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Analysis of district-level voting patterns suggests that Republicans enjoy an inbuilt 2.1 percentage-point advantage in contests for the House majority. Joe Biden won the national vote by 4.6 points in 2020. He won the median House seat, Illinois’s Fourteenth Congressional District, by 2.5 points.

Not since the mid-1990s have Republican senators represented a majority of American voters. The 50 Democratic senators elected in 2020 represent nearly 42 million more Americans than the 50 Republicans.

Shifting power from an overmighty presidency to a Congress that overindulges reactionary minorities will do democracy no good. The post-Watergate reformers recognized that logic, and joined their limits on the presidency to an attempted modernization of Congress.

the reformers of the 1970s understood the architecture of American democracy. Power flowed from Congress to the presidency precisely because the presidency was the most accountable branch of the federal government. If the flow was to be reversed, Congress needed to be democratized. This same problem presents itself with even greater force in the 2020s.

The 60-vote Senate has become an accepted fact of American politics, along with presidents who lose the popular vote, and state legislatures where 45 percent of the vote is converted into 55 percent of the seats, or more.

The Senate is defended by a sequence of rationalizations: It’s good that a Wyoming vote counts 68 times more than a California vote. It’s good that garnering 59 out of 100 votes does not suffice to enact laws. It’s good that any one legislator is able to disrupt the proceedings. These rationalizations have proved contagious. If minority rule is good sometimes, why not more of the time?

As the Senate has deviated further and further from majoritarian norms, the House and the state legislatures have followed. Among the great merits of Jentleson’s Kill Switch is that it reminds us how recent this trend is.

In the era of the 67-vote filibuster, the tools of minority rule were used to defend racial segregation, a cause that even its supporters did not like to defend openly.

In an important new book, Kill Switch, Adam Jentleson offers a harrowing portrait of how anti-majoritarian dysfunction has paralyzed the U.S. Senate.

The Framers’ constitutional design balanced majority rights as they were understood at the time—the rights of a majority of those persons possessed of full citizenship who voted in state and House elections—against a federal Senate to protect the rights of smaller states and a judiciary insulated from passing political passions

it’s one thing to respect regional and cultural minorities; it’s another to let those minorities impose hostile preferences upon an unwilling majority, year in, year out, with every exit from federal minority rule blocked by even more obdurate systems of minority rule at the state level.

Jentleson offers a program for reform that begins with the outright elimination of the filibuster. But without constitutional change more radical than anything contemplated today, the Senate will always remain counter-majoritarian—and Senate reform can accordingly take the country only so far toward the reanimation of the majority-rule principle.

the House, often falsely complimented as the “people’s House,” is the part of the government most in need of democratic change. Change to the House depends on change to the anti-majoritarian state legislatures that redraw congressional districts—and that change depends on renewal of the voting-rights laws the federal courts have so weakened over the past decade and a half.

In the meantime, the federal and state executive branches are the tools most available to the disempowered majority.

America got the imperial presidency in the first place in great part because of the defects of Congress. From free trade to civil rights, the post-1945 presidency would act to do things in the broad public interest over the truculent obstruction of Congresses dominated by narrow and backward-looking minority interests.

But presidents, even the greatest of them, are not magicians. Since 2010, the U.S. political system has been ever more extremely biased toward its narrow and backward-looking ideological minorities. Weaken the executive branches, federal and state, and you privilege those ideological minorities.

don’t overcorrect, and don’t overdo it. Under present rules and conditions, the executive power, state and federal, is the least antidemocratic power in the American political design.

The only hope for bringing majority rule to the rest of American politics is voting-rights enforcement by the federal Department of Justice—and maybe some forward-thinking governors—against the probable resistance of the U.S. Senate, the Republican-dominated federal courts, and the minority-rule state legislatures.

The presidency and the governorships have not always advanced the cause of majority rule in the past. They will not always do so in the future. But at this moment, that’s precisely what they’re poised to do. The enemies of the majority-rule principle understand that fact. The friends of majority rule should absorb it too.

