Hillary Clinton talks Afghanistan, Russia and Giuliani

Hillary Clinton on Friday weighed in on a host of foreign policy issues facing the Biden administration, including the pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the Russian treatment of Alexei Navalny and the FBI investigation into Rudy Giuliani.

In an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid, the former secretary of State said she was concerned about the potential fallout for the Afghan people, especially women, if the Taliban were to come back into power.

When asked if she was "comfortable" with President Joe Biden's announced timeline to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, Clinton declined to answer. Instead, she called it a "wicked problem" and said Biden "made the decision that he thought was the right decision."

Her focus, however, would be "on what happens to the people, particularly the women in Afghanistan, if the Taliban come back into power, if the government collapses," she said, echoing concerns among some about a potential power vacuum after U.S. forces leave. If that happened, she said she hoped the U.S. and its allies would help Afghans out of the country to "deal with what I expect to be a very large refugee flow."

Clinton also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying she approved of the U.S. sanctions over Navalny, an imprisoned regime critic whose treatment she called "particularly troubling."

"He represents millions of Russians who deserve to have a better government that is actually, you know, working to move Russia forward, which Putin is not," she said, adding that the White House and Congress should speak out "very forcefully" about Navalny's release.

The former New York senator also talked about Giuliani, the longtime political opponent she defeated in her successful 2000 Senate campaign. On Wednesday, FBI agents raided Giuliani's home and office, seizing materials in connection with an investigation into his work in Ukraine while serving as President Donald Trump's personal lawyer.

Clinton said she would "let the justice system work," but added that Giuliani has "been behaving so erratically and seemingly illegally for so long" that "I don't recognize him now."

"I don't know what's gotten into him, and we'll see what the investigation concludes," she added.

Clinton also touched upon a pressing domestic issue, urging the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, saying that "its usefulness has passed us by."

It's a stance that many Democrats have adopted, due to concerns that Republicans will use it as a roadblock to the Biden agenda. Barring that, she said she supported lifting the filibuster for "constitutional matters," such as voting rights.

The former Democratic Party nominee also nodded to the historic moment of two women — Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — sitting behind Biden during his first joint address to Congress on Wednesday.

"It really was a watershed moment," she said. "I think it's still not sinking in on people, that the, you know, combination of the speaker of the House and our vice president has shattered so many barriers and, as you say, the glass ceiling. It's just thrilling to see."

Falwell invites students to ‘real Liberty graduation’ at his home

Two weeks after Liberty University sued him and banned employees from talking to him, former Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr. unexpectedly showed up at a student event Thursday night, hopped on stage and invited the students to a graduation party at his home that he billed as “the real Liberty graduation.”

“I just want to invite all the seniors to my farm on May 8. We’re going to have the real Liberty graduation,” Falwell told the students, standing on a small stage erected outside an off-campus student house, according to a video reviewed by POLITICO. “If you’re not a senior but you date one, you can come, too.”

The appearance seemed an act of defiance from Falwell at a time when the university has taken an increasingly tough stance against him. His 13-year tenure as Liberty president, during which time the evangelical school grew to more than 100,000 students in person and online, ended after a series of scandals involving his and his wife Becki’s personal behavior. They included Becki’s affair with a former pool attendant in which Falwell allegedly participated; he has denied any participation. In addition, a former student said Becki initiated a sex act with him. Falwell also posted a picture of himself with his pants unzipped and arm around a woman at a yacht party.

On Thursday, roughly 200 students had gathered outdoors for a stand-up comedy night, and Falwell was not expected to make an appearance, according to a student present.

But Falwell showed up partway through the event with Becki at his side, the student said. He soon hopped up on stage, lamenting that his student daughter — who he said was in the audience — had told him, “Please don’t come.”

“You’re still my president!” one student yelled when Falwell took the stage, according to a video reviewed by POLITICO. Others laughed and cheered Falwell’s name. Then Falwell invited students to a party at his farm, a multibuilding property near Liberty.

“We’d love to have you out there. Becki says there’s no way we can plan it that fast, but we can and we will,” Falwell said, encouraging students to spread the word on social media.

Before taking off, Falwell added a self-deprecating note, telling the audience, “Anyway, I’m a little fatter than I used to be.” He and his wife left soon after.

Just two weeks ago, Liberty sued Falwell, alleging he had withheld from the university damaging information about an alleged extortion attempt by the former pool attendant, Giancarlo Granda, who claims his affair with Becki, which Jerry sometimes watched, began when he was 20. It also banned faculty and staff from communicating with Falwell, saying his presence at Liberty could interfere with an ongoing investigation into his tenure as president.

Falwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Critics of Falwell called Falwell’s appearance at the student event inappropriate, and cited the affair with Granda and the allegations of a former Liberty student, who says Becki Falwell surprised him by performing an oral sex act on him at the Falwells’ farm when he was in a band with the Falwells’ son, Trey.

That alleged encounter “occurred at the same house that they’re inviting students to for a graduation party,” said Calum Best, a Liberty alumni and co-founder of the pro-Liberty reform group Save71 . “Nobody in the administration has the backbone to stand up and say this is wrong, so Falwell still does crazy stunts like this.”

Liberty University is investigating Falwell’s presidency but the investigation appears to focus only on possible financial mismanagement at the university, not personal conduct.

And Falwell, who has spent much of his career at the university founded by his father, Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., has resisted any attempts by Liberty to distance the university from him. After being pushed to resign as president, he has repeatedly posted social media photos of himself on campus. And in an interview earlier this spring, Falwell said that Liberty’s staff and board have been “nothing but supportive” in the wake of his departure.

“The students all want to get their picture with me. They thank me,” Falwell said.

West Virginia governor says transgender athlete bill he signed 'is not a priority to me'

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Friday that he didn’t know of any examples of transgender athletes trying to gain an unfair advantage in sports despite signing a bill Wednesday barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s athletics.

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle pressed the governor on the new law Friday morning, following up with Justice, a Republican, after he responded that he did not “have that experience exactly to myself right now" when asked for an example in his state where a transgender athlete gained an unfair advantage in women's or girls' sports.

"Can you give me one example of a transgender child trying to get an unfair advantage, just one, in your state? You signed a bill about it,” Ruhle said.

"No, I can't really tell you one," Justice said. “But I can tell you this, Stephanie… I coach a girl's basketball team and I can tell you... we all know what an absolute advantage boys would have playing against girls. We don't need that.”

Ruhle then asked why Justice made the bill a priority, pointing to West Virginia’s rankings near the bottom of states on its economy, education and infrastructure, among other things, according to U.S. News and World Report.

“I didn't make it a priority. It wasn't my bill,” said Justice, who declared earlier this week that he’d “proudly” sign the legislation despite warnings that the NCAA could pull postseason tournaments out of the state in response.

“Well, you signed it, sir,” Ruhle said.

“I think we only have 12 kids maybe in our state that are transgender-type kids,” Justice said. “I mean for crying out loud, Stephanie, I sign hundreds of bills, hundreds of bills. This is not a priority to me.”

"Alright then, sir, thank you," Ruhle said. "And please come back when, beyond anecdotal feelings as a coach, you can show me evidence where those young women are being disadvantaged in your state."

West Virginia’s new law is part of a wave of many Republican-leaning states pushing the issue that would restrict the rights of transgender athletes. The bill Justice signed bans transgender athletes from competition in female sports from middle school to college.

“Legislators across the country have failed to provide examples of issues in their states to attempt to justify these attacks, laying bare the reality that these are attacks on transgender youth that are fueled by discrimination and not supported by fact,” the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement after Justice signed the bill.

On Wednesday, Florida's legislature passed a similar bill, sending it to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' desk. The NCAA had warned states like Florida it could pull championships from areas if they don’t show all athletes “dignity and respect.”

Mike Pence reemerges. But Trump World is moving on.

The final weeks of the Donald Trump-Mike Pence partnership were an unmitigated disaster. Pence, the fiercely loyal vice president, was ushered to safety in the halls of Congress after he refused his boss’ wishes to not certify the election results. For that act, Trump tweeted that Pence lacked the “courage” to act. The pro-Trump crowd looting the Capitol chanted “hang Mike Pence.”

Just over 110 days later, Pence finally spoke in public, appearing before a crowd of evangelical conservatives at the Palmetto Family Council’s annual gala in Columbia, S.C. on Thursday night. If there was any anger lingering, he didn’t show it. He barely mentioned what transpired on January 6, only referring once to “a divisive election tragedy at our nation's Capitol.”

Instead, he touted the administration’s accomplishments, and often alluded to Trump as if they were still in a partnership. "We made America greater than ever before," he said at one point. “I gotta tell you it was four years of consequence, four years of results, and four years of promises kept.”

