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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

Former Vice President Walter Mondale, a towering figure among progressives, passed away Monday at the age of 93. You can read memorials to Mondale here, here, here, and from the Star Tribune here. 

According to Axios, Mondale spent his final days saying goodbye to former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as President Joe Biden.

“It was Walter Mondale who defined the presidency as a full partnership, and helped provide a model for my service,” Biden said in a statement Monday night.

Mondale also wrote a lovely goodbye note to his former aides, which you can read here. See the picture he sent them below, via Ed O’Keefe of CBS News.

No Labels hires disgraced journalist Mark Halperin

The bipartisan policy group No Labels is hiring Mark Halperin — a political journalist whose career collapsed in an ugly sexual harassment scandal in 2017 — to do consulting work, the organization confirmed to Punchbowl News in a statement late Monday night.

Halperin was once a powerful figure in the political media scene. He had television contracts, book deals and co-authored the best seller “Game Change” in 2010 with John Heilemann. But the sexual harassment scandal destroyed Halperin’s once high-flying career. He has attempted comebacks in recent years, although those were unsuccessful. Most recently, he has been appearing on Newsmax and he writes a newsletter about current events.

Halperin has been in negotiations with No Labels about a consulting contract. He has spoken to employees there about whether they would be willing to work with him, sources said.

Here’s a statement from Margaret White, a senior adviser at No Labels:

“We have spoken with Mark Halperin about a short-term consulting project.

His treatment of female colleagues before he left ABC News in 2007 was reprehensible. He rightly paid a price for his conduct, professionally and personally. Over the last three and a half years, Halperin has worked to make amends to the women he harmed, to apologize publicly and directly to those willing to meet with him, and to do the work required of anyone who has significantly harmed others.

In engaging with Halperin in this limited manner, we have wrestled with how to balance his past conduct with the need to offer second chances. 

Staff members of No Labels, including CEO Nancy Jacobson and Co-Executive Directors Margaret White and Liz Morrison, have spoken with Halperin and believe a second chance is warranted in this case.”

In 2017, at the height of the Me Too movement, CNN reported more than a dozen women came forward to say Halperin had sexually harassed and abused them. This included allegations that “Halperin masturbated in front of an ABC News employee in his office and that he violently threw another woman against a restaurant window before attempting to kiss her, and that after she rebuffed him he called her and told her she would never work in politics or media.” Halperin denied some of the allegations and issued an apology, but he was let go by NBC and Showtime.

Halperin had been a senior figure in the ABC News bureau in Washington at the time the sexual harassment incidents took place in the early 2000s. Several of the victims said he threatened to retaliate against them professionally if they ever disclosed what he’d done.

Halperin didn’t reply to a request for comment Monday night.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Who is the most reasonable?

Welcome, Washington, to this spring’s battle for “Who is the most reasonable?” 

We’re now at the phase of the negotiations over President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan where both sides are trying to show that they are the true negotiating partner, the more reasonable actor in this $2.5 trillion dance.

Because, let’s be clear: the two sides are miles apart. Biden and Democratic leaders want to spend $2.5 trillion, Republicans are interested in less than $1 trillion. Democrats want to raise corporate tax rates, Republicans want “user fees.” We’re struggling to find many areas of agreement beyond the basic concept that the nation’s infrastructure needs to be repaired, and the federal government has some role in repairing it. Put another way, the list of disagreements may be shorter than agreements, but the disagreements are louder and more fundamental.

But the theater is on full display this week. 

→ Biden told Republicans he wants their infrastructure plan by May. The House Republican leadership is working on a bill, but it’s not going to be palatable for Democrats in the White House or on Capitol Hill. 

→ Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) was taking the lead for Senate Republicans in drafting their proposal. “We’re looking at a conceptual document we can get behind and begin negotiations and work with the committees. I don’t have a definite time. But I expect it to not be dragging for weeks or anything like that.” Capito said she was going to speak to White House officials Tuesday morning about her proposal, which will run into hundreds of billions of dollars, yet will be far smaller than what Democrats have pushed.

→ Our friends Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine at Politico wrote that liberals are getting itchy about the prospect of lengthy talks with Republicans — and rightfully so. There are roughly 26 legislative days between now and the July 4 recess, which is Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s unofficial deadline to get a bill through the House.

Here’s what we picked up on late Monday at the Senate votes:

→ Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.): “Mitch McConnell has certainly given good reason for skepticism in his staunch resistance, even intransigence, to Biden proposals notably the American Rescue Plan. And what he said publicly about the need for a miniscule bill compared to what President Biden wants is equally troubling."

→ Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.): “We want to find some common ground here, but it’s kind of a challenge… When that group of Senate Republicans said, ‘Not one penny [in new taxes],’ I looked and I said, ‘I get that in negotiating, we have to do our sum, their sum, huh, no one penny.’”

→ Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.): “I think it’s going to be really difficult, by the way, because the pay for stuff is going to be really hard. You’ve got to raise taxes on someone, or it all goes to the debt. And I don’t think either one of those is very appealing to either side.”