Early successes are crucial for presidents, since they must harness their power when it is at its apex early in their terms. Political muscle is built for later legislative fights by enacting priorities and uniting party factions behind a common cause. Presidents who struggle to get early priorities passed are not necessarily doomed. But they risk creating an impression of disarray that can hurt them in their first midterm elections, as was the case with President Bill Clinton's collapsed effort to overhaul American health care.

And progressives who were dismayed by the removal of a hike in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour elected to bank their gains, staying behind the effort and vowing to fight another day.

The President judged the $600 billion cost of an alternative package offered by 10 GOP senators as insufficient for the scale of the crisis. In votes so far in the House and the Senate, the bill has not attracted a single Republican supporter as Biden's opponents stake out early positions for the midterm elections on the basis of a pro-Trump base of activists who are keen to deny the new President an early victory.

Various polls show that more than 60% of the public supports it, which means some Republican and independent voters are on board.

With its tax credits for children and low-income workers, an extension of health insurance subsidies and nutrition and rental assistance, the American Rescue Plan is intended to do far more than simply stimulate the economy.

"It's a real tragedy when you look at that package. We know that the result of that package is going to be middle-class tax increases," the Wyoming Republican said.

The bill is sure to be a fulcrum of the Democratic midterm election campaign next year.

But if the current pace of vaccinations is maintained and the end game of the pandemic is not derailed by a wave of sickness and death caused by Covid-19 variants, Biden can expect a much faster and more robust economic rebound.

The bill is almost the inverse of Trump's sole major legislative triumph outside of a conservative refashioning of the judiciary: a massive tax cut that cost $1.5 trillion and was targeted mostly at corporations and more well-off Americans.

His initial $1.9 trillion request, not far off half the entire US annual federal budget, is playing into Republican claims that his administration will be rooted in out-of-control socialism.

The partisan nature of the votes on Biden's recovery package also has some Democrats pondering whether to seek to abolish filibuster rules that mean most major legislation needs a 60-vote majority to pass. The $1.9 trillion behemoth was advanced using a process known as reconciliation, which applies only to budget issues and can be used only sparingly.

But it seems equally certain that Democratic priorities like voting rights will die in a 50-50 Senate.

The defection of Hispanic voters, together with an approximately 3 point drop in Black support for Joe Biden compared with Hillary Clinton, threatens a pillar of Democratic competitive strength, especially among Black men: sustained high margins of victory among minority voters whose share of the population is enlarging steadily.

This social and cultural mismatch, according to some observers, is driving a number of minority voters into the opposition party.

Ulibarri emailed me to say that he believes that “Hispanics see what white America has done to Black America, and the backlash leads to more G.O.P. votes.”

In the past, “they may have been conservative and Latino, but you were Latino first and the way you were treated as a group and discriminated against trumped some ideology. Now, less so.”

e first, roughly a quarter of the Hispanic population, is made up of those who self-identify as people of color, according to the study, “as a group that, like African Americans, remains distinct over generations.”

The third Hispanic constituency, nearly three in ten, is made up of “bootstrappers” who “perceive Hispanics, not primarily as people of color or as white ethnics, but as a group that ‘over generations can get ahead through hard work.’ ” These voters tend to be “slightly more conservative regarding race, class, and government, and are the most likely to be Republican.”

What matters most, Haney-López continued, “is susceptibility to Republican ‘dog whistle’ racial frames that trumpet the threat from illegal aliens, rapists, rioters and terrorists.”

“What may be changing is how certain ethnic and nationality groups within Hispanics perceive themselves with regards to their racial and ideological identities,” she wrote by email:

In brief, Shor makes the case that well-educated largely white liberals on the left wing of the party have pushed an agenda — from “socialism” to “defund the police” — far outside the mainstream, driving conservative and centrist minority voters into the arms of the opposition.

A Brookings analysis conducted by William Frey, a senior fellow there, showed that Biden won a smaller percentage of minority voters in the key states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 when she lost all three.

the United States would ask the United Nations to convene foreign ministers and envoys from Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, India and United States “to discuss a unified approach to supporting peace in Afghanistan.”It added the United States will ask Turkey to host a senior-level meeting of “both sides in the coming weeks to finalize a peace agreement.”