If Pence is seeking solidarity, however, it has not entirely been reciprocated. Since January 6, Trump and Pence have talked more than five times, according to a Pence aide, including three this month. But the two have mostly gone their own separate and distinct ways. And Trump aides say they are not keeping tabs on his political machinations like they are for other leading Republicans. Indeed, a handful of those contacted for this piece confided that they had no idea Pence was making his post-White House debut on Thursday.

“The Vice President’s foray into 2024 politics will be met with a more reserved golf clap,” said a former Trump senior administration official, who described Trump’s relationship with Pence as “cordial but not intimate.”

Inside Trump World, there is a sense that Pence no longer has his the utility he once did. When he was chosen as Trump’s running mate in 2016, it was in large part because of his appeal to evangelical conservative voters and the need to sooth over the GOP establishment. But political advisers to the 45th President see evangelicals as one of his most steadfast voting blocs now. And Trump himself has replaced or driven out the establishment that once recoiled at him.

“I like Mike Pence. I think he was a great VP. A great guy,” said a former campaign aide. “But the reality is a large portion of the Trump base doesn't like him or care about him. He wasn't a liability [in 2020]. But was he an asset? Sure. He could give good interviews. But his ability to attract new voters wasn't really there.”

As they ponder another run for the presidency in 2024, Trump aides have discussed people other than Pence to serve in the VP candidate role (assuming Trump wins the nomination). On Wednesday morning, Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo floated the name of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a potential sidekick in the next presidential election, a suggestion Trump did not rule out.

“A lot of people like that — you know, I’m just saying what I read and what you read — they love that ticket,” Trump said on Fox News. “But certainly, Ron would be considered. He’s a great guy.”

And when asked about the future of the Republican party on “The Truth with Lisa Boothe” podcast, Trump skipped Pence’s name in favor of singling out others like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Nebraska Sen. Josh Hawley, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Penny Nance, CEO and President of the conservative group Concerned Women for America, said Pence “looms large as someone we know and trust and supported very strongly in the past four years.” Nance, who worked closely with the White House on conservative issues, also said, “I don’t think he’s the only one — I haven’t endorsed anyone — but he is someone who has a lot of respect among evangelical Christian voters.”

While some in Trump’s own circle are skeptical of Pence assuming the MAGA mantle, according to a March survey from GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio, the former VP is the top pick among Republican voters for a presidential ballot without Trump.

“I think if Pence got into a Trumpless field he’d be a top-tier candidate but he wouldn’t be the only top-tier candidate,” said a former Trump adviser. “Would it surprise me to see Mike Pence heading up Heritage instead of running for president or being the GOP nominee in 2024? No.”

Pence’s political career and deep network within the evangelical conservative corners of the Republican party has been carefully built up over the years, as a talk radio host, congressman from Indiana, governor of the state, and a sobering force on the 2016 Republican presidential ticket. Over the course of Trump’s tumultuous four years in office, he stood by Trump’s side through repeated controversy. The belief among Pence aides was that Trump supporters would reward him for that loyalty.

January 6 has changed that, sullying Pence’s reputation among the MAGA crowd and Trump, who told Republican donors behind closed doors earlier this month he was “disappointed” in his vice president for not doing more to stop election certification.

Out of the White House, Trump has continued to share his opinions in frequent statements, appeared sporadically on friendly TV, and met with politicians at his Mar-a-Lago mansion eager for his stamp of approval. Pence, by contrast, has quietly stood offstage — not even appearing at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference — as he plotted out his next steps and built a political industry around his conservative vision for the GOP. He underwent heart surgery earlier this month, a fact that Trump found out through news reports, according to CNN.

Now out of office, Pence said he plans to use his influence to help Republicans win back the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. He is planning to publish an autobiography with Simon & Schuster.

The conservative Heritage Foundation named him a distinguished visiting fellow. And he is active with his own political action committee and the newly formed Advancing American Freedom, a political advocacy group that has the backing of prominent Trump administration officials like counselor Kellyanne Conway, Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and former Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services Administrator Seema Verma.

Trump has backed Pence’s new venture. But the former president only said in a statement to the Washington Examiner, “It was the most successful first term in American history. Nice to see Mike highlighting some of our many achievements!”

On Thursday, Pence debuted the type of lines and arguments that could serve to relaunch him politically in the months ahead. He slammed the Biden administration’s “avalanche of liberal policies” including the president’s record on government spending, abortion rights, immigration, Iran Nuclear Deal and the “woke chorus” calling for police reform.

But there was evidence, even then, that the benefits that came with hitching his wagon to Trump had ended when that hitch came undone. As Pence spoke, no cable channel picked up his remarks. Just a few dozen people at any given time watched him live on Facebook, including roughly 55 when the speech ended.

Sam Stein contributed to this report.

How a top New York mayoral candidate used a charity to boost his profile

NEW YORK — Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams dipped into municipal coffers in 2016 to buy a pair of banners that spanned the columns outside Borough Hall, bearing the likeness of himself and his deputy.

The enormous tapestries were billed by Adams — now a leading candidate in the New York City mayor’s race — as a way to showcase the diversity of the borough’s leadership, but the display attracted criticism from good-government groups who said taxpayer money should not be used for self-promotion.

The admonition did not appear to stick.

Since taking office as borough president in 2014, Adams has had designs on the top job at City Hall. And in the intervening years, he has steered hundreds of thousands of dollars into an ethical gray area where charity and self-aggrandizement intermingle — with fundraising practices that have drawn the scrutiny of investigators and government watchdog groups.

The yearslong boost to Adams’ name recognition is now coming in handy as the June 22 Democratic mayoral primary approaches: His campaign strategy relies on besting the competition in key areas of his home borough.

The spending that has boosted the candidate and his causes has come from both his office as borough president, the banners being a highly visible example, and a charity he created called One Brooklyn Fund. Adams controls the nonprofit, which is partially staffed with employees of his office and allowed the use of Brooklyn Borough Hall, a municipal building.

There is precedent in New York for non-profits to exist alongside official government operations. Mayor Bill de Blasio got in hot water over fundraising for the now defunct Campaign for One New York. Former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz had a nonprofit tied to his office that similarly raised eyebrows. And the city’s Department of Education, Law Department and Emergency Management agency, for example, all have affiliated nonprofits that are controlled by public officials.

"We're excited,” Adams told the Daily News shortly after the city cleared One Brooklyn’s creation in 2014. “The beauty here is we're not trying to raise money to put on a full-time staff. The donations we're raising will go directly to the people."

Not exactly.

The nonprofit, whose budget is typically between $300,000 and $500,000, does plenty of charitable work throughout the year. But money from the organization has also been spent on high-end fundraisers that raised little money, marketing materials that promote Adams' name and image and awards given out to prominent businesses and constituents — some of whom later donated to his mayoral campaign.

Charities affiliated with elected officials — such as Adams’ predecessor Markowitz — have for years raised fears that they serve as thinly veiled excuses to promote a politician’s name recognition, even as they operate fully within the law.

Since One Brooklyn’s creation in 2014, the organization has put on all manner of community events. It has given away turkeys, coats and school supplies. It organizes luncheons and karaoke contests for seniors and financial literacy events for students, and it connects constituents with social service providers such as citizenship lawyers. It also runs a tourism center in Borough Hall.

“For the past 7.5 years, Brooklyn Borough Hall — The People’s House — has been open to the public to share resources and information around a variety of subjects including health and wellness, cultural diversity, the arts, financial literacy, and services for all constituents,” One Brooklyn board Chair Peter Aschkenasy wrote in a statement.

However, a POLITICO review of state financial disclosures shows that One Brooklyn devotes serious resources to causes that blur the line between uplifting communities and Adams’ public profile.

For three years beginning in 2017, the nonprofit hosted an annual gala at the Brooklyn Museum. The catered affair featured celebrity emcees hailing from Kings County and awards given out to businesses from around the borough. While the event was described as a fundraiser, information provided by the nonprofit show that nearly 70 percent of the money received in 2017 and 2018 went right back into paying for the evenings’ trappings.

“That is totally inappropriate,” said Toni Goodale, a nonprofit and fundraising consultant, who noted that costs for galas and fundraisers should typically run between 30 and 40 percent of total receipts. “There is so much work involved in putting these on. The nonprofit is taking away time that the staff could be devoting toward its mission.”

The 2017 Gala raised more than $90,000 but cost more than $63,500 to put on. The proceeds made up less than 10 percent of One Brooklyn’s total revenue that year.

“Why even do it?” Goodale asked.

One Brooklyn said the gala, in addition to raising money, also honors the contributions of longtime businesses in the borough.

“For many, it was the first time being recognized for their years of dedication to their local neighborhoods, and this was also an occasion for them to network with their fellow small business owners,” Aschkenasy said in a statement.

