| | | | | | | Presented By Bank of America | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen · May 27, 2022 | | Hello, Friday, and best for Getaway Day. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,497 words ... 5½ mins. Edited by Justin Green. | | | | | | 1 big thing — Axios interview: Manchin revives Build Back Better |  | | | Sen. Joe Manchin walks out of the Capitol yesterday after casting his last vote before the Memorial Day recess. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | | | | Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) tells Axios' Hans Nichols he's in talks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer about passing a climate, energy and deficit-reduction package — reviving hopes for action this year. Why it matters: Even a slimmed-down version of President Biden's Build Back Better looked dead. But the comments by Manchin, along with tempered optimism among some Democrats, suggests a Biden win on the Hill in this midterm year has gone from highly unlikely to possible. - Biden, stuck at around 40% popularity, needs Manchin to revive his agenda. Manchin told Axios it's possible the latest talks still die.
Behind the scenes: As Manchin and Schumer try to repair their strained relationship, their staffs have been making progress on the contours of a climate and deficit reduction package. - "Chuck has a very, very difficult job," Manchin said. "The trust that I have, it's his ability to be able to move 48 or 49 other people."
- Manchin noted he hasn't engaged directly with Biden.
What's happening: Manchin this week told a bipartisan group of senators, with whom he's been negotiating a climate and energy-security bill, that he's prepared to back tax increases in a Democrats-only bill if the bipartisan group can't agree to additional revenue. - Manchin told Axios he understands why some Republican senators might conclude that a Democrat-only reconciliation package is his "ace in the hole" — giving him more leverage in the bipartisan talks.
That left some senators thinking Manchin may be closer to a deal with Schumer than they suspected. - Manchin insisted in our interview that he wants to include Republicans in talks, even if Democrats ultimately go party-line.
Between the lines: The productive spirit of the Manchin-Schumer talks leads some senators to believe a reconciliation bill, with roughly $300 billion in energy tax credits and $800 billion in new revenue, is possible. - A slimmed-down climate bill — though it would be much smaller than the $1.75 trillion climate and social spending package passed by the House last year — would give Democrats another legislative accomplishment for midterms.
- Legislation passed through the budget reconciliation process requires only a bare majority vote to pass, rather than the 60-vote threshold most legislation needs to overcome Senate filibusters.
Deal points: Inflation has been a top concern of Manchin's. He seems most interested in the deficit reduction provisions of a potential reconciliation bill. - He's deeply skeptical of additional tax credits for electric vehicles if the money just goes to Chinese manufacturers.
- He's eager to authorize Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies over the price of prescription drugs to save billions of dollars for taxpayers.
He's also comfortable with more money for the IRS to help increase tax collection. - While he would still like to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 25%, he knows Sinema is opposed and he'll settle for establishing a domestic minimum rate of 15%.
Share this story. |     | | | | | | 2. End of anti-abortion Democrats |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | One House Democrat is known to be willing to vote against abortion rights — down from 247 Democrats for a major anti-abortion House vote in 1976 (46 years ago). - Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) — the House's last vocal anti-abortion Democrat — was clinging to a tiny lead after a runoff Tuesday.
Why it matters: Anti-abortion Democrats are being pushed out or walking away — in a party where President Biden, until reversing himself in 2019, opposed the use of federal dollars for abortions. With the Supreme Court expected to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer, national Democrats will be making abortion rights a centerpiece of their midterm campaigns, Axios' Sophia Cai reports. - Joe Manchin of West Virginia is the only Senate Democrat who joined Republicans earlier this month blocking the advancement of legislation that aimed to codify federal protections for abortion rights.
The other side: Republicans who support abortion rights are also a rare breed. There are just two in the Senate — Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — and none in the House. Flashback: In 1976, the Hyde amendment banning federal funding for most abortions passed the House with 247 Democratic votes. Just 22 Democrats voted no, and 16 didn't vote. Zoom out: Today, about 26% of Democrats describe themselves as "pro-life," according to Gallup. About 22% of Republicans describe themselves as "pro-choice." Among national officeholders, though, the issue is almost fully polarized. - By 2018, there wasn't a pro-choice Republican left in the House.
- Anti-abortion Democrats made up about a quarter of the Democratic House majority as recently as 2010. But a slew of those members lost their races or retired. Two of the last holdouts, Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Dan Lipinksi (D-Ill.), lost their seats in 2020.
👀 What we're watching: A few state Democrats are testing whether the party can accommodate other views. - Trenee McGee, one of the youngest and newest members of the Connecticut General Assembly, has been outspoken about her opposition to abortion since winning a special election last year.
