Despite the Senate quickly removing the controversial $15 federal minimum wage hike passed in the House version of the latest COVID stimulus bill, Republican lawmakers are still speaking out against other items included in the plan as Senate Democrats rush to finalize their version of the bill.
For Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla. 3rd District), the price tag, which includes checks for qualified Americans, is too high.
"As far as the stimulus, that is a temporary solution and, again, it just adds to the further debt that our nation is in. For us, as millennials, this is killer because this is on our shoulders. The generations before us, they're not going to have to deal with these problems of sequestration," she told Cheddar. "It's millennials and Gen Zs that are really footing the bill for this."
At 33 years old, Cammack is currently one of the youngest members serving in the House.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, Cammack said approving another trillion-dollar spending bill would be irresponsible, in part, because funds from previous relief bills still have not been allocated.
The cost of the COVID relief bill was not the only concern for Cammack, however. The Florida congresswoman described other measures in the bill as a "wish list of projects" that Democrats are trying to push through.
"It has nothing to do with rescuing America from this pandemic. It had nothing to do with COVID relief," she alleged. Cammack stressed the need to get vaccines for Americans interested in receiving it and reopening schools.
"What does an underground tunnel in Silicon Valley have to do with COVID relief? What does a bridge in New York have to do with COVID relief? This was just some of the garbage that was tucked into this bill," she protested.
While a new poll from Morning Consult and Politico showed more than 70 percent of voters -- including more than half of GOP voters -- support the bill as it stands, Cammack said her party isn't worried about efforts to strike down the relief plan backfiring.
"The previous bills in 2020 under President Trump were all bipartisan. There was Republican and Democrat support. In this bill that Nancy Pelosi just pushed through last week — actually at 2:30 in the morning — that not only had every single Republican vote against it but members of her own caucus," she said.
Terrell Jermaine Starr, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and host of the Black Diplomats podcast joins Cheddar News to discuss Russia's attempt to invade Ukraine.
With an increasing number of teachers and staff calling out sick by the day, the state of Oklahoma is turning to an unusual solution. Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has issued an executive order that permits state employees to work as substitute teachers. Shaily Baranwal, founder and CEO of Elevate K-12, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the stance of the U.S. and its allies should Russia make any forays into Ukraine, a seeming response to President Biden's remarks that should Putin engage in something short of a full invasion, there might be some indecision among allied nations regarding what to do. Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the think tank Atlantic Council, joined Cheddar to discuss the difficulty faced by Blinken wrangling unity as tensions run high in the region. "There'll be a smaller incursion, and the president implied, there'll be a weaker response because our European allies have created this horrible situation where they are dependent on Moscow for their gas supply," Cohen explained.
During a nearly two-hour press conference on Wednesday, President Biden spoke on his accomplishments and challenges from the first year of his presidency, and what his administration hopes to accomplish in the coming year. However, his approval ratings are underwater as COVID remains a big concern for voters — as does inflation, noted Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of polling aggregator RealClearPolitics. "The public thinks [inflation] is priority number one, and the administration is concerned about it, they talk about it, but they're not spending enough time on it as far as the public is concerned," said Bevan.
The drama surrounding tennis star Novak Djokovic continues after he was deported from Australia over the weekend due to the nation's COVID-19 vaccine requirements. Djokovic was forced to leave the country on the eve of what was to be his first match in defense of his Australian Open title after three judges ruled in favor of his removal and revealed their reasoning for doing so. Adding to his woes, a law recently passed in France is putting his chances of defending his French Open title in jeopardy. The director of Marist's Center for Sports Communication, Jane McManus, joined Cheddar to discuss the ongoing fallout.
As the midterm elections get ever closer, candidates have been getting creative with their campaigns to stick out and to connect with voters. Gary Chambers, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana, has definitely attracted attention with an advertisement featuring him smoking a blunt, making a point about the inequity of anti-cannabis laws. "We wanted to bring the seriousness of the moment," he said of the ad. "But we also wanted to make sure that people understand that there are 19 states that are legal right now but Black people and brown people are being over-incarcerated in mostly Southern and Midwestern states in America for cannabis possession."
If some members of Congress have their way, there might finally be a 'TLDR' on sites' terms of service, introduced by the terms-of-service labeling, design, and readability act – or TLDR for short. With this act, users will actually understand what they're agreeing to or the many ways in which their data is being used before pressing 'accept.' J.D. sat down with co-sponsor of the bill and Senator Bill Cassidy, to discuss.
President Joe Biden's first year in office is wrapping up. What has he achieved, and what else remains on the table while the Democrats have control of Washington? Amid an ongoing pandemic and rising inflation, Biden's approval rating is at an all-time low and his party is plagued by infighting. Will he be able to continue pushing key parts of his agenda? Paul Glastris, former Bill Clinton speechwriter & Editor-in-chief of 'Washington Monthly,' joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the president's achievements in his first year, where he's fallen short, and what he must do in order to get more of his agenda signed into law.
Tech giants Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple are faced with a bipartisan antitrust legislation effort underway in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The companies stand accused of promoting their own goods and services over smaller competitors on their platforms, holding too much monopolistic power via their app stores and services. Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a technology industry trade group, joined Cheddar to argue that the bills that are being debated currently could end up hurting consumers, rather than helping.