The annual soirees allow Adams to hold forth from the lectern, give out awards to business owners and prominent community members — a handful of whom later donated to his campaign — and pose for grip-and-grin photos with honorees. It is a formula the charity has often repeated.

Throughout the year, One Brooklyn hosts cultural events at Borough Hall that have included celebrations of Latino, Caribbean and Russian heritage along with Black History month. Registration documents filed with the state show that more than a third of the organization’s time is spent working on these gatherings, the biggest single component of its mission.

One Brooklyn billed the free events, which typically feature a performance and food, as important work highlighting the borough’s diversity. But they also serve as a venue for Adams to curry favor with key constituencies. More than two dozen honorees from Borough Hall events have donated to Adams’ mayoral campaign, according to information provided by One Brooklyn and public records, an indication that the gatherings have helped him make inroads into important voting blocs.

One Brooklyn also gives out small grants each year to nonprofits including churches, mosques and synagogues around the borough. And around a dozen of those recipients were among the 200 clergy members who endorsed Adams in January, according to the nonprofit's records.

The nonprofit said political considerations do not factor into its decisions.

“Suggesting that political goodwill is a consideration of the work of [One Brooklyn Fund] is disparaging to [the nonprofit’s] board of directors and the tens of thousands of people it has directly served through its mission,” Aschkenasy, the board chair, said in a statement. He added that all of the organization's activities are legal and have been authorized by the city's ethics agency.

The pageantry of Borough Hall cultural events pales in comparison to a pair of popular concert series that the Borough President’s office coordinates each summer in Flatbush and Coney Island featuring major acts including Monica and Wyclef Jean — another legacy of the Markowitz era. Adams appears on advertisements for the free shows, serves as host and ensures a healthy stream of public funding to underwrite the productions.

Financial disclosure documents show several years in which the borough president’s office gave $100,000 to one of the third-party nonprofits that orchestrate the shows, which receive additional funding from the city’s official tourism arm and other agencies. A deputy from Adams’ office also reaches out to Council members each year to ask that they help fund the performances with discretionary budget money, according to multiple lawmakers familiar with the interactions. Between 2014 and the last budget cycle, Council members on friendly terms with Adams, the borough’s Council delegation and the speaker’s office earmarked $775,000 to the nonprofits that put on the concerts, according to budget documents.

“The previous borough president spent the vast majority of discretionary expense funding on the concert series,” Ryan Lynch, a spokesperson for Adams, said in an email. “The current Borough President believes that he could better support communities and neighborhoods through partnerships with his colleagues in the City Council, as colleagues in government often do.”

The exact benefit to Adams’ name recognition and political prospects are hard to quantify. Hosting community events, promoting diversity and letting constituents know who did the legwork is all fair game for elected officials, according to Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. And it's difficult to say how much self-promotion is too much.

“It's very difficult to draw a bright line,” she said. “Which is why I believe there needs to be at a minimum very bright sunshine in terms of disclosures, and that this be recognized as a way of access.”

Because it is affiliated with Adams, One Brooklyn is required to disclose donations topping $5,000 to the city's Conflicts of Interest Board. The nonprofit also provided POLITICO with a list of businesses who gave below $5,000, but not individuals.

The accounting, though incomplete, has shown the organization has engaged in some questionable fundraising activities.

One Brooklyn charges organizations to use Borough Hall for events that are co-hosted with Adams’ office outside normal business hours, even though the building is public property. Groups wishing to rent out municipal space typically pay the city a set fee to ensure equitable treatment and revenues go straight to the general fund to be doled out through the budget process.

The nonprofit says the cash is diverted to a separate bank account used to pay City Hall for the costs of using the building along with the purchase of certain equipment and furniture. The arrangement between One Brooklyn and the de Blasio administration brought in around $300,000 between 2014 and 2018, again raising concerns among government watchdogs.

“You should not be paying a charity that is under the control of an elected official for the use of a public facility,” Lerner said

Multiple reports indicate that One Brooklyn has also accepted significant money from organizations seeking favor with his office and donors with business before the city, a practice that led to multiple investigations into de Blasio and his affiliated nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York.

The records made available by One Brooklyn Thursday show in 2014, a limited-liability company controlled by Heritage Equity Partners made a donation to Adams’ nonprofit. A year later, the development team applied for a special permit related to a massive office project in Williamsburg, and a year after that Adams recommended the application be approved as part of his role in the land use review process.

Toby Moskovits, head of Heritage Equity Partners, also donated $2,500 to Adams’ borough president reelection campaign and then $320 to his mayoral campaign, according to public filings. Moskovits did not respond to a request for comment.

One Brooklyn said donors are told their contributions will have no bearing on decisions from the borough president's office.

“The big question for watchdogs is whether donors are attempting to buy influence from an elected official,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany. “That can come in a lot of forms: are they attempting to buy influence by donating to an official’s favorite nonprofit? Or a nonprofit that they control? And this is of course a concern with One Brooklyn.”

Erin Durkin contributed to this report.

Trump crashes final days of Texas special election

The first competitive special election of the new election cycle has quickly turned into a 2020 redux: It's the Donald Trump show all over again.

Trump made a late foray in the 23-candidate scramble for a vacant congressional seat in North Texas, transforming a once-quiet race into a major test of his post-presidency king-making power. After endorsing Susan Wright, a Republican activist and widow of the late incumbent, Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas), Trump joined her and the anti-tax Club for Growth at a tele-town hall on Thursday night to rail against his rival, President Joe Biden, and remind listeners of the stakes.

"It's just my honor to also get involved and be involved in this race," Trump said, touting his partnership with the Club for Growth. "We've worked together. We've never had a loss together. Every time we've gone after someone and, you know, supported and worked for someone, we've had victory. So I hope everybody can get out on Saturday, May 1, and vote for Susan Wright."

Though several Republican candidates were openly running in the MAGA lane, Trump and his legacy didn't dominate the race until the final weeks. There was a behind-the-scenes jockeying for his endorsement by allies of some leading GOP candidates, and on Monday he made his allegiance known and endorsed Wright, a clear power play that comes with some risk.

Saturday's voting almost certainly won't be the final word on the race — in Texas special elections, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to a runoff if no candidate wins a majority. Prior to receiving Trump's endorsement, Wright had high name recognition but less campaign cash than her GOP opponents.

The Club for Growth lured Trump off the sidelines after spending some $150,000 on ads painting Wright's main opponent, state Rep. Jake Ellzey, as an "anti-Trump" Republican, citing a donation from Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator and Trump critic.

"He wants to be with winners, but he also wants to show that he's still the leader of the party," said David McIntosh, the Club president and former Indiana congressman who encouraged Trump to back Wright. "That was our goal — to make it a race where Trump's endorsement really mattered."

Neither Ellzey nor Wright has discussed the former president much on the trail or made him a central theme of their campaign. Trump also bypassed endorsing another top candidate, Brian Harrison, a former health official in his administration who has constantly linked himself to the former president.

The Club for Growth said it invited tens of thousands of Republican voters in the district to the virtual event on Thursday, including "low-propensity Trump voters."

Though Trump's appearance on the town hall was brief, he breezed through a large number of topics, blaming Biden for everything from high gas prices to the border crisis. He also predicted Republicans would retake the House and celebrated his 2020 victory there.

"I appreciate the big win we had in Texas," he said.

Yet Trump's entrance onto the special election stage adds an additional wrinkle. Even before his endorsement, there was some uncertainty over how helpful a presence he would be in a district that has a fair number of Biden Republicans. Trump only won it by 3 points in 2020, even as the late Ron Wright won by 9 points.

“The reality with Trump is that Trump had tons of supporters. But he also has a lot of people that were not as heavy supporters from both parties,” Rick Barnes, the Tarrant County GOP chair who is backing Wright, said in an interview last week. “A lot of people have moved on, beyond all of that, realizing that that future may or may not include Trump. And so we can't continue to sit around and let that be the lead conversation.”

Most polling from both parties shows a four-way race to make it into the yet-to-be-scheduled runoff with three Republicans — Wright, Ellzey and Harrison — and Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez, who ran for the seat in 2018, all in the running.

The larger field of Republicans includes some interesting characters, including Dan Rodimer, a former pro wrestler who ran for Congress last year in Nevada; Sery Kim, a former Trump administration official whose nativist rhetoric disparaging Chinese immigrants lost her key endorsements; and Michael Wood, who is running as an explicit anti-Trump Republican with the backing of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). But none has gained much traction.

While Wright enjoys high name ID in the district, Harrison, a former chief of staff at the Health and Human Services department, has raised the most money and is the only one running broadcast TV ads. Ellzey, meanwhile, has a strong base in Ellis County, which includes a sizable swath of GOP voters, but he has had to weather a barrage of negative ads against him. (He also has outside groups supporting him.)