Violence in Afghanistan has increased recently as peace talks between the Taliban and the government has made no progress. Both sides have said they were getting ready for a “tough” spring offensive.

A clear majority of Americans -- 60% -- approves of the new President's handling of the pandemic in a new CNN poll.

The virus is far from purged. Covid-19 variants may trigger a new spring surge in infections before vaccination campaigns can tamp them down. Republican governors racing to open their states with cases still at a high plateau could also cause a new wave of unnecessary deaths.

A fast-building southern border crisis threatens to turn into the first big non-Covid-19-related emergency of this presidency, with Biden yet to get a handle on a surge of undocumented child migrants across the border.

Biden's success -- along with Democratic leaders -- in piloting a massive piece of legislation through Congress despite the tightest of majorities in the first weeks of his presidency is a historic achievement that ranks alongside the fastest of starts by modern presidents. The new law delivers on his promise to send $1,400 stimulus payments to millions of Americans.

No longer does the president of the United States spend his time attacking American democracy, waging personal feuds on Twitter or cratering painstakingly brokered political compromises in Congress.

The overhaul of the US counter-pandemic strategy after Trump's denial and mismanagement and Biden's success in passing the Covid-19 rescue plan leave an impression that the new President is effectively wielding the tools of his office, after a lifetime Washington apprenticeship.

Biden's impact is also being felt in the way he has restored traditional expectations of presidential behavior and has projected human decency from the White House -- for instance, when he visited an old friend, former GOP Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, after his recent cancer diagnosis.

Since taking office, Biden has led the nation in mourning for 525,000 lost citizens and has managed a steady rise in vaccinations, which now average 2 million a day.

Early victories do not guarantee successful or ultimately popular presidencies. The job is so vast, and the challenges -- from domestic security threats to a sudden foreign policy crisis -- can be grave and unexpected. The pandemic, which destroyed the economy Trump had hoped to ride to reelection, is proof of that.

If Biden fails to get the immigration crisis under control, the success of passing the rescue plan may be quickly forgotten.

One crucial issue overshadowed by the race to vaccinate Americans and put them back to work is the unresolved threat to American democracy. Republican state legislators across the nation are rushing to suppress the potential vote of the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election with new laws that often directly discriminate against minority and Democratic voters.

Given such tests, Biden's objectively strong start to his presidency is only revealing the height of the political mountain up ahead.

Gordon Matthews, a professor of anthropology living in Hong Kong, says some of his colleagues at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who have devoted their lives to China are exploring pursuing new lines of academic inquiry to avoid visiting the mainland.

'What are the things I have been doing that may have contributed to my getting detained?' It's also a question of, 'What is my nationality? What have the politicians from my country have been saying?'" says Nee.

"China has always protected the safety and legitimate rights and interests of foreigners in China in accordance with the law,"

In June, a business advisory council to the US State Department issued a report titled "Hostage Diplomacy in China," seen by CNN, which cited the two Canadians' cases as a primary reason why firms should be more careful when sending employees to China.

O'Halloran's exit ban was finally lifted in January. But to complete what Member of the European Parliament for Dublin, Barry Andrews, has called his "Kafkaesque nightmare," when O'Halloran went to the airport, hoping to get home for his son's 14th birthday, he was stopped again. He remains in China.

n 2020, China became the world's largest recipient of foreign direct investment, with flows into the country rising 4% to $163 billion.

he wasn't concerned about getting into the country from a political standpoint. In fact, she said her community is itching to go for research and investing purposes, once the pandemic permits travel there again. "Fund flow is still positive and strong into China," she said. "So if you're investing, it's typical to take quarterly trips."

"When I'm in China, I don't go out. I don't fraternize, I don't go out to bars," he says. "You know, there's too much to lose. So my life in China is very small and I want to keep it that way. Because, you know, I've heard horror stories.

criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers.

He recalls one Buddhist colleague who had started contributing to a school in Tibet, a restive region of China with an exiled government agitating for its autonomy. He says his company took the colleague aside to ask her to refrain from donating, and to keep a low profile on Tibetan matters, to avoid causing the firm problems when she represented them in the mainland.