In reality, though, this is the fight both sides want, and have been itching for: Republicans want to keep corporate tax rates at 21%, and Democrats think corporations should be paying far more. The gulf between the two seems unbridgeable to us right now.

TODAY’S HAPPENINGS

What will happen with Maxine Waters?

→ House Democrats will hear from John Kerry and Gina McCarthy about climate change in their caucus meeting this morning. 

There is also sure to be some discussion about the GOP’s efforts to censure Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) for her statements while attending a rally in Minneapolis over the weekend. Waters urged protestors to be “more confrontational” in the wake of the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Waters’ comments were seen as so “abhorrent” that Chauvin’s attorneys asked for a mistrial. Although Judge Peter Cahill denied that request, he declared "I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.” The entire episode shocked many on Capitol Hill, who have grown used to Waters’ inflammatory rhetoric but were stunned that she had suddenly emerged as a figure in the Chauvin trial.

When asked about the controversy Monday night, Waters at first refused to comment, and then told us, “My actual words don’t matter.” She repeated variations of this with other reporters later.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the GOP leadership may find some Democratic moderates willing to consider voting for censure. However, many Democrats also remain furious with their GOP counterparts over the Republicans’ role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. This is a difficult one to predict at the moment. McCarthy is likely to move Wednesday.

If just four Democrats vote with Republicans to censure Waters, the GOP will win the vote. It’s not impossible to see this happening. The last member of Congress to be censured was then-Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.). There have been just four members censured during the last 40 years: Rangel for a wide array of ethics issues; Gerry Studds and Daniel Crane for improper sexual contact with a House page; and Charlie Wilson, who improperly used campaign funds.

→ House Republican leaders anticipate they will rally their lawmakers against Waters, and talk about this issue during their retreat this weekend in Orlando.

The N.Y. Post — owned by Rupert Murdoch — is all in on Waters this morning.

DOWNTOWN MOVES

Stefan Freiberg is joining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s executive team as chief financial officer. Freiberg comes on board from the International Council of Shopping Centers. The Chamber is also promoting Justin Waller, who has been elevated to EVP and COO. The moves come as the venerable business group has been undergoing a massive organizational transition with Suzanne Clark taking over for long-time CEO Tom Donohue, while at the same time having to contend with a much more populist Republican Party.

MOMENTS

10 a.m.: House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will brief reporters after their weekly meeting.

10:15 a.m.: President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris will receive their intelligence briefing.

10:30 a.m.: House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York will brief reporters along with other Democratic lawmakers. 

11:15 a.m.: Biden and Harris will meet with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

12:30 p.m.: Jen Psaki will brief the press. 

2:45 p.m.: Biden will have a virtual tour of the Proterra battery facility in South Carolina.

Harris will appear on “The Situation Room” on CNN with Dana Bash in the 6 p.m. hour to talk about her first 100 days in office.

CLIP FILE

Axios 

→  “U.S. ambassador to Russia will return home briefly: State Department,” by Jonathan Swan: “The State Department said Monday that the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, will now be returning to the United States this week before returning to Moscow ‘in the coming weeks.’

“Why this matters: The statement, from a State Department spokesperson, comes just hours after Axios reported that Sullivan had indicated he intended to stand his ground and stay in Russia after the Kremlin ‘advised’ him to return home to talk with his team. … ‘Ambassador Sullivan will be returning to the U.S. this week to visit his family and meet with members of the new administration with whom he has not had a chance to consult since he agreed to continue serving in his post indefinitely," a State Department spokesperson told Axios Monday night. ‘He will return to Moscow in the coming weeks.’”

NYT

→ “U.S. Readies Small-Business Grants as P.P.P. Nears End,” by Stacy Cowley

→ “‘A Threat From the Russian State’: Ukrainians Alarmed as Troops Mass on Their Doorstep,” by Anton Troianovski

→ “Amid Biden Climate Push, a Question Looms: Is America’s Word Good?” by Lisa Friedman

→ “Supreme Court Seems Poised to Back Limits on Green Cards,” by Adam Liptak

WaPo

→ “White House closes in on ‘families plan’ spending proposal centered on child care, pre-K, paid leave,” by Jeff Stein and Tyler Pager

→ “D.C. bolsters police presence, requests National Guard troops ahead of Derek Chauvin verdict,” by Marissa J. Lang and Julie Zauzmer

WSJ

→ “Biden Administration Considering Rule to Cut Nicotine in Cigarettes,” by Jennifer Maloney

→ “Apple to Reinstate Parler, the App at Center of Online-Speech Debate,” by Matt Grossman

AP

→ “Biden’s virtual climate summit: Diplomacy sans human touch,” by Jonathan Lemire, Seth Borenstein and Aamer Madhani

→ “Amid US strains, China’s Xi warns against ‘unilateralism’” by Joe McDonald in Beijing

Politico

→ “Jan. 6 defendants win unlikely Dem champions as they face harsh detainment,” by Kyle Cheney, Andrew Desiderio and Josh Gerstein

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