Ellzey has largely avoided mentioning Trump on the trail, instead touting a forward-looking message. He's spending the final day of campaigning on Friday touring the district with former Gov. Rick Perry, who also served in Trump's cabinet.

"I think he did a lot of good things for our country," Ellzey said of Trump in an interview last month. At the time, Ellzey said he would have appreciated Trump's endorsement, but added: "I run my own campaign, right? I am not responsible for anybody else's words, actions or deeds."

In much of the early campaign, Wright also treaded carefully around Trump, stressing her support for his policies and her long career in local Republican politics. Before he passed away following a battle with Covid-19, Ron Wright was a reliable Trump supporter, including voting to reject the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

McIntosh, who said he speaks with Trump about downballot races from time to time, encouraged him to back Wright and made him aware of their attacks to cast Ellzey as anti-Trump. It was Trump, he said, that suggested the tele-town hall.

This district, which includes the Fort Worth-centered Tarrant County and its southwest suburbs, is one of nine Republican-held seats in Texas where Trump got less than 51 percent of the vote. Because Ron Wright carried the district easily, even as Trump’s support cratered, this race could reveal more about whether surbuban voters were just souring on Trump or on the Republican Party more broadly.

Democrats in the race are hoping for the latter and are eager to make a play for traditional Republicans who punched their ballots for Biden in 2020 — but first, one of them has to advance on Saturday.

“Nothing could be a worse omen for the Democratic Party than to have a winnable district like this with two Republicans in the runoff,” Sanchez said in an interview, warning about a splintered Democratic electorate. "That would be very embarrassing and very disheartening."

In fact, deprived of their chief villain, who juiced fundraising and especially turnout, Democrats are staring down the possibility of a shutout because of Texas’ top-two rule to make the runoff.

Their struggles in the district stand in stark contrast to the blockbuster special elections of the last four years, when their party's candidates were buoyed by small-dollar donors eager to send a message to Trump. With Democrats now in control of Congress and the White House, the party's candidates have to work harder to illustrate the stakes of electing a Republican to Congress.

"People are still trying to win using the Trump playbook," Bean said. "And we can't rest until we really show them that that doesn't pay, that they're gonna lose."

National Republicans are eager for a Democratic shutout — though they concede that's, ironically, less likely now that Trump has weighed in. Regardless, the GOP will be favored in a runoff against a Democrat.

And Wright's supporters say she would enter the runoff in strong position. She hasn't run as an unabashed MAGA supporter, but she now carries Trump's endorsement.

"We look for candidates that are the combination of two things," McIntosh said of the Club. "They really have a grounding and understanding of limited government principles, and can appeal to those Trump primary voters so they can unite all the different elements of the Republican Party."

De Blasio looks to Legislature, not Cuomo, in push to reopen city

New York City is planning a “full reopening” on July 1, Mayor Bill de Blasio said — allowing restaurants, businesses and cultural venues to run at full capacity after sixteen months of shutdowns and restrictions in the nation’s largest city.

De Blasio announced the reopening plan Thursday, but acknowledged he hasn’t spoken about it with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who would likely have to sign off on lifting the restrictions. Cuomo said later Thursday he may authorize a full reopening earlier than July 1, but would not commit to a date. The mayor said with Cuomo engulfed in scandal, however, he would rely on the state Legislature to speed reopenings.

“We are ready to bring New York City back fully on July 1st — all systems go,” de Blasio told reporters Thursday. “This is going to be the summer of New York City.”

Under the mayor’s plan, offices, restaurants, bars, stadiums, theaters, museums, retail stores, hair salons and gyms will all be able to operate with no capacity restrictions on his target date. Those venues have all been allowed to reopen gradually, but only at a fraction of their normal capacity.

De Blasio also called for the state to restore 24-hour subway service by that date, ending the current 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. closure for cleaning.

But Cuomo, who throughout the pandemic has clashed with de Blasio repeatedly over what rules should govern life in the city, asserted his authority to choose a date and said he hopes to move sooner than July.

“I don’t want to wait that long. I think if we do what we have to do, we can be reopened earlier,” Cuomo said at a press conference in Buffalo. “I am reluctant to make projections, because I think they’re irresponsible ... What happens in May? What happens in June?”

The city has given out 6.4 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine so far, inspiring officials’ confidence that the disease will have receded enough for a safe summer reopening.

On Thursday, the city reported 1,354 new coronavirus cases and a positive test rate of 3.18 percent, some of the lowest numbers the city has seen in months and which continue to drop steadily. Hospitals admitted 97 new patients.

“We have to keep getting vaccinated,” de Blasio said. “We need to keep the momentum going. This is exactly how we get to the full reopening we're all looking forward to.”

The mayor said he hadn’t been in touch with Cuomo, who has been rocked by a litany of scandals. But he indicated the state Legislature, which in recent days has begun overruling the scandal-scarred governor’s pandemic executive orders, might give him the green light if Cuomo won’t.

“The balance of power shifted a lot in Albany,” de Blasio said. “I think the Legislature is running the State of New York and thank God for it.”

The Legislature voted on Wednesday to repeal a mandate imposed by Cuomo requiring customers to buy food if they’re getting an alcoholic beverage.

Lawmakers have rolled back Cuomo’s authority to issue new emergency orders going forward, but allowed existing ones to stay in place — and Cuomo to modify them — unless the Assembly and Senate specifically overrule him. De Blasio repeated his call Thursday for the governor’s emergency powers to end entirely and for full local control to be restored.

Legislators “are bringing back democratic norms in New York State and canceling some of the arbitrary decisions by the governor,” he said. “What we need is a full restoration of democracy while the Legislature is still in session.”

A midnight curfew on bars and restaurants will soon be lifted, as will a ban on patrons sitting at the bar rather than a table, Cuomo has announced. Offices will be allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent, and stadiums and gyms are also getting a capacity boost.

It’s unclear whether mask mandates will remain in place when a full reopening is authorized.

“After June, I think we're going to be in a position to do some things differently. I still think a lot of New Yorkers personally want to choose to wear the masks a lot,” de Blasio said.

He also said private businesses would have the option to require that patrons be vaccinated, but the city would not impose such requirements.

Even with restrictions lifted, certain aspects of the city’s economy are not expected to immediately return to normal. Broadway has said it won’t reopen until at least September, since it needs time to put productions together. A large majority of private office employers continue to have their staff work from home.

NY lawmakers begin repealing Cuomo's executive orders

New York state lawmakers issued their first major override of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic executive actions Wednesday, voting to repeal orders issued at the height of the state’s coronavirus outbreak.

The Senate and Assembly moved to end requirements that restaurants and bars must sell food in order to sell alcoholic beverages — a rule enacted last summer, which drew criticism from the restaurant industry and spawned creative menu offerings, like “Cuomo chips” and “compliance plates.” They also passed resolutions to relax outdated compliance rules for vaccine suppliers and to treat individuals who volunteer to take on significant government work as public officers in order to comply with government disclosure and transparency rules. (The governor last year brought back several former aides who worked as volunteers as the state prepared to respond to the pandemic.)

The three resolutions marked the first of many that lawmakers are expected to pass to override the increasingly embattled governor, who is under investigation for sexual harassment and other issues, leading many fellow Democrats to call for his resignation. Cuomo’s office has noted that lawmakers who disagree with his pandemic actions have the power to override them.

“We are asserting ourselves as a Legislature as we promised we would do,” Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris said in floor remarks. “And these repeals are just the beginning.”

Democratic leaders argued that the executive orders “are no longer applicable or necessary” given changes to the state’s vaccination rollout, the number of New Yorkers now inoculated against the virus and declining Covid-19 cases in the state.

Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat and sponsor of the transparency resolution, added that the public officers law “should never have been subverted by gubernatorial executive order.”

“Amid reports of political chicanery and other conflicts of interest in vaccine distribution, this legislative resolution cancels the governor’s order that waived ethics and transparency rules, and re-imposes much-needed integrity to the executive branch,” he said in a statement.

Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the resolutions. But many questioned the timing of the Legislature’s action, which came nearly two months after lawmakers stripped Cuomo — who faces allegations of sexual harassment, inappropriate workplace behavior and a coverup of nursing home deaths — of most of the vast emergency powers he was granted at the beginning of the pandemic.

“The reality is we had this power to do this since day one — day one when the governor was granted these unprecedented and unconstitutional executive powers,” Sen. George Borrello (R-Chautauqua) said during floor debate. “So here we are: 54 days after we were told the governor's powers were rescinded. … I'm happy to be here, but I'm sad that it took us this long to put aside the politics, to do what was right for the people of New York State.”