"A lot of the new advice we are getting, as graduate students, is to do a project that does not require you to necessarily do fieldwork in China,

With fewer academics willing to travel to China, and those who do make it after the coronavirus pandemic encountering a more closed nation, the result could be fewer Western minds reporting on and studying China firsthand at a time when, arguably, the world has never had a greater need to understand the country.

The decision will keep more than 3,000 American troops on the ground in Afghanistan beyond the May 1 withdrawal deadline announced by the administration of former President Donald J. Trump.

Military and other officials who favored troops remaining in the country longer had used a similar classified intelligence assessment to argue for a slower drawdown, worried that an exit of American troops could trigger a wider civil war and an eventual return of terrorist groups.

The report released Tuesday did not contain an assessment of the likelihood of a return of Al Qaeda to Afghanistan, and some senior officials remain skeptical the Taliban would allow it.

As a well-known preacher from many years ago asked, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

It’s not just political factions using the issue for partisan advantage – though that is happening as Covid-19 restrictions continue to straddle the quintessentially American tension between individual freedom and the reach of government. Medical experts are engaging in an intense debate over whether the CDC is being too cautious in the way it’s loosening mask guidance or is offering the public conflicting, confusing advice.

The complications of exiting the pandemic – a process that no one currently in positions of power has ever experienced – explain why Biden’s success in getting more than 100 million Americans fully immunized doesn’t mean Covid-19 is no longer perilous or is any less politically treacherous for the White House.

The President’s remarks followed new CDC guidance last week that mean fully vaccinated people can now unmask at small outdoor gatherings or when dining outside with friends from multiple households. Unvaccinated people should still cover their faces.

fter months of stressing caution and sticking to restrictions – after a failure to do so cost thousands of lives under Trump – Biden now appears at risk of paying a political price for being too circumspect even though his initial caution proved successful.

“It’s time for the CDC to start embracing this kind of bifurcated strategy and perhaps giving the unvaccinated a hint of what life can be like if they become vaccinated,” he said.

This is a pretty dangerous time to be unvaccinated, but what (the) CDC is signaling is if you are fully vaccinated, freedoms are just becoming safer and safer for people.”

While public health experts warn that maximizing vaccinations is vital to creating the herd immunity in the population necessary to stop Covid-19 spreading

“It is America. Everybody has an individual right. I think that one of the things we have to be careful about is not shaming people or talking down to them or objecting to their way of life,” Marshall told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “Newsroom” on Saturday.

They’ve been told they don’t need a mask. They need a mask. They’ve been told that even if you have a vaccine, you have to keep wearing the mask,” Marshall said.

the best way to ease such concerns and to get rid of masks for good is to get vaccinated.

"Japan can meet an even higher goal if the government takes all possible measures to promote investments for renewable energy and energy savings," she said."It would be also important to introduce a carbon pricing mechanism to hasten the exit of coal-fired power plants and to bolster competition among power generators to make their portfolio greener,

Shortly after that breach, demonstrators scuffled with state troopers and Salem police. One man is accused of spraying officers with bear mace, allowing the crowd to make their way further into the building.

At least three people who participated in the Salem protest went on to participate in the attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Under the official misconduct charge, prosecutors stated that on Dec. 21, Nearman "being a public servant, did unlawfully and knowingly perform an act which constituted an unauthorize exercise of his official duties with intent to obtain a benefit or to harm another."

"He let a group of rioters enter the Capitol, despite his knowledge that only authorized personnel are allowed in the building due to the COVID-19 pandemic," the complaint said, calling Nearman's actions "completely unacceptable, reckless, and so severe that it will affect people's ability to feel safe working in the Capitol or even for the legislature."

The complaint requires an investigation into whether Nearman's actions broke workplace rules, a determination that would ultimately be made by a House committee evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Nearman could face consequences ranging from counseling to expulsion if lawmakers conclude he violated legislative policy.

While that process plays out, Nearman has seen his ability to impact bills during the Legislative session severely diminished. He's been removed from all of his former legislative committees, and agreed to turn in his Capitol access badge and provide 24-hours notice before coming to the building. Nearman has still regularly appeared at House floor sessions.

