WASHINGTON — If it’s Friday ... President Biden goes one-on-one in interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. ... Barack Obama speaks to House Democrats. ... Another GOP ad goes after Fauci. ... Covid hospitalizations plummet. ... NBC’s Benjy Sarlin breaks down how states are flush with cash (for now)… And are you ready for some football on Sunday?
But first: It’s worth telling the ballad of Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.
She came into office — defeating Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham — after tying herself to Donald Trump and her work for him on his 2016 campaign.
She voted to certify the Electoral College results and was horrified by what she saw on Jan. 6. (“I want to be a new voice for the Republican Party and that's one of the reasons I've spoken out so strongly against the president, against these QAnon conspiracy theorists that led us in a constitutional crisis,” she said on “Meet the Press.”)
But she opposed Trump’s impeachment, preferring censure instead.
She also said she backed Rep. Liz Cheney and hoped she remained in GOP leadership. (“We need these voices right now more than ever,” she said of Cheney.)
But just months later, she voted to oust Cheney from her leadership position.
Mace also voted against establishing both an independent commission to investigate what happened on Jan. 6 and the current House select committee looking at Jan. 6.
Yet then she voted in support of finding Steve Bannon in contempt for failing to comply with the select committee’s subpoena.
And this week, Trump said he was endorsing Mace’s GOP primary rival Katie Arrington, who lost to Cunningham in 2018 — after the former president backed Arrington over then-incumbent Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. (It’s the second time in four years that Trump has endorsed a GOP primary challenger for this seat.)
Trump, in fact, called Mace “an absolutely terrible candidate.”
Finally, on Thursday, Mace released a video — right outside of Trump Tower in New York City — recounting her past support for Trump and touting his policies as president.
“[M]ost Republicans appear to have little appetite for nuance at the moment, let alone dissent. The base loves Trump as much as ever, and his allies are working to unseat anyone who fails to show fealty,” Elaine Godfrey wrote of Mace last year in The Atlantic.
Our colleague Ed Demaria puts it this way: Mace’s story proves that being a 50 to 75 percent ally of Trump made her a 100 percent enemy.
Tweet of the day
Midterm roundup
House Democrats searching for cohesive messaging for the midterms heard from former President Barack Obama on Thursday, who encouraged lawmakers during a 70-minute virtual meeting to accept compromise, NBC’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports. And the White House is arranging a meeting between Biden and DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison amid reports of tension between Harrison and the administration’s political team, per NBC’s Natasha Korecki and Jonathan Allen.
The Democratic primary in Texas’ 28th District continues to heat up. Jessica Cisneros, Rep. Henry Cuellar’s primary challenger, is up with a new spot saying Washington has “changed” Cuellar. The pro-Cisneros group Justice Democrats also has an ad that references the recent FBI raid of Cuellar’s home.
And Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is making use of his massive war chest ahead of next month’s primary. He bought $2 million more TV and radio ads yesterday, per AdImpact, bringing his total ad spending to more than $9 million. His two opponents, former state Sen. Don Huffines and former Texas GOP chairman (and congressman) Allen West booked another $130,000 and $45,000 respectively on Thursday.
In the incumbent vs. incumbent Democratic primary in Michigan’s 11th District, the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC endorsed Rep. Andy Levin, while Michigan Rep. Brenda Lawerence backed Rep. Haley Stevens.
The Associated Press has obtained a police report from a 2001 incident when the police were called to the home of Herschel Walker, the former football player now running for the GOP Senate nomination in Georgia.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., who is in a competitive re-election race, praised Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak’s decision to end the state’s mask mandate.
And Arizona GOP Senate hopeful Jim Lamon is facing criticism over an ad depicting him in a Wild West-style shootout with Democrats including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, whose wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in 2011.
Ad watch: Fauci’s under attack again
Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, is the latest candidate to release an ad using Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, as a boogeyman.
Fallon opens the ad by saying, “Hi, I'm Congressman Pat Fallon, and I have no medical training whatsoever, but I gotta tell you, I finally figured out how to stop the spread.” He then proceeds to smash three different TVs with a hammer after three separate soundbites from Dr. Fauci play from each TV.
It’s the fourth ad we’ve seen this year where a candidate attacks Fauci rather than their direct opponent or a political figure.
Data Download: The number of the day is … 49
That’s the number of U.S. states and territories that have seen a double-digit decline in hospitalizations over the past two weeks (through 11 p.m. yesterday), per an NBC analysis. As of last night, America’s average daily Covid hospitalization total has dropped almost 32 percent over the last two weeks as well.
It’s one of the more promising signs about the state of the pandemic, along with a sharp decline in cases since the omicron variant’s January peak. But even as the numbers come down, the seven-day average of new, daily cases are still at about 200,000, similar to what the country saw to start 2021. And the seven-day average of new, daily deaths this week has hovered around 2,600, as high as it’s been in about a year.
Other numbers you need to know today:
60 percent: The rate that abortions in Texas dropped after the state’s restrictive abortion law took effect.
$7.7 million: How much Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., raised in January.
$7 billion: How much money the White House is looking to move out of frozen funds from Afghanistan’s central bank’s account in New York — $3.5 billion for victims of 9/11 and $3.5 billion for humanitarian relief.
Talking policy with Benjy: States are making it rain with federal dollars
Managing a state government during a pandemic is hard, but balancing a state budget has never been easier.
Congress pumped cash into state Medicaid programs and propped up health care and education budgets in 2020, then authorized an additional $350 billion in state and local grants in the American Rescue Plan in 2021. The economic recovery has also outpaced early pandemic projections, leaving many officials with more revenue than they anticipated.
So what are governors spending it on? One frequent priority this year is filling public jobs cut during the pandemic and keeping existing employees amid a hot labor market and high inflation.
“In each of the last four quarters, there’s been a record gap between the public and private sector on salary and wage growth,” Josh Goodman, senior officer with the state fiscal health initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts, told NBC News. “The significance of that is that states are struggling to hire prison guards, they're struggling to find bus drivers and substitute teachers for school districts.”
Governors in both parties are also proposing salary increases for school jobs. In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is pushing a 7 percent pay increase for education staff. She recently recruited National Guard members as substitute teachers to deal with shortages during the omicron wave. Maryland is raising starting pay for state troopers amid a national crime wave that’s prompting similar spending increases elsewhere. Missouri is currently debating across-the-board pay increases to help retain state employees, an issue that governors from South Dakota to Kansas to Florida have also taken up.
Tax cuts are also popular. Some 11 states cut income or corporate rates last year, according to the Tax Foundation. In Massachusetts, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker recently proposed almost $700 million in tax cuts and credits for children, seniors, renters, investors, and low-income workers. In California, Dem Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the legislature to cut business taxes raised earlier in the pandemic, cancel a scheduled gas tax increase, and send another round of $1,000 payments to parents of young children.
The catch is that the budget boost may be temporary. Many states still have not hit their pre-pandemic revenue projections and may have to make tougher decisions when Covid aid disappears. For now, though, the money is a feather in the cap for incumbents facing an otherwise tough political and policy environment.
ICYMI: What else is happening in the world
Two Democratic senators say that the CIA is secretly collecting Americans’ data in bulk.
New records obtained by the Jan. 6 committee don’t show any phone calls former President Trump took part in that day despite widespread reporting he spoke with multiple GOP lawmakers.
The White House is debating its pandemic recommendations as cases continue to fall and states continue to nix mask mandates.
A Virginia deputy attorney general resigned after revelations she tweeted on Jan. 6 that “patriots have stormed the Capitol” and that “we are awake, ready and will fight for our rights by any means necessary.”