Assemblymember Michael Lawler (R-Orangetown) said the resolutions are “a good start,” but just that.

“We need to have many more of these concurrent resolutions to start to rein in this governor and allow New Yorkers to get back to normal,” he added.

Sen. John Mannion (D-Onondaga County), sponsor of the food service resolution, said the Legislature’s actions are not just about rescinding “arbitrary and burdensome” executive orders, but also “foundational constitutional principles, like checks and balances.”

“This is not about throwing caution to the wind or rejecting measures to protect public health. It is about striking a balance,” he said in floor remarks. “It is about common sense. It's about respect for businesses and respect for New Yorkers.”

Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said the state was “in the process” of lifting the food service requirement, given the decline in Covid-19 cases. “We are pleased that the legislature agrees that we have made enough progress on COVID that New York is in a position to repeal this provision,” he said in a statement.

As for the outdated vaccine penalties, Azzopardi said, the state “previously repealed half of them and repealed the rest in our last [executive order].”

Curfew changes: Ahead of Wednesday’s session, Cuomo announced that the state will lift the midnight curfew for outdoor dining areas beginning May 17 and for indoor dining areas on May 31. A 1 a.m. curfew for catered events will similarly be lifted beginning on May 17 for events where attendees have provided proof of vaccination status or a negative Covid-19 test, and on May 31 for all catered events.

New York will also allow larger catered events to resume at residences as of May 3, as long as they are staffed by licensed caterers, permitted by local officials and adhere to safety guidance.

The governor further said that beginning May 3, New York City establishments can allow seating at bars consistent with the food service guidance in effect statewide.

Melissa Fleischut, president and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, said the change will bring New York in line with many neighboring states.

“With vaccinations going up and positivity rates going down, the hospitality industry can set our sights on rebounding this spring and summer as we scratch and claw our way back to profitability, which for many has seemed impossible,” she said in a statement.

Gianaris said the governor’s announcement appears to be “the direct result” of the Legislature’s move to begin repealing executive orders issued at the height of the pandemic. He added that the governor “was not at all pleased” by leadership’s decision to repeal his executive orders.

But Lawler argued that the curfew changes are essentially another month-long extension of the policy. And Assemblymember Ed Ra (R-Franklin Square) urged lawmakers to immediately end the curfew.

“There’s no reason to wait. Families who own these establishments have already suffered too much and waited for too long,” he said in a statement.

'Spend money to make money' — De Blasio releases his recovery budget

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s budget gamble is paying dividends — at least for now.

After resisting dramatic cuts to city spending and its workforce last year, federal aid has arrived to alleviate shortfalls and boost Monday’s executive budget to a record-breaking $98.6 billion.

Now, the mayor is doubling down. Much of that federal aid is being quickly pumped into new programming, rather than spreading it out to reduce multi-billion dollar budget gaps that await the next administration — a bet that jump-starting economic activity will induce more tax revenue down the road.

“The investments are going to help jobs come back: Sometimes you have to spend money to make money,” de Blasio said during a press briefing. “This is a case where we have to take full advantage of this recovery moment. We have to double down now, and that's going to give the next mayor and the next administration the best chance to move the city forward.”

Last year, de Blasio pulled out all the stops to avoid layoffs and major cuts, even as the city was reeling from a $10 billion revenue shortfall caused by the pandemic lockdown — a move panned by budget watchdogs. He unsuccessfully sought borrowing authority from Albany. He shifted $750 million in labor costs into the upcoming budget. And he created a savings plan that was primarily composed of one-off reductions and debt refinancing that did little to curb spending over the long run.

The goal was to tide the city over until federal stimulus money arrived which depended on a series of events that seemed far from guaranteed at the time: former President Donald Trump losing the election, Democrats winning a slim majority in the Senate and Washington approving a massive stimulus package that included direct aid to local governments. Not only did each come to pass, but a multi-pronged scandal engulfed Gov. Andrew Cuomo, reducing his negotiating power and resulting in a state budget that unexpectedly passed along additional education funding for the city.

"Thank God Joe Biden got elected and the people of Georgia sent two Democrats to the U.S. Senate,” de Blasio said during an appearance on NY1 later in the day. “Otherwise we'd be having a very different discussion right now."

Flush with cash, on Monday de Blasio outlined several new areas of spending. Next year's budget will include nearly $2 billion for education programs including an expansion of 3K, with the goal of offering it to every household by September 2023, along with academic recovery services and additional special education funding. The administration is also planning additional mental health services, senior centers and open streets initiatives along with a small business grant program and additional measures designed to combat gun violence.

The city’s Office of Management and Budget predicts the spending will help create 400,000 new jobs over the course of 2021, partially offsetting more than 600,000 jobs lost during the pandemic.

That economic activity, the mayor said, will in turn create more tax revenue.

The winner of this year’s mayoral election had better hope so.

While the budget set aside more than $4.5 billion in reserves, Monday’s spending plan showed the next administration will be left with nearly $4 billion budget gaps each year beginning next year — when de Blasio will be term limited out of office — and a precarious financial situation that will remain even after the temporary federal aid is gone.

De Blasio has also penciled in $1 billion in labor savings over those out-years without indicating how that cost reduction would be achieved — leaving it to the next administration to negotiate any deals.

At the same time, the city’s tax revenues are in a precarious state. Projections for property taxes, traditionally the largest and most stable source of revenue, have fallen by $2.5 billion since the start of the pandemic. And while that decrease was offset by increased corporate and personal income taxes this year — the result of unemployment insurance, federal aid and a blockbuster year for Wall Street — those sources of cash are more volatile, rising and falling with the broader economy.

“You’ll see a lot of good money funding these programs, but virtually no steps taken to address the long-term budget problem,” said Andrew Rein, executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission. “All this federal money gave us the runway to do things smartly. Instead, the next mayor is going to have to deal with it.”

California Democrats advance universal basic income bill with no funding mechanism

A costly proposal to send unconditional monthly cash payments of $1,000 to California residents has no funding mechanism and little chance of becoming law this year.

But that didn't stop lawmakers from advancing the bill out of a policy committee Monday.

“I don't know what will happen to it, but it's my birthday today, and I'm going to give out a present, which is I'm going to support the bill,” Assemblymember Marc Levine (D-Greenbrae) said to laughs from fellow lawmakers on the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.

The bill's author, Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Campbell), wants to make California the first state to provide most adults a universal basic income of $1,000 per month, with no strings attached. Those payments would be capped only for residents who make more than twice a county’s median income.

But CA AB 65 (21R) could cost over $200 billion annually if most California adults received the payments, and new committee amendments stripped it of its funding source — a proposed millionaire's tax. That means the long-shot bill is all but certain to die in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, its next stop.

Impact: Fans of the universal basic income theory that became the centerpiece of upstart presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaign will likely be disappointed with the outcome of Low’s effort this year. However, the idea continues to gain momentum in the nation’s most-populous state and seems poised to become a more serious discussion in the future.

Background: The theory that widespread economic security can be created by providing residents funds for basic necessities has been debated in academic circles for decades, but has recently captured national attention as Yang discussed it on the debate stage. Cities around the country have launched pilot programs.

California’s own universal basic income experiment is playing out in Stockton, where 125 low-income residents have received $500 a month. Those funds helped increase recipients’ full-time employment by 12 percent and lower feelings of anxiety, according to a recent study.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti last week announced what would be the largest universal basic income program in the country, dedicating $24 million in his proposed budget to provide $1,000 per month to 2,000 families.

Low’s measure would dwarf that program, coming in with a price tag that could exceed $200 billion, according to committee estimates. AB 65 originally proposed levying a one-percent tax on residents with income of more than $2,000,000 annually, but that was scrapped from the bill.

Alaska has had a program in place for decades that distributes oil profits to residents, the closest thing to state-sponsored basic income.

What’s next: Low called on lawmakers to organize a select committee to further explore the concept of universal basic income, an idea a number of Democrats at the hearing said they supported. He acknowledged that AB 65 is not a “fully cooked” proposal, but argued it is one that deserves continued conversation in the Legislature.

“Look at what we're doing right now, we're having dialogue about the policy of basic income,” he said. “And, by the way, we're seeing many iterations of this in our local communities because individuals are hurting, everyday Californians are hurting.”

Democrats on the committee lauded Low for championing the effort, calling it an idea worthy of discussion in the coming weeks and years.

California public universities plan to require Covid-19 vaccines

SACRAMENTO — California's two public university systems announced Thursday they will require nearly 800,000 students to receive the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as this fall in the nation's most sweeping higher education testing requirement.

California State University and University of California proposed the requirement for students, faculty and staff for the fall 2021 semester — contingent on full FDA approval. All told, the requirement could apply to more than 1 million people.