The lawmaker also faces a rather large bill. In early March, the Legislative Assembly invoiced Nearman more than $2,700 for repairs following the December incursion.

Nearman has not said much about his role in the breach, but in a statement in January he emphasized his belief that the Capitol should be open to the general public, a position many of his Republican colleagues agree with. The building has been closed since March 2020, leading lawmakers to hold hearings and take testimony virtually during three subsequent special sessions and this year's regular legislative session.

Nearman suggested in the statement he was the victim of a political attack, and that he was being subjected to "mob justice."

While Democrats and left-leaning groups have railed against Nearman, his Republican colleagues have had little to say about his actions. In one of her only statements on the matter, House Republican Leader Christine Drazan of Canby said in January she'd support the result of a criminal investigation.

ne of the most conservative Republicans in the House, Nearman has been a lawmaker since 2015. In that time, he's been tied repeatedly to right-wing demonstrations. In 2017, his then-legislative aide gave a gun to a convicted felon, who then brought it to a pro-Trump demonstration at the Capitol, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported. Court records show the aide, Angela Roman, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in the incident.

Nearman's dedication to right-wing causes has not flagged, despite his recent controversy. On Saturday, he's slated to appear at a Salem rally in support of gun rights alongside former congressional candidate and QAnon conspiracy theory supporter Jo Rae Perkins, according to a flyer for the event.

A police affidavit made public on Tuesday said that last week he bought a Ruger AR-556 semiautomatic pistol, though it is not clear that weapon was involved in the shooting on Monday.

On Tuesday he was taken to a jail in Boulder and was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. Officials gave no indication of a motive.

Court records show he was born in Syria in 1999, as did a Facebook page that appeared to belong to the suspect, giving his name as Ahmad Al Issa

The shooting came just six days after another gunman’s deadly shooting spree at massage parlors in the Atlanta area.

A video streamed live from outside of the grocery store on Monday had appeared to show a suspect — handcuffed, shirtless and with his right leg appearing to be covered in blood — being taken from the building by officers.

“I thought I was going to die,” said Alex Arellano, 35, who was working in the store’s meat department when he heard a series of gunshots and saw people running toward an exit.

Some community members try to cope by avoiding places where shootings have happened, like movie theaters, Nicoletti said. That may prove more difficult with a grocery store, he added. Others enter a state of denial, believing that a shooting couldn’t happen to them. 

A better alternative, Nicoletti said, is to be as prepared as possible while not accepting that shootings are inevitable. Countless active shooter drills that have been carried out in schools and workplaces since Columbine are one example of that. Another is simply observing where all the exits are when you enter a building. 

Columbine survivor Missy Mendo said the only way she’s been able to keep herself from normalizing shootings through the years is to work to help people affected by them. That includes her role as a member of the Rebels Project, a local non-profit that helps survivors of mass shootings from around the world connect with one another. Mendo said Monday’s shooting in Boulder was especially difficult for her to try to comprehend.

Two graduates of Columbine High School co-founded the Rebels Project and named it after the school’s mascot. One of those co-founders is Heather Martin, a teacher at Aurora Central High School. 

She, like other survivors, has spent years finding her own coping strategies. Mental health care, including therapy, has been a big help, she said. But her fears can creep up again after she hears about another school shooting. 

Survivors of mass casualty events each have their own unique stories, Martin said. But they all share a common bond, or, as Martin and Mendo say, they belong to a club that no one wants to be in. That club continues to grow with each shooting, a fact that Martins says makes her feel “helpless.”

Suddenly, Martin said, she wasn’t the only person who felt nervous in crowded places like a grocery store.

It’s not just direct survivors of mass shootings that are feeling trauma right now — whether it’s images of the Boulder shooting seen via traditional and social media, or a year of living with a global pandemic. The key, Martin said, is to give yourself the grace to accept that it’s real and valid. 

Tom Rice, a Republican from his state who had backed impeachment.

Last week’s breach of the Capitol appears to have presented that opportunity to Republicans who want to refocus the party around Mr. Trump’s policies, and dispense with the polarizing language and divisive actions that marked his four years in office.

