Eminem sticks it to NFL at Super Bowl

 

Today's Top Stories:

Eminem sticks it to NFL in Super Bowl halftime show
Marshall Mathers took a knee in solidarity with banished quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s stance against racism and police violence during a bombastic, hip hop throwback performance.

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Jim Jordan: Trump "right on target" to suggest executions for Clinton campaign aides
The congressman from Ohio dropped in on Fox & Friends over the weekend for a wee bit of inflammatory rabble-rousing.

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BOMBSHELL: Democrats score HUGE win ahead of midterms
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: WOW.

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On Parkland anniversary, Biden urges Congress on gun control
Four years after 17 people were gunned down at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, President Biden says his administration stands with the advocates working to end gun violence and urges the nation to uphold the "solemn obligation" to "keep each other safe."

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Bridge linking US and Canada reopens after police remove last protesters
The Ambassador Bridge, the busiest land border crossing between the US and Canada, reopened late Sunday after police cleared and arrested a lingering group of protesters demonstrating against COVID vaccine mandates.

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Rudy Giuliani reportedly in talks to testify before 1/6 committee
Rudy was subpoenaed by the committee last month along with three Trump attorneys involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election: Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Boris Epshteyn.

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DeSantis digs in on redistricting fight... against fellow Republicans
Republicans in the Florida House and Senate have proposed a map that would largely preserve the political status quo, while DeSantis wants to break up a Democratic-leaning district to dilute the African-American vote.

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Ron Johnson under fire for throwing Wisconsin kids to the wolves
United Rural Democrats: Wisconsin is waking up to the horrors of their Republican senator, but we all need to do our part to flip this Senate seat blue!

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John Eastman claims attorney-client privilege over thousands of pages sought by 1/6 investigators
Eastman, a close ally of Donald Trump amid his effort to subvert the 2020 election, has attempted to shield more than 10,000 pages of emails and counting from congressional investigators, citing attorney client or attorney work-product privileges.

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Melania Trump charity event for foster kids under investigation for potential fundraising violations
Say what you will, but this family is never not on brand.

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Donald Trump used a Secret Service agent's phone to call Melania Trump after the Stormy Daniels allegations broke
The former first lady apparently was refusing calls from the disgraced ex-president's personal phone, so he, uh, called an audible.

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Biden calls out lack of Black head coaches in NFL in Super Bowl interview
"It’s not a requirement of law, but it’s a requirement, I think, of just some generic decency," the president said.

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Seriously?

Elite Canadian soldiers took part in convoy protests

11 injured in random stabbing spree in Albuquerque

Flight attendant subdues unruly passenger with coffee pot blows

Russian cleared to skate at Olympics, but medals will be withheld

Yes. Seriously.

130,000 Russian troops now staged outside Ukraine

US halts avocado imports from Mexico after cartel threat

Hong Kong 'overwhelmed' as COVID infections hit record

Hope...

Detroit getting EV-charging road to power vehicles wirelessly

Team Fluff wins 2022 Puppy Bowl

Basic income pilot program expands access to immigrant families

Erin Jackson 1st Black woman to win Olympic speed skating gold

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Good news for the biggest unvaxxed group

