House expected to pass COVID relief bill next week

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told ABC News' Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce at a Wednesday afternoon briefing that the White House does not yet have a timeline for a return to normalcy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We want to be straight with the American public, though," Psaki said. "We are not in a place where we can predict exactly when everybody will feel normal again.”

Bruce noted White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci had suggested a sense of normalcy could come in the fall but his estimate has been sliding back to early next year, while Biden cited Christmas during a town hall in Madison, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night.

“Even though we will have enough doses for every person in this country, as you all know, because we've talked about it in here, vaccine hesitancy remains a challenge. We need to ensure that everybody who can get a dose is getting a dose. We’ll also need to be masking for some time. We will also need to be still taking social distancing measures. And I think the president wants things to return to normal, as we all do. But we don't know at this point what that timeline is going to look like,” Psaki said.

Psaki also tried to clarify mixed messages about whether the White House takes the position that teachers must be vaccinated before returning to in-person instruction, saying multiple times the White House does, in fact, agree with the CDC guidelines that vaccinations are not a prerequisite for teachers to come back to classrooms -- but stressing that they should be prioritized.

Bruce asked Psaki whether the White House is urging states to put teachers at the front of the line. 

“Absolutely, it's something he said in a nationally televised town hall meeting last night and something that he will continue to communicate at every opportunity. And I think what I was conveying, just for full clarity, is that it’s a recommendation, it’s a number, one of many mitigation steps, but the CDC guidelines are guidelines. They're not requirements. At the same time the president, and the vice president, they believe teachers should be prioritized, and in many states, they are,” Psaki said.

Another reporter then asked Psaki whether the federal government can mandate teachers get priority for vaccines that the federal government is distributing to the states.

“That’s not how the process has worked and I don't anticipate that's how it will be moving forward,” Psaki said.

-ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky

Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies, gave an update during Tuesday's White House press briefing on the SolarWinds hack, saying those responsible were “likely of Russian origin,” that it was “launched from inside the United States” and that it could take “several months” to complete the investigation.

She said that as of Wednesday, "nine federal agencies and about 100 private sector companies were compromised.” 

“The techniques that were used lead us to believe that any files or emails on a compromised network were likely to be compromised…The actor was a sophisticated, advanced persistent threat. Advanced, because the level of knowledge they showed about the technology and the way they compromised it truly was sophisticated. Persistent, they focused on the identity part of the network, which is the hardest to clean up." Neuberger said. "And threat, the scope and scale to networks, to information makes this more than an isolated case of espionage.” 

Neuberger said that this was a “sophisticated actor” who is believed to have taken “months to plan and execute” the attack.

When asked by ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce if there is a price tag to the total cost of damage to the U.S. government, Neuberger broke it down into two parts: investments in infrastructure and the “scale of the information that was potentially compromised.”

“One is it's really highlighted the investments we need to make in cybersecurity to have the visibility to block these attacks in the future. And then the second is the scale of the information that was potentially compromised and the impact of how that information could be used in the hands of a malicious actor. So it's -- there's certainly a cost with regard to dollars," Neuberger said. "It's also a cost with regard to national security, and we're bounding and understanding both.”

Bruce also asked if it could potentially take years to try to secure some networks going forward, but Neuberger was quick to say “we certainly don’t have years.”

“It's wise when planning in cybersecurity to consider the worst case, particularly when you're dealing with such a sophisticated attacker in that way, so we know we don't have years, and the remediation, the fix and cleanup work is underway already," Neuberger said. "And we'll be doing it in a careful way to ensure that we lock down layer by layer, but we know it's going to be a lot shorter than that.”

-ABC News' Justin Gomez

Biden has nominated Jennifer Abruzzo as the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), according to the White House.

"The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the U.S. government that works to enforce, advance, and protect fair labor practices across the country," a White House statement says.

Abruzzo serves as special counsel for Strategic Initiatives for the Communications Workers of America (CWA). She previously served as acting general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), according to the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., issued a joint statement Wednesday urging Biden to cancel $50,000 in student debt.

"An ocean of student loan debt is holding back 43 million borrowers and disproportionately weighing down Black and Brown Americans," the statement says.

This push comes as the House held a hearing earlier Wednesday on reparations for Black Americans and after Biden said in a town hall Tuesday night that he would not cancel $50,000 in student debt.

"I will not make that happen," Biden said after a member of the audience said his proposal to cancel $10,000 per borrower doesn't go far enough.

Biden did say community college should be free, as should state school education for families making less than $125,000. He also expressed support for repaying debt as a portion of one’s salary.

“Presidents Obama and Trump used their executive authority to cancel student loan debt," the joint statement says. "The Biden administration has said it is reviewing options for cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt by executive action, and we are confident they will agree with the standards Obama and Trump used as well as leading legal experts who have concluded that the administration has broad authority to immediately deliver much-needed relief to millions of Americans."

-ABC News' Mariam Khan and Justin Gomez