No, Trump does not have any blame, but the Democrats certainly do, along with all the Republicans that follow with them,” said Billy Long, the Republican Party chairman in Bayfield County, Wis., who said he was planning to break away from the G.O.P. to start a local Trump-centric third party. “The Trump movement is not over; like Trump said himself, we are just getting started.”

Republican voters, too, have largely drawn a sharp distinction between the president and those who stormed the Capitol, with 80 percent saying they do not hold Mr. Trump responsible for the rioting and 73 percent saying he is protecting democracy, according to polling released by Quinnipiac University this week

Even if Mr. Trump fades from political life, losing his social media megaphone and bully pulpit, his supporters say his message will be carried forward by a party remade in his image and with strong structural support at all levels.

“The election was crooked and Republicans who could have done something did very little,” said Dave Wesener, the chairman of the Republican Party in Crawford County, Wis. “Those Republicans who have not been supportive I affectionately call RINOs. All RINOs should be primaried by conservatives.”

The siege at the Capitol last week has drawn an even brighter line dividing the party. State legislators from more than a dozen states attended the protest, with at least one facing criminal charges for breaching the Capitol as part of the riot. Meshawn Maddock, an activist who is poised to be the incoming Michigan Republican Party co-chairwoman, helped organize busloads of supporters from her state to travel to the Capitol. In the days after the violence, she joined a conservative online group where some participants openly discussed civil war and martial law.

Mr. Pompeo’s effort to leave no bridge unburned might stand him in good stead with primary voters, should he — as has been widely expected — seek higher office in the coming years. But selfishness at the expense of the national interest isn’t the mark of an honorable diplomat or a patriot.That sentiment appears to be shared in Mr. Pompeo’s State Department, where some officials are said to be keeping discreet clocks counting down the minutes until Secretary Pompeo is a private citizen once again.

As Trump makes little effort to quiet the nerves of a rattled nation, details of what unfolded during last week's Capitol siege have become more unsettling by the day as federal authorities have raced to apprehend the most dangerous rioters while warning of plots for more violence next week when President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated. close dialogSign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Please enter above Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.You're on the list for CNN'sCNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. close dialog/* effects for .bx-campaign-1245919 *//* custom css

The Washington Post was the first to report Friday that Pence and his family were whisked to safety in a nearby room mere seconds before Eugene Goodman led the mob away from some of the nation's top elected officials to another corridor where other officers arrived as backup.

Pence was clearly a top target in the riot; widely circulated video has shown the rioters chanting "hang Mike Pence" as they stormed the Capitol after Trump turned on his vice president by erroneously suggesting that he could have abandoned his duties and changed the outcome of the presidential election.

"Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, 'Kill him with his own gun,'" Fanone, an officer for nearly two decades, told CNN.

His political capital has cratered. A Pew Research Center poll released Friday showed that 54% of Americans want to see Trump removed from office and 68% said they don't want to see him continue to be a major national political figure in the years to come. His overall approval rating fell to 29%, the lowest it has ebbed during his presidency in the Pew poll.

"These men weren't drunks who got rowdy — they were terrorists attacking this country's constitutionally-mandated transfer of power," Sasse said in a statement. "They failed, but they came dangerously close to starting a bloody constitutional crisis. They must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The FBI is investigating widespread calls for violence across the country and every American has an obligation to lower the temperature."

Biden outlined his own plan to accelerate distribution of the Covid-19 vaccines on Friday. Though his proposal was short on details, he said he would expand eligibility for those 65 and up to get vaccinated -- a step the Trump administration also encouraged this week.

But several governors said they were furious Friday after learning that the federal government has no reserve of additional Covid-19 vaccine doses to distribute -- days after Trump administration officials announced with much fanfare that they planned to release a reserve of second doses to make more vaccine available to those 65 and older.

"It appears now that no reserve exists. The Trump administration must answer immediately for this deception," Inslee tweeted.

During a news conference, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown -- also a Democrat -- said she was "shocked and appalled" that the Trump administration set an expectation earlier this week, knowing that they could not deliver on it.