- Axios Twin Cities' Torey Van Oot notes that Minnesota's state House has a Democratic majority but also an anti-abortion majority, because of Democrats like state Rep. Gene Pelowski.
Share this story. | | | | | | | | 3. Gunman's last 90 minutes: What we know | | Photo: Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images It was 11:28 a.m. Tuesday when the Ford pickup slammed into a ditch behind the low-slung elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The driver jumped out carrying an AR-15-style rifle, AP reports. - Twelve minutes after that, authorities say, the 18-year-old was in the hallways of Robb Elementary School. Soon he entered a fourth-grade classroom. He killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers.
- At 12:58 p.m., law enforcement radio chatter said Ramos had been killed and the siege was over.
What happened in those 90 minutes, in a working-class neighborhood near the edge of the little town, has fueled mounting public anger and scrutiny over law enforcement's response. - "They say they rushed in," said Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, and who raced to the school as the massacre unfolded. "We didn't see that."
Reality check: After two days of providing often conflicting information, investigators said that a school district police officer was not inside the school when Ramos arrived, and, contrary to their previous reports, the officer had not confronted Ramos outside the building. - Go deeper: Shooter warning signs get lost in sea of social media posts.
| | | | | | | | A message from Bank of America | | Business owners anticipate revenue growth amid challenges | | |  | | | | Bank of America's 2022 Small Business Owner Report found that despite growing concerns around the direction of the economy, entrepreneurs are resilient and betting on their businesses. 64% anticipate their revenue will increase in the year ahead. | | | | | | 4. 📷 1,000 words | | Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images In Irpin, Ukraine, a cat perches on a war-destroyed car yesterday. - With Russian attacks concentrated in Ukraine's east and south, residents of the Kyiv region are returning to clean up and build back.
Ukraine dashboard. | | | | | | | | 5. ✝️ Baptists publish list of accused abusers | | Supporters of sexual-abuse survivors demonstrate in February outside Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville. Photo: Stephanie Amador/The Tennessean via Reuters The Southern Baptist Convention published a list last evening of hundreds of clergy and other church staff who've been "credibly accused" of sexual abuse, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes. - The release of the 205-page list marks "an initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention," said a statement from Rolland Slade, chair of the SBC Executive Committee, and Willie McLaurin, the EC's interim president and CEO.
- "Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will utilize this list proactively to protect and care for the most vulnerable among us."
A damning 288-page report, published by the SBC on Sunday, said leaders of the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. stonewalled sexual-abuse survivors for 20 years. | | | | | | | | 6. New push on long COVID cures |  | | | Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios | | | | New research casting doubt on vaccines' ability to protect against "long COVID" suggests that lingering aftereffects will require new treatments or vaccines, Axios' Adriel Bettelheim and Caitlin Owens report. - Why it matters: Long COVID is emerging as the next phase of the global health-care crisis.
A Department of Veterans Affairs study of almost 34,000 vaccinated people who had breakthrough infections found the shots only cut the likelihood of long COVID by about 15%. | | | | | | | | 7. 📊 Brands that bring us together |  Data: The Harris Poll. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios When even shopping is polarized, some brands cut through the partisan divide, Sara Fischer writes from this year's Axios Harris Poll 100. - They're highlighted above.
Share this graphic ... See the full list. | | | | | | | | 8. 🎥 Remembering Ray Liotta | | Ray Liotta in 2004. Photo: Rebecca Sapp/WireImage Ray Liotta, the intense New Jersey native best known as hustler-turned-mob-rat Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas," died in his sleep at 67 in the Dominican Republic, where he was filming "Dangerous Waters," The Hollywood Reporter writes: The boyish, blue-eyed Liotta also was memorable as Ray Sinclair, the violent ex-convict husband of Melanie Griffith's character, in Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" (1986); as the disgraced Chicago White Sox baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson in the Kevin Costner starrer "Field of Dreams" (1989); and as the corrupt cop Matt Wozniak on the 2016-18 NBC cop drama Shades of Blue, opposite Jennifer Lopez. JLo tweeted: "Ray was the epitome of a tough guy who was all mushy on the inside." - In "Goodfellas," he and co-star Joe Pesci improvised the classic "How am I funny?" sequence.
4-min. YouTube of "How funny?" ... Keep reading. | | | | | | | | A message from Bank of America | | Perspectives from small businesses | | |  | | | | Bank of America's Small Business Owner Report finds that inflation and supply chain issues are causing operational challenges for the majority of U.S. small business owners, including price increases and sourcing new suppliers. See how they're adapting. | | | | 📬 Invite your friends to sign up here to get their daily essentials — Axios AM, PM and Finish Line. |  | It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 200 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications. | | | |
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