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM With help from Tyler Weyant Two girls read a book together during a lesson at a school in Louisville, Ky. | Jon Cherry/Getty Images THE WHEELS ON THE BUS COME OFF AND OFF — As I type this, I am silently praying that my 2-year-old, asleep in the next room, doesn’t wake up from his midday nap. He’s home from day care because, for the second time in less than three weeks, another child in his classroom tested positive for Covid. That triggered a mandatory five-day quarantine period for the entire group, per the latest CDC guidelines. Before this past month, during almost two years of a pandemic, neither of my kids had to quarantine — not even during the early days, when childcare providers didn’t have access to vaccines nor when Delta swept through the country. There were relatively few Covid cases in their day care and none in their classrooms. Then Omicron came along. Now my 2-year-old has spent a good part of his January mornings watching “ The Stinky & Dirty Show” at home on the sofa. The under-5 set is the biggest group of people not yet eligible for a vaccine — at least not for another few weeks. Pfizer and BioNTech asked the FDA today to authorize a vaccine for kids from six months to 5 years old. But the immune response in clinical trials has been lackluster. If approval comes, it would still take months before this group would be considered fully vaccinated. Until then, Covid protocols for the under-5 set are proving to be the trickiest terrain yet in the pandemic. CDC protocols for my sons are still stricter than those for older kids even though risks are generally lower. “What the U.S. preschoolers went through this winter was hell,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist from the University of California, San Francisco, about early childhood centers shutting down during the Omicron surge. About a dozen states have moved to a test-to-stay approach for elementary schools and high schools, following the CDC guidance for school-age children, which allows K-12 students to stay in schools after exposure as long as they test negative. Massachusetts is rolling out test-to-stay for child care centers , too, but in most states early childhood centers are on their own to procure tests and navigate guidance. A vaccine for younger kids might lead more states to change their guidance. With vaccines not yet available, it’s been harder to design Covid rules for younger kids, said Ibukun Kalu, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Duke University Medical Center. Test-to-stay works in the K-12 setting, she said, and it could work in day cares and preschools, with the caveats that toddlers aren’t exactly the most diligent maskers. In any case, flexibility is key. “We do not want our youngest children bearing the burden of society as they are trying to grow up,” Kalu said. The pandemic protocols for day care are far stricter than what is required for other dangerous and scary respiratory illnesses, said C. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “For influenza or RSV, we know that we are sending them back to day care with virus in their nose,” Creech said. “We have done that for every single respiratory virus, even those with devastating effects.” Our day care doesn’t quarantine a class if a kid has a runny nose or fever, but tests negative for Covid. They are allowed to come back once they are fever free for 24 hours. And as long as hospital systems and health care providers continue to be overwhelmed with Covid cases, these stricter protocols still make sense, Creech said. Younger kids can be a source of asymptomatic spread to vulnerable adults, even though they aren’t really a huge risk to one another. “I have not yet admitted a classroom of preschoolers that all got Covid,” Creech said. But Gandhi argues that young kids should be allowed to stay in their classes if they show no Covid symptoms, just like they do with other illnesses. Even a test-to-stay strategy would be expensive and burdensome, she argues. Vaccines are available to protect teachers and older adults. The CDC changed its guidance on kids older than 5 even though vaccine uptake among the group is low, she points out. Less than 20 percent of U.S. kids aged 5 to 11 have been fully vaccinated, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation review of federal data. “It doesn’t change anything to keep a two-year-old at home,” Gandhi said, meaning that closing day care centers when young kids test positive isn’t going to make a dent in the pandemic trajectory. Well, it may not make a dent in El Paso case counts, but it certainly upended our lives this week. At some point this afternoon, our 2-year-old did wake up. We had lunch together and then my mother-in-law came back for the second time today to watch him. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @RenuRayasam. WHAT'D I MISS? — New Mexico’s Luján suffers stroke: Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) suffered a stroke last Thursday while home in New Mexico , according to his chief of staff Carlos Sanchez. He then “underwent decompressive surgery to ease swelling” but is resting comfortably and expected to make a full recovery. — Former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones to help guide Biden’s SCOTUS nominee through Senate: Former Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) has been tapped to help guide President Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee through the confirmation process, according to a source familiar with the matter. “We intend to have that team in place before the president makes that [Supreme Court] selection,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during her press briefing. “And it won’t just be one person.” Jones served in the Senate from 2018 to 2021 and is now a political commentator for CNN. — DeSantis asks Florida supreme court to weigh in on congressional map: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in another sign that he may veto a new congressional map being drawn by the state Legislature, asked the state’s highest court today to tell him whether or not a 200-mile congressional district linking Black