| | |  | BY MYAH WARD | | | 
The helicopter carrying New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo departs New York City after he announced his resignation. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images | THE CUOMO RESIGNATION LATEST — Three-term Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans this morning to resign. He faced growing pressure to leave or face impeachment over allegations that he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women. Here’s the latest reporting from POLITICO: — The next governor: From Marie French and Bill Mahoney: New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul spent the afternoon of Aug. 11, 2020, welcoming the Toronto Blue Jays to play in Buffalo where they were stranded by the pandemic. A year later, she’s poised to become New York’s first female governor. … Hochul will soon become the second recent lieutenant governor to assume the state’s top post after accusations of an incumbent's sexual misdeeds. (Eliot Spitzer quit in 2008 after reports that he was a client of a prostitution ring.) Hochul will hold the position for the remainder of Cuomo’s third term, which expires at the end of next year. — Cuomo’s fall from grace: From Shannon Young and Michelle Bocanegra: It’s a Shakespearean fall from grace for “America’s governor,” a man who had been widely discussed as a possible attorney general, vice presidential — or even presidential — contender. He drew widespread acclaim for his fireside chat-style pandemic briefings, which earned him an Emmy, a book deal and comparisons to a previous occupant of his Albany office: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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| — ‘Hell of a job’: Biden awkwardly praised Cuomo today when asked to assess the New York governor’s time in office just hours after Cuomo’s announcement. “He’s done a hell of a job,” Biden told reporters after taking a victory lap on the Senate’s passage of its $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill. “I mean, both on everything from access to voting to infrastructure to the whole range of things. That's why it’s so sad.” — ‘The tragedy of the Cuomos’: Kevin Baker writes in POLITICO Magazine: New York has had plenty of political dynasties in the past, going all the way back to the start of the Republic, and even before. The Livingstons, the o.g. Clintons (George and De Witt), the Hamiltons, Van Burens, Wagners, Roosevelts — and yes, even the Kennedys, through the transplanted Bobby. Almost always, these families were intent on grabbing for the big prize, down in Washington. As often as not, they did just that. Not so much the Cuomos, late of Hollis, Queens, who found their blue heaven not on the Potomac but the Hudson, in a sagging old river town. When the modern world broke in on that sanctuary — when the toxic privileges of ensconced power could be exposed to real public scrutiny — the family was done. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at mward@politico.com and on Twitter at @MyahWard.
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| | A message from AT&T: Accessible, affordable broadband helps communities reach their American Dream. That’s why AT&T is making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment toward helping close the digital divide, so more low-income families have the ability to succeed. Find out how. | | | | | THE NEXT COLLEGE CHEATING SCANDAL — I did a quick internet search on the Tor Browser the other morning to see how easy it would be to buy a fake vaccine card. In less than five minutes, I found a seller on Etsy. For $22.49, I could digitally download a blank Covid vaccination card. Sellers can be found on eBay and Amazon, too. The companies have tried to crack down in recent weeks, removing the fake listings. The counterfeit cards are popping up as businesses and governments begin to require proof of vaccination . New York City residents need a vaccine card to get into restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues. Workplaces are setting vaccine mandates for a return to the office. I have to submit a photo of my (real) vaccine card to POLITICO in the next couple of weeks to get into our newsroom. You may need proof of vaccination to travel or take a cruise. Filling out a fake card is illegal, yet clearly some have decided the risk is worth it to avoid the jab. And there’s one obvious population that is already well-known for knowing how to get fake IDs — and its members need to prove their vaccination status asap: College students.
