US onAir – 1/19/22

US onAir - 1/19/22

News

Senate resumes debate on voting rights bills, setting up a potential filibuster showdown
January 19, 2022 – 10:00 am (ET)

At 11:20:00 to 11:31:

Back and forth debate about new voting rights laws affecting Georgia between Senator Jon Ossoff and Senator Susan Collins. After their short debate, Senator Jeff Merkley said “perhaps the most substantive exchange I witnessed in my 13 years here in the senate. Followed by some Senators clapping.

Biden hosts rare news conference as administration approaches 1 year in office
January 19, 2022 – 4:00 pm (ET)

The Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for the release of presidential records from the Trump White House to a congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

The court’s order means that more than 700 documents will be transferred to Congress that could shed light on the events leading up to the insurrection when hundreds of rioters converged on the Capitol attempting to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas said publicly that he would have granted former President Donald Trump’s request to block the document handover from the National Archives to the House select committee. No other justices made an objection public.

NewsHour live episode, Jan. 19, 2022
CNN, January 19, 2022 – 6:00 pm (ET)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/antony-blinken-ukraine-trip-russia/index.html

President Joe Biden on Wednesday predicted a Russian invasion of Ukraine, citing existential concerns by the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, even as he warned of significant economic consequences should such an incursion occur.

But he suggested a “minor incursion” would elicit a lesser response than a full-scale invasion of the country.

“I’m not so sure he is certain what he is going to do. My guess is he will move in. He has to do something,” Biden said, describing a leader searching for relevance in a post-Soviet world. “He is trying to find his place in the world between China and the west.”

Biden’s prediction of an invasion is the firmest acknowledgment to date the United States fully expects Putin to move after amassing 100,000 troops along the Ukraine border.

Today onAir
CNN, Kevin Liptak,

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-news-conference/index.html

White House to Dems: Tout the $2.4T you got passed, ignore the infighting
Politico, Sarah Ferris and Nicholas Wu et al.January 19, 2022

The White House is working to sell frustrated House Democrats on a simple pre-midterms pitch: Stop focusing on what hasn’t gotten done yet and start touting the two big bills the party has passed so far.

Democrats have already passed a pandemic aid package and infrastructure law totaling $2.4 trillion. Many lawmakers, however, remain determined to log another legislative achievement they can champion, worried that voters will be disappointed and disenchanted — following lofty campaign promises — if they don’t get more done.

As President Joe Biden nears his one-year mark in office, his administration is urging Democrats nervous about losing Congress in November to talk up the legislative accomplishments that the party has notched so far. The attempt at accentuating the positive comes amid a particularly bleak stretch of intraparty feuding over the Senate filibuster, rising Covid anxiety, economic jitters and low approval ratings for Biden.

While the Senate nears an ugly clash on election reform, key White House officials spent Tuesday on a pair of calls with rank-and-file House aides, stressing the party’s victories on a bipartisan infrastructure law signed in November and a massive pandemic relief bill passed in March. Senior House Democrats picked up that focus on Wednesday, ticking off upbeat statistics on the economy and controlling the coronavirus.

House Democratic Caucus hold news conference
CNN, January 19, 2022 – 10:15 am (ET)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/antony-blinken-ukraine-trip-russia/index.html

House GOP members hold news conference
CNN, January 19, 2022 – 10:45 am (ET)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/antony-blinken-ukraine-trip-russia/index.html

Blinken: Russia has plans in place to increase force on Ukraine borders ‘even more’
CNN, Vasco Cotovio and Veronica StracqualursiJanuary 19, 2022

Russia has plans to further increase its military forces on Ukrainian borders, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday in remarks to personnel at the US Embassy in Kyiv.

“We know that there are plans in place to increase that force even more on very short notice,” Blinken said of the massive troop build-up near Ukrainian borders. “And that gives President Putin the capacity also on very short notice to take further aggressive action against Ukraine and that, of course, has gotten not only our attention, but it’s gotten the attention of virtually all of our allies and partners and not just in Europe, even beyond.”

“This is a critical time for Ukraine,” Blinken explained to a crowd of roughly 60 people, speaking alongside Charge d’Affaires Kristina Kvien.

Blinken arrived in Ukraine’s capital on Wednesday for the first of three stops this week amid concerns that Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine.

Jan. 6 committee on verge of obtaining some records Trump has tried to shield
Politico, Kyle Cheney and Josh GersteinJanuary 19, 2022

The Jan. 6 select committee is on the verge of obtaining several pages of Donald Trump’s White House records that the former president has tried to shield from congressional investigators.

In a new court filing, the Justice Department said the National Archives — which houses Trump’s White House files — planned to release four pages of records to the House on Wednesday evening despite Trump’s pending request at the Supreme Court to block the handover of those and other records.

Although lower courts — which unanimously ruled against Trump’s effort to keep the pages secret — agreed to keep large swaths of his records secret while he appealed to the Supreme Court, those orders applied to only three tranches of records identified through November.

According to the Justice Department, the fourth tranche, identified by National Archives and Records Administration officials in December, was not covered by the lower-court orders. However, Trump’s lawyers did ask the Supreme Court on Dec. 23 to halt all transfers of disputed records to the House panel. The high court has yet to act on that request.

Say goodbye to making Election Day a federal holiday and other pro-voting ideas
CNN, Zachary B. Wolf and Fredreka SchoutenJanuary 18, 2022

The ongoing debate over a national standard for voting will reach its climax, for now, on Capitol Hill this week.

Millions of American voters may be wondering how changes in key states and a failure to enact a new national standard will affect their acts of voting in the next election, which for most people will be the midterms in November.
I talked to CNN’s national political writer Fredreka Schouten about the nuts and bolts of what will and won’t change. Read her latest story here. Or check out our Q&A below, conducted by email and edited slightly for length.

What would a national voting standard look like?

WHAT MATTERS: What would the new voting standard Democrats are pushing mean for the average voter? How would it change the experience of voting in the US?

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