neighborhoods must be kept intact. DeSantis recently submitted his own proposed map that throws out the district now held by Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat from Tallahassee. — Wray denies FBI tougher on Jan. 6 than 2020 protests: FBI Director Christopher Wray is rejecting claims that his agency’s aggressive investigation of the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 contrasts with a lackluster response to violence and unrest that accompanied some Black Lives Matter protests across the country during the spring and summer of 2020. Speaking in California, Wray offered his most detailed public rebuttal yet to critiques of the bureau put forward in recent months by some Republican lawmakers and other allies of former President Donald Trump, as well as attorneys for those charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot. — Cawthorn sues N.C. election board over reelection challenge: Rep. Madison Cawthorn is suing members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections who allege that he is ineligible for reelection because his involvement at a Jan. 6, 2021, White House rally that “amounted to an insurrection.” Cawthorn (R-N.C.), who filed for candidacy in the state’s 13th Congressional District last month, spoke at a rally on Jan. 6 in front of the White House before rioters stormed the Capitol. Trump, whose speech headlined that rally, urged attendees to march on the Capitol, told them to “be strong” and said that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness.” FROM THE EDUCATION DESK An entrance sign near the main gate at Howard University. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images ‘A MIX OF FEAR AND CONFUSION’ — Nightly deputy editor Tyler Weyant emails: For the second day this week, and the third time in 2022, historically Black colleges and universities across the country were subject to bomb threats. More than a dozen HBCUs received threats today, after at least six received threatening messages Monday. At many schools, classes were canceled and students and staff sheltered in place until given the all-clear from authorities. The FBI, in a statement, said the agency “is aware of the series of bomb threats around the country and we are working with our law enforcement partners to address any potential threats.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also involved. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met last week with more than 40 HBCU presidents on campus safety and security following a series of bomb threats. The incidents have created a tense atmosphere on HBCU campuses, said Ivory Toldson, a Howard University professor and Obama-era executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. “There’s a mix of fear and confusion, but knowing that, we have to make sure that we stay strong ourselves through it,” he said. “We all know that domestic terrorism is real and that there there are people out there with different capacities,” Toldson said. “You just never know. You always have that threat looming in the back of your mind that, what if this really is real, what if it is being orchestrated by people who can actually pull it off. So it’s a real fear.” Toldson also said that the added expense of sweeping campuses due to these threats could be a “pretty heavy burden for a lot of HBCUs,” a concern that was echoed by House Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). “This rash of threats against HBCUs put further strain on campuses and communities that were already under great stress, as they try to operate safely during the pandemic,” Thompson said in a statement. AROUND THE WORLD PUTIN STEPS TO THE MIC — Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of “ignoring” his security demands in a written document delivered to Moscow last week, but he appeared open to continuing talks with Washington and its allies aimed at resolving the worsening security crisis on the Russia-Ukraine border, Quint Forgey writes. Appearing at a joint news conference in Moscow with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Putin said Russian officials had “analyzed the response given in writing” by the United States, “but now, it’s already clear … that Russian concerns were basically ignored.” “We didn’t see an adequate response to our key concerns: non-expanse of NATO, the refusal to deploy [an] offensive weapon next to the Russian borders and bringing back the military infrastructure of the alliance to the status quo of 1997, when the Russia-NATO treaty was signed,” Putin said. In his first public remarks on the U.S. written response, Putin fiercely attacked the United States, claiming that U.S. officials “don’t care that much about Ukrainian security” and are merely using Ukraine as a “tool” to “hinder the development of Russia.” Still, Putin sounded somewhat optimistic about the potential for a diplomatic outcome to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, saying, “I hope that eventually we will find a solution, even though it’s not going to be easy. We understand that. But I’m not ready to talk [about] what kind of solution it will be.” NIGHTLY NUMBER $30,012,386,059,238.29 The United States’ total public debt outstanding as of Monday, according to Treasury Department data. This is the first time the national debt has topped $30 trillion. PARTING WORDS Decorations for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics are seen on a road. | Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images AN OLYMPIC PRELIM — Join our colleague and China Watcher author Phelim Kine on Wednesday at 9 a.m. Eastern (10 p.m. Beijing) for a Twitter Spaces event where he and a panel will take your questions and dig into the key issues roiling the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Panelists include Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the co-chair of the Congressional Executive Committee on China; Sophie Richardson, China director, Human Rights Watch; Noah Hoffman, U.S. winter Olympian and a board member of Global Athlete; and Melissa Chan, a contributor for Global Reporting Center.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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