Biden says he's "not sure" about voting bills' future after Sinema reiterates opposition to rule change
CBSN
President Biden met Thursday afternoon with Senate Democrats, saying "as long as I'm in the White House ... I'm going to be fighting for these bills," hours after Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of two Senate Democrats known to oppose changes to Senate rules, said Thursday on the Senate floor that she will not change her position.
Her remarks come moments ahead of Mr. Biden's lunchtime meeting with Senate Democrats in which he encouraged lawmakers to overhaul Senate rules to allow the voting bills to pass with a simple majority, rather than 60 votes. Following that meeting, the president told reporters he hopes they can pass the legislation but he's "not certain" they can.
"Like every other major civil rights bill that came along, if we missed the first time, we could come back and try it a second time. We missed this time. We missed this time," he said. "... I don't know that we can get it done, but I know one thing: As long as I have a breath in me, as long as I am in the White House, as long as I'm engaged at all, I'm gonna' be fighting to change the way these legislatures have moved."
When it comes to handling a pair of toddlers, Pete Buttigieg, the unflappable Secretary of Transportation, may appear a little jet-lagged. Pete and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, raise their two-year old twins, Penelope and Gus, in Traverse City, Michigan, where they recently moved full-time from Washington to be closer to family.
Growing up on 13th Avenue in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, in the 1940s and '50s, Anthony "Tony" Fauci was the precocious son of the corner pharmacist. "They called him Doc," he said. "The pharmacist back then served as the neighborhood psychiatrist, marriage counselor. So, it was serving the community."
Matt Katz is a lifelong Mets fan. Playing ball with his son, Reuben, is what Father's Day memories are made of. But growing up, Matt's experience of Father's Day was about as complicated as a triple play. "Did my birth father like baseball? Does he like baseball?" Katz asked. "And because I had for many years no contact with my birth father, I would wonder about little things like that."
A Missouri woman who spent more than 43 years in prison for a murder her attorneys argue was committed by a now-discredited police officer could soon be released after a judge overturned the conviction. If released, Sandra Hemme's prison term will mark the longest known wrongful conviction of a woman in U.S. history, her attorneys said.