Both UC and CSU are planning for mostly in-person instruction when the academic year begins in August.

The timeline for full U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval remains unclear. Vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have been administered under emergency use authorization, and the J&J shot is on hold as federal officials study rare cases of blood clots. The process for some vaccines have taken years before, though some health officials have predicted that one of the vaccines could be approved by the fall.

Students and staff would be able to seek a medical or religious exemption under the new policy, CSU officials said Thursday.

"The state of California has been a leader in the administration of Covid-19 vaccines, and Californians receiving a vaccine has led to significantly reducing the transmission of Covid-19 in our state," CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro said in a statement. "Continued vigilance will further mitigate the spread of the disease that has radically altered our lives over the past year. We will continue to strongly encourage all members of our respective university communities to receive a Covid-19 vaccination as soon as it is available to them."

A growing number of private universities have begun announcing fall vaccine requirements for students without the FDA contingency. On Thursday, that included Stanford University, whose provost announced plans for a mandate along with a regular Covid-19 test requirement for students who receive an exemption for personal or religious reasons.

Before officially adding the vaccine to CSU's existing immunization requirements, the 23-campus CSU system will meet with labor unions and student associations, officials said Thursday, adding that the policy details are still in development.

UC, which has 10 campuses including graduate-only UC San Francisco, released a "proposed policy" Thursday while encouraging students and staff to get vaccinated now.

Sen. Tim Scott to meet with George Floyd's family Thursday

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said he is meeting with members of George Floyd’s family on Thursday, one week after a former police officer was convicted of murdering Floyd and hours after Scott delivered the rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s first address to Congress.

Speaking on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," Scott, a Republican, said his plan was to “to sit down and listen.”

“Listen to what the family wants to talk about, listen to the proposals, the suggestions that reinforces common sense and finally go back to the drawing board taking all that information to heart,” he said.

Scott, the GOP’s lone Black senator, has been in discussions with Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and other Democrats about the prospects for a bipartisan deal on police reform legislation, an issue that continues to be a perilous one in Congress. Scott and Bass are scheduled to meet on Thursday to negotiate on the issue with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Bass, who has been deputized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to negotiate on police reform on behalf of House Democrats, sponsors a bill named after Floyd that passed the House on a near-party line vote. Scott has backed an alternative measure that Senate Democrats blocked last year, arguing that it did not do enough to reform policing in the U.S.

Scott on Wednesday offered a rebuttal of the way that Democrats talk about race and their differing view on its centrality to minorities’ present-day experience in the United States.

“America is not a racist country” he said at one point, adding that “race is not a political weapon to settle every issue the way one side wants.”

Scott said the way to improve relations between police officers and communities of color in the U.S. is not by demonizing law enforcement.

“I won’t cross that line,” he said. “It’s is a line that is bad for the community and bad for the officers.”

Scott also said he was stung by social media reaction to his speech Wednesday night calling him “Uncle Tim” — a variation of the insult for Black people perceived as sidling up to white people of power — and other slurs. He said it underscored the hypocritical way that some on the political left wield race as a cudgel against Republicans.

“What they want for us is to stay in a little small corner and not go against the tide that they think is America,” he said.

‘Certainly, Ron would be considered’: Trump floats DeSantis as 2024 VP

Former President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would “certainly” consider Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a potential running mate should he decide to mount a third White House campaign in 2024.

“He’s a friend of mine. I endorsed Ron, and after I endorsed him, he took off like a rocket ship. He’s done a great job as governor,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo in an interview.

“A lot of people like that — you know, I’m just saying what I read and what you read — they love that ticket,” Trump added. “But certainly, Ron would be considered. He’s a great guy.”

Spokespeople for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks about the Republican governor of his adopted home state, which come as DeSantis has cultivated presidential speculation of his own. The praise for DeSantis also represents the latest public fissure in the once-airtight relationship between Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Pence for not doing more to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election — a constitutional authority experts agree the vice president does not have — and even tweeted criticism of Pence as pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and threatened his life.

Trump has not yet announced whether he will seek another term in 2024 but said on Thursday that he is “100 percent” considering a campaign. His indecision has temporarily frozen a Republican field of White House hopefuls fearful of moving against a former president who remains exceedingly popular with GOP voters.

Meanwhile, DeSantis’ star within the Republican Party has risen in recent weeks, with conservatives praising his aversion to coronavirus-related restrictions and Florida’s performance during the pandemic.

Hosting the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando in February, DeSantis described his state as an “oasis of freedom” and finished first in a straw poll of potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates that did not include Trump.

DeSantis garnered greater media attention earlier this month for forcefully rebuking an uneven “60 Minutes” report that detailed allegations of favoritism by the governor’s office and a potential “pay to play” scheme amid Florida’s vaccine rollout.

Denting Republicans’ perception of Florida as a coronavirus success story, however, DeSantis was forced on Tuesday to again extend a state of emergency for another 60 days, even as some other states have been rolling back such orders.

DeSantis has remained coy about his presidential ambitions and insisted he is focused on his 2022 reelection race. Republican donors have flocked to the governor as the party seeks to navigate its post-Trump future, with DeSantis raking in more than $11.3 million since restarting his fundraising efforts in October — which were halted at the beginning of the pandemic.

WATCH: What to expect from Biden's joint session speech

President Joe Biden will give his joint session speech later tonight, and Covid-19 restrictions are not the only thing that will be different. For the first time, the two politicians behind the president will both be women, and one of them, of course, VP KAMALA HARRIS, will be the first woman of color to take that seat. Biden is also giving this speech months later than his predecessors, so expect him to outline his accomplishments in greater detail.

Playbook co-author RYAN LIZZA breaks down what else you can expect to hear tonight, which he thinks will focus heavily on the president’s new policy push on health care and supporting American families.

The Trump-rejecting Florida Republican who has a plan to fix the GOP

MIAMI — The future of the Republican Party runs through Florida. And the future of the Florida Republican Party runs through Miami.

The state long considered the nation’s biggest battleground reported solid red in November. Florida is now home to former President Donald Trump and his children. Out-of-state Republicans are flocking here for fundraisers, retreats and to make appearances at Mar-a-Lago. The state is led by conservative rising star Gov. Ron DeSantis, an early 2024 favorite on the right.

But Florida isn’t just the capital of Trumpism, and its electorate is no monolith. One Republican leader in the state has made a name for himself by rejecting the Trump vision and is now yearning for a GOP less focused on divisive politics and more grounded in solutions.

That’s the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez.

Suarez is a Cuban Republican, but he doesn’t match some of the usual headlines surrounding Cuban American voters. For one, he didn’t vote for Trump in the 2020 election. He doesn’t have a great relationship with DeSantis, either, and has criticized him openly and done little to support him politically. He even voted for DeSantis’ 2018 Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum.

Suarez has transcended local and state politics and repeatedly found himself in the national spotlight over the past year: He was one of the first U.S. elected officials to announce he tested positive for the coronavirus. With just a tweet, he launched a campaign to court tech investors in an effort to make Miami the next Silicon Valley. He publicly disagreed with the governor on his Covid-19 measures on CBS’ Face the Nation. And, earlier this year, he met with President Joe Biden at the White House to discuss the coronavirus relief package.

Now he’s on Nikki Haley’s radar as a potential running mate if she decides to launch a 2024 presidential bid. And Suarez, who is up for reelection this year, isn’t writing off the possibility of getting into national politics.

“I would never say never to any sort of possible scenario in the future,” the 43-year-old Republican said in a lengthy interview with POLITICO. “Who knows what can happen? Why say never?”

He steers clear of talking about what the exact future of the GOP looks like: “It's very early to tell.” He refuses to say if DeSantis is the future: “I don't know. He may be. He may not be.”

For now, Suarez says he’s focused on the Miami community, his reelection and his work in the U.S. Conference of Mayors. But he does wish political leaders in Washington would take more cues from local officials like him on how to lead.

“We've got to, in many ways, start thinking more like mayors who think about issues as problems that need to be solved as opposed to an issue through a specific ideological bent,” he said. “Americans would be much better served and they'd be a lot happier with their elected officials.”

POLITICO sat down with Suarez — virtually — to discuss how the nation moves on from the pandemic, leading through crisis and what the future holds for the Republican Party. Our interview follows, edited for length and clarity.

There’s been plenty of coverage about the pandemic response and vaccine rollout in Florida — and specifically Miami. Earlier this year, you were vocal in your frustrations with Gov. Ron DeSantis for not allowing local governments to issue mask mandates. You then took some heat from your own party for your comments. How’s your relationship with the governor going? And on the pandemic, how are things now?