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Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo | Perhaps for that reason, my alma mater, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, is not asking students to flash a vaccine card before they move into dorms later this week, despite outcries from professors who are calling for a university-wide vaccine mandate. Instead, students must self-report their vaccination status (this is how it works for federal workers, too). If a student decides not to disclose vaccination status or says they are unvaccinated, they’ll be subject to weekly Covid testing. College social life is a breeding ground for the Delta variant. UNC’s reopening with 30,000 students will be a test for whether voluntary self-reporting, along with standard Covid mitigation measures like masking and distancing, are sufficient for ensuring campus safety at a large university. If college-age students across the country were a state, they would rank in the middle of the pack for vaccinations: Just 44.9 percent of Americans 18-24 have had both shots, according to the CDC. Yet UNC students are self-reporting a much higher number, one that’s hard to believe is accurate: Of the 25,000 UNC students who have attested their vaccination status, 94 percent say they’ve received the shots. Benjamin Mason Meier, a professor of global health policy at UNC, has held office hours for students and parents to ask him Covid questions since the pandemic began. When he asked his students about the high percentage, “They laughed nervously,” Meier said. “They know that a number of these vaccine declarations are fraudulent. These students know how to purchase fake vaccine cards, and they know students who have submitted these fake vaccine cards to the university,” Meier said. “This is not a problem that’s unique to UNC, right? It’s going to cut across all American universities.” The fake vax card problem is anticipated to be big enough that another UNC global health professor, Kurt Ribisl, is studying it. He and his fellow researchers are also looking at several “quack cures” and vaccines for sale on the dark web, as well as payment methods like cryptocurrencies. Ribisl said the team will submit its findings to a journal in September. In Chapel Hill, at least, students are likely to save their $23. They can fill out the university’s vaccine certification form, and enter the date of inoculation and the vaccine they received. A photo of a vaccine card is optional. “Why have we created a system that allows students to submit fraudulent information, and has no consequences, or even an attestation that what they’re submitting is true?” Meier said. “If any student isn’t telling the truth, that puts the entire campus at risk.” The university threatened “disciplinary action” this week as reports of the fake cards circulated, saying it would audit the attestations on a “regular basis.” Meier called it a “vague threat,” and worries it’s just a statement without action. The problems for implementing a verification system begin at the federal level, trickling down to state and university governance, Meier said. “Unlike most countries that have electronic reporting systems and medical records, the United States is relying on these flimsy CDC cards with handwritten notes on them, to indicate vaccination at the state level. … And those state databases aren’t being shared with those who can confirm vaccination,” Meier said.
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| THE POWER OF 10 — Moments before he blessed their bipartisan infrastructure agreement, Biden made a critical promise to five GOP senators he’d gathered in the Oval Office. On that sunny June afternoon, sitting with the five Republicans and their five Democratic negotiating partners, Biden assured them that he wouldn’t endorse their deal and then later attach new physical infrastructure they didn’t agree onto another bill. Referring to the legislative brute force his party wields thanks to its full control of Washington, the president told the GOP senators in the room: “I won’t add something back in reconciliation that you guys didn’t do.” Without Biden’s pledge not to pull a fast one, said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), “we probably would be dead in the water.” “We would not have gotten the support of our colleagues, including Mitch McConnell,” Romney said. “If we had the extensive negotiations and agreed on a number, and then he just came back and doubled the number? … It would have made the whole process irrelevant.” Biden’s promise will be tested in the weeks ahead as Democrats negotiate that larger spending bill: It’s set to include money for transportation and infrastructure that the party could, in theory, use to build on the bipartisan group’s work, Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine write. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Biden had pledged not to “double dip” on the group’s working, so he’ll be watching Democrats closely to see whether they violate their agreement. The president’s vow proved a steady rail for the tumultuous negotiations that went on for months and appeared hopelessly stalled at least a half-dozen times — all the way up until the last minute. The bill passed the Senate today after taking more than a month to journey from bullet points to legislation, an achievement both for Biden and the bipartisan gang of 10 senators who took the lead on investing $550 billion in new spending into roads, bridges, broadband and ports.
