Wednesday, February 17 political news briefs

Here are three political news briefs.

Last night former president Donald Trump ripped top Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (Ky) and made it clear he is his political enemy. Trump said “Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.” Trump vowed to throw his support behind political candidates that sided with his MAGA agenda against Republicans like McConnell. Trump is angry because several days ago McConnell said Trump was responsible for the January 6 insurrection. This means Trump and McConnell, who was a powerful duo that worked to bring in three conservative Supreme Court justices, are now split apart. This will force people in Republican Party to figure out which side they want to be on.

AP News reported that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is facing accusations that he covered up the true death toll of the pandemic among nursing home residents by not counting those who died in hospitals. The state previously said there were 8,500 nursing home deaths, but recently updated that number to 15,000. There are 15 Democratic state lawmakers who want Cuomo’s emergency powers to be repealed. There are families of nursing home residents who feel that Cuomo failed to implement policies to protect nursing home residents from the coronavirus. The criticism against Cuomo is especially strong because he was hailed as a model of transparency during the Covid-19 pandemic and wrote a book on leadership.

[Sponsored Video from Sorenson: www.sorenson.com]

President Joe Biden appeared in a CNN Town Hall last night. He promised that by July, the U.S. would have over 600 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, which is enough to vaccinate every single American who wants it. He said he wants to see most schools reopened five days a week within his first 100 days in office, which clarified confusion when the White House press secretary said they hoped for at least one day a week to be open. Biden said it was an error in messaging and said he wants five days. Biden said he didn’t want to talk about Trump because he was tired of talking about him and wanted for the news the next four years to be about the American people. Biden said he couldn’t forgive $50,000 in student loan debts per person by himself, he said Congress had to do it. He said he could do $10,000. Biden also said he does not support defunding the police, instead saying more money needs to go to police work and training.

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968475230/trump-blasts-mcconnell-and-his-leadership-in-lengthy-response-to-recent-criticis

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/16/pat-toomey-faces-censure-over-impeachment-vote-republican-party/6759842002/

https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-new-york-albany-andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-pandemic-9a807bd28f3de71eae30aa13a55eea2e

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/16/politics/joe-biden-town-hall-takeaways/index.html