"Their empty promises are literally playing with people's lives," Brown said. "While the Trump administration pulled the rug out from under us like a cruel joke, let me assure you that Oregon's priorities, and my priorities have not changed. ... I remain committed to vaccinating our seniors quickly. But this failure by the Trump administration will unfortunately cause a two-week delay in beginning vaccinations for seniors quickly."

Pfizer has told CNN it has vaccine doses on hand to ship when they are requested by the federal government. "We are working around the clock to produce millions more each day," the company said in a statement.

Biden rolled out his first legislative priority this week, announcing a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that included direct payments to Americans. Biden made clear during a speech on the plan that he wanted it to be the first issue Congress takes up after he is inaugurated on January 20.

"Full achievement of the Biden-Harris Administration's policy objectives requires not just the executive actions the president-elect has promised to take, but also robust Congressional action," Klain wrote.

And on January 22, Biden will direct his Cabinet agencies to "take immediate action to deliver economic relief to working families bearing the brunt of this crisis," Klain writes.

Biden will also order the federal government to determine how to reunite children separated from their families at the US-Mexico border, as well sign additional orders aimed at tackling climate change and expanding access to health care.

"Of course, these actions are just the start of our work," Klain writes. "Much more will need to be done to fight COVID-19, build our economy back better, combat systemic racism and inequality, and address the existential threat of the climate crisis. But by February 1st, America will be moving in the right direction on all four of these challenges — and more — thanks to President-elect Joe Biden's leadership."

Because Biden routinely promised to take action on "Day One" of his administration, hosts of interest groups and advocacy organization have put public pressure on Biden to live up to his promises.

"There is a lot riding on Biden ending the ban on the first day of his presidency because this is something he has campaigned on," said Iman Awad, national legislative director of Emgage Action, an advocacy organization for Muslim Americans. "With that, we understand that we are facing so much during this political moment: A current president making this transition nearly impossible, the insurrection, and the pandemic. Nevertheless, Muslim American communities are hopeful that the Biden Administration will fulfill that promise, despite the crises happening."

For climate change activists, Biden's promise to take swift action on an array of climate issues was a key part of why progressives rallied around Biden once he cleared the Democratic field, said Jared Leopold

"I do expect that the Biden-Harris administration will take affirmative steps within the first day or so of taking office to satisfy their campaign pledges," David said in an interview with CNN, highlighting the need to "ensure that the rights of LGBTQ students are enforced under Title IX."

“We are going to have more authority and rights than those who get vaccines and don’t administer them, who keep them frozen, as is happening in some countries in Europe,

Teams vaccinating front-line health care workers in Mexico have administered about 463,000 shots so far, far short of the country’s total of 750,000 such workers, each of whom will require two doses.

Mexico has now seen over 1.64 million total infections and registered over 140,000 deaths so far in the pandemic. With the country’s extremely low testing rate, official estimates suggest the real death toll is closer to 195,000.

“I’m not sure there’s room for the Republican Party of Donald Trump.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story

the first lady as being "checked out," that she "just wants to go home," and is "not sad to be leaving" Washington and the White House

One of the sources discussing the "thank you" notes with CNN said it is customary for first ladies -- and occasionally presidents as well -- to write cards or short letters of gratitude to members of household staff, especially the ones whom they get to know extremely well.

The butlers, cooks, housekeepers, ushers and maintenance workers do not typically turn over with each administration and many have been working at the White House for a decade or more.

Melania Trump will be exiting the White House with the lowest favorability rating of her tenure as first lady,

At 47%, more people have an unfavorable view of the first lady now than at any point since CNN first asked about views of her in February 2016. The poll, conducted by SSRS for CNN, puts Trump's favorable rating at 42%, with 12% of those asked answering they are unsure of their feelings about the first lady.

Trump's highest favorable rating was in May 2018 at 57% according to a CNN poll taken at the time, which came on the heels of the first state dinner and Trump's attendance at the Texas funeral of the late first lady Barbara Bush.

Events with her involving the White House Christmas decorations were not open to the press. CNN was also first to report Melania Trump has overseeing the packing and shipping of her belongings for the family's departure from the White House for the two months.