap a slate of candidates for state party positions, congressional seats and other races has been an unparalleled move for a former president. Trump has disregarded advice from advisers, who have warned that getting involved in races such as the special elections this year in Texas and Ohio and a contested Republican primary for a North Carolina Senate race could blemish his record, fueling the perception that his prominence is fading." | | | Age of Olympians, visualized Olympians are probably older — and younger — than you think: There were some outliers in the old days, but even in Tokyo, athletes range from boomers through Gen Z. Bonnie Berkowitz and Artur Galocha explain through graphics. | | | Today in Washington Biden and Vice President Harris will receive a briefing from members of the coronavirus response team today at 1:15 p.m. At 6:45 p.m., the president will deliver remarks at a virtual fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. | | | In closing | John Oliver shared some ideas on how to fix the U.S.'s emergency medicine system:  | | | | And we might have found the greatest vaccine day outfit of all time: |  | | | | | | |
Email 