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| | | | | — Broward County defies DeSantis: Schools in Florida’s second largest district will require all students to wear masks when classes begin next week in what is the boldest move a local board has taken yet against Gov. Ron DeSantis’ opposition to face covering policies. Broward’s school board voted 8-1 today to keep its student mask mandate in place — one day after the state education commissioner threatened to dock the pay of local superintendents and board members who refuse to make face coverings optional. — Dominion lodges suits against OAN, Newsmax, ex-Overstock CEO: Dominion Voting Systems opened up another front this week in its battle against right-wing attacks on its name and the integrity of its technology, filing suits against two conservative media outlets and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne . In the suits, Dominion accused Byrne, Newsmax and One America News Network of making defamatory claims against the company and spreading baseless allegations that its machines were used to rig the election for now-President Biden. — Kind won’t seek reelection in Wisconsin: Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), a senior Democrat in one of the most competitive swing seats, will not seek reelection — a gutting blow to House Democrats in their uphill battle to hang onto their majority next November. — Trump asked his AG about legal strategy to overturn election, Rosen tells senators: Donald Trump asked the country’s top legal official in late December about a conspiratorial draft complaint aimed at overturning the 2020 election results, according to a previously unreported account of Trump’s phone call with former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. Rosen persuaded Trump the lawsuit wasn’t a good idea, he told Senate investigators last weekend, two sources familiar with his testimony said. The previously unreported details underscore how hard DOJ lawyers worked to shoot down the increasingly harebrained legal strategies that reached the president’s desk. — GOP megadonors flock to Tim Scott, building 2024 buzz: The South Carolina senator has quietly become a powerhouse fundraiser and a major force within the Republican Party . Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, has seen his profile rise since delivering the party’s response to Biden’s joint address to Congress in April and is developing a network of small- and large-dollar donors that spans his party’s ideological spectrum, helping him far outraise Senate colleagues this year.
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| | 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. | | | | | | | MEDIA LAW SPURS CRISIS IN POLAND — Poland’s ruling nationalist coalition collapsed today after Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki fired the leader of a smaller partner party over disagreements on tax policy and a controversial media law that’s set off a fight with the United States. The fracturing comes a day ahead of a key parliamentary vote on a law that would bar companies from beyond the European Economic Area from owning a majority stake in Polish media companies. Critics say this is largely aimed at the popular TVN broadcaster, owned by Discovery of the U.S., which irritates the government with its independent news coverage. Thousands of protesters took to the streets this evening to demonstrate against the bill, complaining it endangers press freedom. The White House has made clear its displeasure at the legislation, which would undermine one of the largest U.S. investments in Poland as well as attack media freedom at a time when Biden is trying to consolidate democratic countries to face off against threats from Russia and China. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators issued a warning last week. “Any decision to implement these laws could have negative implications for defense, business and trade relations,” said their joint statement. “We urge the Polish government to pause before acting on any measure that would impact our longstanding relationship.”
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| | | AUSTIN POWERS — A Nightly preview of Renuka Rayasam’s profile of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, coming Wednesday in POLITICO Magazine: In a state with no lack of lively, crowd-winning politicians, Abbott, 63, has all but cleared the field for an election that doesn’t happen until November 2022. Without the national profile of his other red-state counterparts like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, without a distinct policy platform and with near-constant pressure from Texas’ conservative base to shift further right, Abbott — who has never lost an election — seems like a shoo-in for a third term. He has raised $55 million, the largest sum ever for a statewide candidate in Texas, and he has earned Trump’s endorsement — all before officially announcing he’s running. At the moment, no competitive Democratic challenger has emerged — though the sheer amount of chatter parsing actor Matthew McConaughey’s mixed signals about a gubernatorial run indicate there’s an appetite for someone, anyone, to stir things up. What explains Abbott’s grip on power in the country’s biggest red state? In conversations with dozens of current and former aides, political operatives, lobbyists and pundits over recent months, the answer that emerged was less about the sober-mannered version of Abbott that most Texans know from his TV appearances during hurricanes, winter storms or the pandemic, which has emerged yet again as a political flashpoint. Instead, it was about the version of Abbott these sources see behind the scenes: a former Texas Supreme Court justice and attorney general who has learned to adapt to Texas’ changing Republican electorate and anticipate potential political threats. In a state that has a history of larger-than-life political characters, the two-term Texas governor is a ruthless backstage operator, taking no uncalculated risks, figuring out how to keep donors happy and lawmakers in line, deflecting blame for crises, maintaining a massive field operation and maneuvering among the state’s disparate GOP factions. “He’s not charismatic to the same heights as Perry and Bush were,” Republican pollster Derek Ryan says of Abbott. “I think that has been part of his success.”
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