POLITICO NIGHTLY: The Ted Lasso of the Senate

 

BY ELANA SCHOR Sen. Jon Tester and Jason Sudekis | Getty Images INFRASTRUCTURE SWEEPS WEEK — Members of Congress — and I promise this isn’t just flattery — have a lot in common with business tycoons and sports coaches. All three spend a fair share of their time closing deals, inspiring teams, and at times knifing their rivals. So perhaps it’s no accident that, as the Senate’s group of 10 bipartisan negotiators keeps plugging away at a long-sought infrastructure deal, some of them are starting to resemble TV characters who work in business and sports. These parallels between senators and fictional pop-culture personalities are not exact, of course. But this lighthearted window into negotiating strategies, hopefully, offers a little relief from the intensity of Hot Infrastructure Summer. Jon Tester is Ted Lasso. Just like the mustachioed head coach of the A.F.C. Richmond footballers (your Nightly author respects the U.K. parlance), Tester is trying to advance the ball by remaining resolutely positive. “You’ve got to talk about success if you’re going to achieve success,” he told our reporters last month after the group of 10 won a televised attaboy from President Joe Biden. Tester kept the high spirits going last week, saying that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is “totally bought in to getting this across the finish line” even as Republicans tried to cast doubt on the Democratic leader’s seriousness about letting a cross-aisle agreement happen. Not to mention that the Montana moderate often operates in a Lasso-like mode in the Senate hallways, freely offering folksy insight and quips designed to motivate his colleagues (even if he’s a bit more profane than Ted). Rob Portman is Johnny Rose. The silver-haired former video store magnate endured a lot of hiccups before he rose again at the end of “Schitt’s Creek,” and the silver-haired Ohio veteran of the George W. Bush administration is hoping to walk a similar path as he shepherds a potential infrastructure deal. Portman, like Johnny, is an earnest and well-dressed straight man. Portman’s roots in the pre-Trump GOP, like Johnny’s roots in the pre-digital world of marketing, help explain a great deal of his effectiveness. When Johnny rebranded the Rosebud Motel as a destination chain, he leaned on his experience marketing the homey experience of video rentals. When the retiring centrist Portman talks about infrastructure, he can remind his colleagues that Republicans once built congressional majorities by funding such home-state projects. Kyrsten Sinema is Shiv Roy. The Arizona senator and the daughter of Logan Roy on HBO’s “Succession” are both cool-headed under pressure, prone to the occasional wry quip and comfortable asserting themselves in a traditionally male-dominated environment. Rather than playing to the press or the peanut gallery, Shiv and Sinema prefer to focus their formidable intelligence on the goals in front of them. “The question was always, ‘What do we have to do to get it done?’” Sinema said one month ago when the bipartisan group took their plan from a framework to the pressure-cooker of the legislative process. She and Portman played central roles in getting the talks to this point, but her willingness to trust her Republican allies might come back to haunt her, just as Shiv suffered for trusting her back-biting father Logan. Just to be super-clear, each of these three characters have serious flaws and character traits that are not shared by their Senate counterparts. But all three fictional examples I cite are ascendant in their respective worlds when we last saw them, and there’s a reason for that: They know how to use their individual talents to get what they want. So do these three senators. If they fail to strike a deal that can get to Biden’s desk, it will almost certainly be thanks to circumstances outside their control and not their own personal failures. Now let’s settle in for the season finale. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author directly at eschor@politico.com or on Twitter at @eschor.   National Security Daily From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, get the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. Subscribe now   WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden administration says long Covid can be considered a disability under law: The Biden administration announced today that long Covid, a condition where people experience long-term Covid-19 symptoms long after clearing the actual virus from their system, could be considered a disability under civil rights laws. The White House announced the new long Covid guidance on the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law that protects people with disabilities from discrimination. — DOJ says federal law doesn’t bar businesses, agencies from mandating Covid vaccines: The opinion from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel opens the door for more businesses to require the shots for U.S. workers as Covid spreads among the unvaccinated, and comes two months after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released