In public service, not everybody's always going to agree. And my view on masks was based on the data that I was looking at. The data that I looked at in the summer spike showed that the mask in public rule that we implemented with fines reduced cases from 3,500 to 350 — a 90 percent reduction. That’s all I wanted to convey to the governor. For me, the fact that it worked and the fact that it's one of the few mitigation measures that doesn't require closing up businesses is something I felt made it a winning combination.

One thing that I didn't agree with, even down here with the policymakers, was the curfew. And I'll tell you why, because I never felt that there was a clear nexus between the curfew and rising cases.

...So, I mean, those things happen. There's no way that you're ever going to always agree with someone, regardless of where the party is. And that's what leadership is about. He has to make his decisions. I make my decisions and you move on.

I’m sure you saw that POLITICO Playbook talked about your recent meeting with Nikki Haley and how it was arranged with the goal of seeing if you could potentially be her running mate in 2024. I know 2024 is far away — and you have the mayoral election this year to focus on. But would you say ‘yes’ to being Haley’s running mate?

You know, it is 2021. I do have a reelection and that is important.

And you know, the residents of the city are, first of all, my number one priority. I've been blessed to have what I consider to be one of the best jobs in public service, which is to lead one of the most dynamic and diverse cities on the planet. And that's my number one priority.

I want to do that. I want to be faithful to that. The election is in November. After that, God willing, if reelected and hopefully once reelected, I'll serve as the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which is another big job. And that's sort of the next thing on the queue for me. And that's a term that will last a year and a half.

Between now and then, who knows what's going to happen? I've been around [politics] since I was 2 years old. The one constant in politics is change and things that are happening today are not happening tomorrow. So it's very premature for me to speculate as to what I'm going to be doing in 2022, 2023.

But you’re not saying never?

I would never say never to any sort of possible scenario in the future. Who knows what can happen? Why say never?

Let’s talk about our favorite city: Miami. You’ve gotten a lot of national attention for your vision of making Miami a tech hub. How’s it going? And what are some of the challenges you’re facing?

It's going phenomenally well — much, much better than I ever could have anticipated. If you would have told me on December 3rd, the day before my “how can I help?” tweet that the next day I was going to send a tweet that would be viewed by 2.7 million people… that I was going to interact with Elon Musk and meet Peter Thiel and Keith Rabois and that the Founders Fund would move to Miami and that we would be hosting Blackstone tech and Microsoft and all these major hedge funds… I would have said there’s no way in the world that you can even fictionalize this.

But it’s what has happened. I think it’s fair to say if you talk to people anywhere in the world and you ask them, ‘what is the city that most people are talking about in terms of tech?’ — everyone would say Miami, and that's not something you could have said six months ago.

The reason why it's important is because — you're from this area, you know this — this area oftentimes would produce talent, the talent would leave to go to school and oftentimes not come back because the high paying jobs were not here.

My job as a mayor is to look 10, 15, 20 years into the future and think not just about my generation, but about my children's generation and my unborn grandchildren and think — what is the kind of economy that they're going to to inherit and what are we doing today to prepare ourselves for that?

You recently said you did not vote for former President Donald Trump in the November election. But we saw across South Florida how more Hispanics — and specifically Cubans — voted for him in 2020 than in 2016. Why do you think we saw that increase in support for Trump? And why were you one of the Miami Hispanics that ultimately didn’t vote for him?

I think he did a great job, frankly, in connecting with voters. He connected with voters on an issue they’re very passionate about — which I agree with, by the way, on this — which is the issue of communism and socialism being an incredibly big problem in not just in other countries, but in the U.S. I think that resonated with voters.

For example, we have a lot of Venezuelans that came from Venezuela because of what's happening there, who felt that that was a compelling message and felt that the president had made a bold stand in recognizing Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela. So, he did a lot of things right.

From my perspective, you know, I have very high expectations. I grew up in the ’80s seeing Ronald Reagan. And to me, a politician has to be, I don't want to say perfect, but they have to be someone that is civil, that treats people with respect, that inspires people, that has those sets of characteristics. So, you know, I voted for a Republican that I thought had those characteristics, and that's what I did.

While Trump is now out of office — and sure, there’s speculation about whether he’d try to run for office again — there’s a lot of talk about the future of the Republican Party and buzz surrounding Gov. DeSantis. Is he the future of the Republican Party?

You know, I don't know. He may be. He may not be.

It's very early to tell what the future of a party is. I think the party is still trying to digest what happened in 2020. There was a notion that if the [former] president won Florida and Ohio, which he did, that he would win the presidency. And that didn't happen because he lost states like Georgia and Arizona, which are usual Republican states, and then lost the Rust Belt.

I think the self-analysis is an ongoing process, frankly, and it will probably be an ongoing process until the midterms. That will be a different election because there’ll be more focus on the current president’s agenda. And then [after that] you’re going to have an election that will define what the party becomes.

But, look, I think the governor has been smart. He has sort of ridden this wave, much the same way that I have in my city, because the formula that he's implemented and that I've implemented, by and large, has been a successful formula. It’s to keep taxes as low as possible, keep the city and the state relatively open by comparison with other cities and make it pro-business.

It's something that is very welcome. That continues to be echoed to me constantly.

How do you view yourself as part of the future of the Republican Party — in Miami, Florida and nationally?

I consider myself a product of the ’80s. I saw a person in Ronald Reagan, the president, who believed in a lot of American exceptionalism, believed in small government. We need to balance our budget as a community. We should be focused on the environment. We need to solve immigration as an economic issue. We need to look at the environment as a national security issue and not just look at it as a causation issue. And there's no reason why Republicans should cede ground on those two incredibly important issues.

If we continue to be a party of liberty and freedom and we continue to be a party that creates hope and opportunity for everybody in our community, then I think that's going to create a tremendously winning formula.

What I find complex about modern day is that we live in a polarized world where people are constantly focusing on the things that divide them instead of the things that unite them. And they're constantly fighting with each other and it's become a toxic fight. It's no longer a situation where you're just saying: ‘I don't agree with you.’ It's a situation where you're saying: ‘I don't agree and I don't like you.’

I think that's never really happened in our democracy. And I don’t think it's healthy for our democracy. We've got to, in many ways, start thinking more like mayors who think about issues as problems that need to be solved as opposed to an issue through a specific ideological bent. And then let me put it through the prism of ideology and then let me solve the problem, which often distorts the solution.

If you just go take the problem head on, try to solve it — and if people are like-minded in that sense and we can park our ideologies at the door for a bit just to get the problem solved — I think Americans would be much better served and they'd be a lot happier with their elected officials.

Census data leaves Latinos wondering: Were we counted?

A decade of booming growth in the Sun Belt appeared set to pay off with a big jolt of new political power after the 2020 census, with Texas, Florida and Arizona projected in early estimates to pick up as many as six additional House seats combined.

But the official apportionment numbers released Monday sent only three new seats to those three states — two in Texas, one in Florida and, perhaps most surprisingly, none in Arizona — shocking members of both parties and raising concerns among Latino politicians and activists that the Census Bureau, despite years of warnings and advocacy, undercounted their communities in those heavily Latino states.

The results of the apportionment will last for 10 years, not only in representation in the House but in hundreds of millions of dollars that the federal government will allocate by population over the next decade. It will also change the course of redistricting in those states, where Latino groups who fear their communities got missed in the counting are trying to make sure they are represented in the mapmaking process. Newly drawn seats can provide openings for rising politicians. Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, for one, broke into Congress via a brand-new House district in Tempe a decade ago.

Several states spent millions of dollars on campaigns to urge residents to complete the census count. But some of the states that ultimately lost out were not among them.

“Three of the states with large Latino populations — Arizona, Texas, Florida — who underperformed in the apportionment gains, were also three states that virtually invested nothing in outreach to complement what the Census Bureau was doing,” said Arturo Vargas, the CEO of NALEO Educational Fund, an organization for Latino politicians. “Texas did something at the very last minute, but Florida and Arizona did not invest the kind of resources that you saw, for example, New Mexico put in, or New York or California.”

It will take time to figure out the details of the census population count: Monday’s release only contained each state’s topline population numbers and the number of House seats, with demographic information and more granular geographic data set for release in the late summer.

But the belief in Arizona is that there was “definitely an undercount,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who is also the chair of the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Gallego also said that other underserved communities may have also been missed.

"I don't want to assume that the undercounting is among Native Americans, among poorer first-generation Latinos," Gallego added. "But unfortunately, I think that may be the case. We warned people about this, and now this is the net result."

“To me, it suggests that there’s smoke here about how well this census really was [conducted],” said Vargas. “Given all the challenges that we knew the Bureau had, to me there has to be more than just a mere coincidence that all this happened at once,” he continued, also citing the numbers showing low population growth overall across the U.S.

