“The Biden administration is considering sending some AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses stockpiled and waiting for official usage approval in the US over the border to Mexico and Canada,” CNN reports
“Intense discussions are taking place following a request for doses from both countries and, for Mexico at least, an agreement could be announced as soon as Friday.”
Politico: “The former president is scheduled to sit for a dozen interviews in the coming weeks with authors examining his presidency, some of whom are penning sequels to books they published during Trump’s time in office.”
“The sheer number of book interviews is so massive that some in his orbit worry he may be doing too many and hurting his ability to monetize his own recollections for a book of his own, should he choose to write one.”
“U.S. Postal Service investigators found no evidence to support a Pennsylvania postal worker’s claim that his supervisors had tampered with mail-in ballots, according to an inspector general’s report — allegations cited by top Republicans to press baseless claims of fraud in the presidential election,” the Washington Post reports.
Arizona Mirror: “The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission made its first staffing decision and saw its first notable partisan split, hiring Brian Schmitt, chief of staff to a Republican Phoenix City Council member.”
“The latest shoe to drop in a long-brewing Florida political scandal came crashing down Wednesday when authorities raided the house of former state senator Frank Artiles (R),” the Miami Herald reports.
“Artiles is believed to be tied to a state investigation involving a sham no-party candidate who likely swayed the outcome of a key 2020 Miami-Dade state Senate race.”
Open Secrets: “After years of dark money overwhelmingly boosting Republicans, this marks the first presidential election cycle where dark money benefited Democrats. That’s a continuation from the 2018 midterm elections when Democrats benefited from more dark money than their Republican counterparts at the federal level for the first time since Citizens United.”
Key takeaway: Democrats and their aligned causes took in and spent $514 million in dark money, while Republicans took in and spent $204 million.
“John Magufuli, who presided over an increasingly authoritarian regime as president of Tanzania and, during the final year of his reign, rejected scientific evidence of the coronavirus pandemic, urging his citizens to raise their voices in prayer rather than cover their faces with masks, died March 17 at a hospital in Dar es Salaam,” the Washington Post reports.
“The death was announced in a statement by Tanzanian Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who cited ‘heart complications’ as the cause. There had been earlier unconfirmed reports from opposition leaders, which Mr. Magufuli’s government denied, that he had been hospitalized in Nairobi for covid-19. He was last seen in public on Feb. 27.”
“A leading Republican hard-liner clashed behind closed doors with House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday, exposing a rift in the Republican conference and suggesting that a chamber-rattling floor protest by the far right isn’t fading anytime soon,” Politico reports.
“During a closed-door conference meeting, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Biggs (R-AZ) went after McCarthy for not being more supportive of a conservative-led effort to force a series of lengthy — and largely fruitless — procedural votes that have snarled the floor.”
“States, airlines and tech companies are pressuring the Biden administration to develop a federal standard for vaccine passports — a policy that could speed the economic recovery but might also discriminate against disadvantaged groups and jeopardize privacy,” Politico reports.
“But without White House involvement, industry leaders say they’ll be left with a confusing patchwork of unregulated and unreliable tracking tools that could invite fraud and raise troubling questions about risk and fairness. … The White House says the government shouldn’t issue the credentials or store the data. But it’s held discussions with tech firms on how a passport system might work, asking for details about whether pharmacies and other establishments might provide the necessary data.”
CNBC: “The U.S. has thus far issued 90 million stimulus checks worth a collective $242 billion as part of President Joe Biden’s landmark $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.”
“Limitless money, a slew of candidates and undivided national attention are about to converge in a battle for California’s future,” Politico reports.
“An effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom is highly likely to qualify after supporters submit their last signatures this week. The ensuing campaign will be a melee free from the constraints that inhibit other statewide contests in California. Donation caps don’t apply. Hundreds of millions of dollars are likely to inundate the state as the full might of California’s Democratic establishment vies with a concerted Republican effort to oust a humbled blue state leader.”
“The Kentucky legislature has passed a bill that would require a governor to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat with a member of the departed senator’s party in a move sure to spark the political rumor mill around Frankfort,” The Hill reports.
“The bill would require a sitting governor to choose a replacement for a vacant Senate seat from a list of three candidates chosen by the top leadership of the former senator’s political party.”
President Joe Biden said that his dog Major, who had been involved in a biting incident at the White House, was “a sweet dog,” the Associated Press reports.
He explained the biting by saying that the dog had “turned a corner, there’s two people he doesn’t know at all, you know, and they move and moves to protect.”
Jonathan Chait: “We have the peculiar dynamic in which the leader of a major party is invoking his own agenda as something that cannot and should not happen.”
“Obviously, I don’t like the policies McConnell described. What I can’t understand is how McConnell is supposed to feel about them. If he truly thinks they’d ‘strengthen America,’ then shouldn’t he want to have the chance to enact them, and then have his party run on the results?
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is circulating a competing bill to award congressional gold medals to the Capitol Police which scrubs all mentions of the January 6 Capitol attack.
Playbook: “It’s just the latest effort by some of Trump’s most hardcore backers to rewrite history.”
A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds more Americans now think the country is on the right track than wrong track, 55% to 45%.
Russia’s ambassador to Washington has been recalled to Moscow for “consultations” to determine how to move forward with relations with the U.S., the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday, Axios reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.