guidance saying U.S. employers could require all employees physically entering an office space to get the vaccine. — McCarthy calls Cheney and Kinzinger ‘Pelosi Republicans’: The relationship between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Liz Cheney has steadily deteriorated throughout the year, with an apparent peak coming when the California Republican helped oust Cheney from the House GOP's No. 3 leadership spot. But tension is spiking again now that Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger — Donald Trump’s two most vocal GOP critics in Congress — are serving on the select panel thanks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi . McCarthy dubbed Cheney and Kinzinger “Pelosi Republicans” today. — Fed weighs curbing cash machine as critics warn of housing, stock bubble: A growing number of lawmakers, investors and even some Fed officials themselves are warning that the central bank’s vast purchases of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities are feeding financial bubbles in the housing, stock and even cryptocurrency markets, and stoking higher consumer prices, with little apparent benefit to ordinary Americans. “You can argue quite easily that the economic benefits are limited and are far exceeded by the costs and risks that are starting to undermine the prospects for high, durable, inclusive growth,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, the parent company of asset management giant PIMCO, said. — Cuomo questions credibility of attorney general’s investigators: Gov. Andrew Cuomo is questioning the trustworthiness of the lawyers leading state Attorney General Tish James’ investigation into several allegations made against him in recent months. “Look at who the independent investigators are,” Cuomo said today at a press event at Yankee Stadium, referring to the outside attorneys James hired for the probe. “Do a little history, go to Google ... and tell me what you see.” — U.S. to maintain travel restrictions, citing Delta variant: The White House said today that the U.S. will maintain its current travel restrictions, citing the Delta variant and the rise in cases driven by the highly infectious form of the coronavirus. “Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home — particularly among those who are unvaccinated — and appear likely to continue in the weeks ahead,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in explaining the decision to keep the border controls in place.   SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.     AROUND THE WORLD THE SPIN OUT OF TIANJIN — China shows no sign of toning down its harsh rhetoric with the U.S. during the visit of Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who today held “frank and open” talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and one of his deputies in the Chinese city of Tianjin. Underscoring an increasingly adversarial relationship between the world’s two richest superpowers, Chinese officials accused the U.S. of “coercive diplomacy,” questioned the moral high ground with which the U.S. has mustered a coalition of international partners against it and warned the U.S. to stop meddling in Taiwan or Xinjiang issues. They also presented Sherman with two lists of action — the lists included revoking sanctions on Communist Party officials, lifting visa bans for students, making life easier for state-affiliated journalists and reopening the door for Confucius Institutes — in the hope that Washington, D.C., will follow through. “The U.S. side is in no position to lecture China on democracy and human rights,” Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng told Sherman, adding that the U.S. was once “engaged in genocide against Native Americans.” China has not yet released details of Wang’s meeting with Sherman, which took place in a hotel compound modeled on millenia-old Chinese architecture in Tianjin, a coastal city not far from Beijing. U.S. attempts to separate climate change cooperation from economic competition or human rights criticisms wouldn’t work, according to Chinese officials. NIGHTLY NUMBER 340,000 The approximate number of New York City employees who will have to be vaccinated by Sept. 13 or face weekly tests afterward. They will join the at least 238,000 state employees and at least 2 million health care workers in California who will fall under a vaccine requirement next month, along with the 115,000 VA health care workers who will be mandated to take the vaccine. (h/t Taylor Miller Thomas)   SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.     PARTING IMAGE Whitney Curtis for POLITICO ‘WHAT’S COVID?’ — Patrons dance to live music on Saturday in the Lake of the Ozarks at Franky & Louie’s Beachfront Bar & Grill in Sunrise Beach, Mo. Vaccination rates in Missouri have remained low when compared to the rest of the nation as the Delta variant continues to spread through the state. Read Natasha Korecki’s dispatch on the scene at the nation’s hardest-partying lake, coming Tuesday morning in POLITICO. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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