Some of that blame, Latino lawmakers and activists say, goes to former President Donald Trump. Trump’s administration spent much of his presidency trying to add a question about citizenship to the decennial census. After failing to do so, Trump sought other ways to determine respondents’ citizenship status with administrative and other data. Democratic lawmakers and Latino groups furiously resisted Trump’s moves, warning that the efforts — even if unsuccessful — would suppress responses to the survey.

In a briefing on the Census results Tuesday, former Attorney General Eric Holder, who leads Democrats’ main redistricting organization, conceded the country may never know for certain how much or whether those moves changed the final results.

“I at least am always going to be wondering what the impact of their efforts had on the willingness of people in the Hispanic community to raise their hands and to be counted,” Holder said.

The saga has increased pressure on Latino groups to get involved in the map-drawing processes later this year.

“We want to ensure that moving forward in the redistricting process, we have our input as communities and communities are participating. But we know and we feel like we don’t have a fair starting point,” said Eduardo Sainz, the national field director of Mi Familia Vota, which has state branches across the Sun Belt.

The Census Bureau, for its part, said it was confident in its data during the apportionment release on Monday. “It is too early to speculate on undercounts for any specific demographic group,” Karen Battle, the chief of the population division at the Census Bureau, said in a statement to POLITICO on Tuesday, noting the redistricting release over the summer will have demographic details. “We look forward to the release of the Post Enumeration Survey results this fall, which will provide information on the coverage of demographic groups in the 2020 Decennial Census.”

Census Bureau acting Director Ron Jarmin also said he was confident in the numbers when asked by a reporter why Texas and Florida gained fewer seats than expected — and whether the Hispanic population was overlooked.

“We did do a very thorough job, especially in those areas, making sure that we counted everybody,” Jarmin said at a Monday press conference. “Some folks’ projections might have been based on slightly higher population growth projections.”

For months, most Census estimates indicated that Florida and Texas were poised to gain multiple districts. Texans were so optimistic their delegation would grow from 36 seats to 39 seats that some openly mused about creating at least two new safe GOP seats, perhaps using the third as a Democratic “vote sink” to keep other districts tinted red. GOP strategists in Florida were also hopeful about adding two new Republican seats if their delegation moved from 27 seats to 29.

Now, state legislators will have to factor in smaller than expected growth in both places. It’s too soon to say whether that could provide any net benefit to Democrats in those states.

Arizona’s stagnant position is most likely a setback to Democrats. An independent commission runs the state’s redistricting process, so the GOP legislature would not have been able to craft a new red seat. And a new district in the rapidly growing Phoenix suburbs could very well have proved friendly to Democrats, who won two Senate races and the presidential election in Arizona in the last three years.

But with no change in Arizona’s overall seat count, a commission may favor the status quo.

Census Bureau officials noted that most states’ official population totals were within 1 percentage point of earlier estimates, produced independently of the decennial count, as a reason for confidence in the apportionment numbers. In a preliminary analysis of the data from the Bureau, Arizona was the only state to have a census count at least 2 points lower than the estimated count.

Texas and Florida were both less than 1 percent below earlier estimates. But the two states where Latinos make up the largest shares of the population, Democratic-controlled New Mexico and California, both came in higher than estimates for total population, though California still lost one of its 53 House seats.

The consequences of an undercount of Latinos, should later numbers provide more evidence that that happened, stretch far beyond just apportionment in those three states. Undercounted communities could lose out on an untold amount of federal funding that uses census data as a base.

“Yeah, it's not just about losing members of Congress from one state to another,” said Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), who previously led the CHC’s PAC. “An undercount means that there's less money for the kids in your neighborhood, there's less money coming your way for the seniors who need support in your neighborhood. That is the ultimate cost to a community.”

Laura Barrón-López contributed to this report.

The new hot job on K Street: Reconciliation specialist

Washington lobbyists are used to trying to puzzle out where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stand. But as lawmakers start crafting President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package, K Street has been working overtime to decipher the views of a less known but in some ways equally powerful figure: Elizabeth MacDonough.

The increasing likelihood that Democrats will move an infrastructure bill using reconciliation — which lets the Senate pass legislation with only 50 votes as long it complies with a byzantine set of rules — has made MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, one of the most powerful people in Washington. It’s also changed the influence industry, fueling a sudden demand for lobbyists who specialize in reconciliation.

Lobbyists with reconciliation expertise “are at a premium,” said Jim Manley, a former aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who’s now a consultant. “I know a whole bunch who specialize in it and are busy, and I know a whole bunch who are also getting pinged for advice.”

"I have had many people ask me for my advice” on reconciliation, he added. “Unfortunately, none of them are clients so far. I've got to work a little harder."

As it’s become clearer that reconciliation bills are the chief vehicle for moving anything through Congress, lobbyists have studied up on the finer points of procedure. They’ve sent memos to clients advising them on how to use reconciliation to their advantage. One lobbying firm, ACG Advocacy, held a briefing on reconciliation for the firm’s clients days after Democrats won the Senate runoffs in Georgia — all but ensuring they would try to pass bills via reconciliation without Republican votes — that drew about 150 people. At least one lobbying firm has spoken with former parliamentarians to get a better grasp of the process.

Lobbyists have kept an eye on Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocacy groups that have pushed to employ reconciliation as aggressively as possible while Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

“They’re going to really push the envelope on what’s permissible under reconciliation,” said one Republican lobbyist who’s advised clients on the process.

Lobbyists expect Biden’s forthcoming infrastructure package — which will likely be passed via reconciliation — to be much more heavily lobbied than his Covid-19 relief package, which also passed using reconciliation, setting off a potential gold rush for K Street.

“Everyone’s working on it,” said Jeff Forbes, a former Democratic Senate staffer who co-founded the lobbying firm Forbes Tate Partners. “It’s sucking up all the oxygen in D.C.”

The demand for reconciliation expertise on K Street is another indication of how the legislative process has broken down in Washington. The Senate has passed only five bills since Biden took office, one of them via reconciliation. While lobbyists are still hired to help shape legislation that moves through Congress the traditional way, much of the action is increasingly narrowed to a few massive bills.

That’s also true for Democrats and their allies, who have clamored for the Biden administration to try to pass an ever-increasing number of priorities through reconciliation, including immigration reform, which members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pressed Biden on last week.

Labor unions have been working to figure out what aspects of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act they can pass via reconciliation, according to a person familiar with the matter.

And Senate Democrats who were unsuccessful in convincing the parliamentarian to OK a federal minimum wage hike in Biden’s Covid relief bill haven’t ruled out trying again.

While Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) would prefer to raise the minimum wage without resorting to reconciliation, “it’s important to plan for every contingency, so I’m continuing to look at other ways to raise workers’ wages,” he said in a statement to POLITICO.

Reconciliation lobbying is different from trying to shape bills passed through regular order. Lobbyists need to win over not only lawmakers but also the parliamentarian — priorities that can sometimes be in tension.

“Getting the parliamentarian’s approval but losing two Democratic votes leaves you just as far from getting what you want,” said Ryan McConaghy, a former senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer who’s now a lobbyist.

Some lobbyists cautioned that Democrats’ narrow margins in the House as well as the Senate were at least as important as a factor in lobbying the infrastructure bill as reconciliation.

“Something can fit in reconciliation, and if five Democratic senators don’t like it, it’s not going to happen,” said Al Mottur, a top Democratic lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

The dynamic can work in lobbyists’ favor if they’re trying to keep something out of the infrastructure package rather than get it in. As long as no Republicans end up voting for the package, all lobbyists have to do to neutralize a provision a client views as a threat is to make sure at least one Democratic senator is adamantly against it.

Companies and trade groups seeking definitive answers about whether their priorities can make it into the infrastructure package if it’s passed by reconciliation are likely to be disappointed. While the Byrd rule — which governs what can go into reconciliation bills — clearly allows some things and bars others, lobbyists say there’s a lot of gray area.

“For many things, it’s impossible to be definitive about whether it would make it in a reconciliation bill or not,” said Sarah Abernathy, a lobbyist at ACG Advocacy who co-hosted a call to brief her firm’s clients on reconciliation.

The process can be so unpredictable that some lobbyists and advocates have argued they might as well push for what they want without worrying about whether their asks will become Byrd droppings — the crude term for provisions disallowed by the parliamentarian.

“Reconciliation is a subjective, capricious process disguised as an objective policy making mechanism,” Aaron Belkin, the director of the judicial advocacy group Take Back the Court, wrote in an email to POLITICO. Belkin co-authored a 16-page memo to Schumer earlier this month arguing that Democrats could add hundreds of new federal judges via reconciliation.

While it’s impossible to predict how the parliamentarian will rule, he went on, “any democracy reforms that cost or that raise money are fair game for budget reconciliation.”

With reporting by Sam Stein