Biden says 'no time to waste' on COVID relief bill

He made brief remarks Saturday after the House passed the legislation.

This is Day 40 of the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.


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Blinken calls for reform in remarks to UN human rights council

In pre-taped remarks, Biden's new Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered his first address to the U.N. Human Rights Council since the U.S. moved to rejoin as an observer. Blinken said the U.S. will seek full-time membership for the 2022 term.

In his remarks, Blinken called for reform of the council, including members with anti-Israel bias and members that "undermine" human rights. He even called out a few countries by name, including Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China -- all members. Blinken also noted America’s imperfect human rights record, citing discrimination and violence toward Black, indigenous and Asian Americans.

"I recognize that any pledge to fight for human rights around the world must begin with a pledge to fight for human rights at home," Blinken said. "People of color in the United States deal every day with the consequences of systemic racism and economic injustice."

-ABC News' Conor Finnegan and Chad Murray


Biden, lawmakers to tackle supply chain in meeting

The president will hold a bipartisan meeting to discuss U.S. supply chains with House and Senate members in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon. Biden will later sign an executive order on the economy with Harris in attendance.

The order is expected to mandate a 100-day review of critical product supply chains in the U.S. focused on those for computer chips, large capacity batteries, active pharmaceutical ingredients and critical minerals and strategic materials, including rare earth minerals. The order is part of the administration's effort to secure domestic supply chains in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that highlighted vulnerabilities that currently exist.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle


Trump's role in Jan. 6 siege looms over business of Washington: The Note

The first of what will be many congressional hearings on the Capitol siege revealed how much is still not known about what happened Jan. 6 -- even after an impeachment trial, evidence unearthed in scores of prosecutions and countless hours of videos of the attack itself. Perhaps the most obvious blind spot is what former President Donald Trump knew and what he did about it in real-time.

Tuesday's hearing raised a series of questions that directly involve the previous administration. Current and former law-enforcement officials aren't sure why FBI intelligence didn't make its way to the Capitol Police or why National Guard and Pentagon resources weren't faster to arrive when it became clear how awful the situation was.

Judge Merrick Garland plans to make Jan. 6 investigations his first priority after he becomes attorney general. And even with additional hearings Wednesday, Thursday and beyond, the concept of a bipartisan commission to investigate the events leading up to and during the siege is gaining traction on Capitol Hill.
Many of the most consequential questions rest with Trump -- assuming he is put in a position of having to answer them.

-ABC News Political Director Rick Klein


Tanden nomination delayed amid criticism

Biden's pick for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, was supposed to testify before the Senate Budget Committee Wednesday morning, however the committee postponed Tanden's confirmation hearing, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

In addition, a vote on the nomination in the Senate Homeland Security Committee has also been postponed, a spokesperson told ABC News that the delay was because, "members need more time to consider the nominee."

Moments after news broke that two Senate committees postponed their votes on Tanden's nomination, White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended Tanden in a Twitter thread, making clear the White House is standing by their nominee.

"Neera Tanden is a leading policy expert who brings critical qualifications to the table during this time of unprecedented crisis. She also has important perspective and values, understanding firsthand the powerful difference policy can make in the lives of those going through hard times," Psaki tweeted.

The nomination has been in trouble since lawmakers became critical of Tanden’s combative tweets aimed at Republicans and her effort to delete them before her nomination. Her nomination was in danger of being derailed when moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced his opposition to her nomination, citing her temperament.

-ABC News' Trish Turner, Molly Nagle, Katherine Faulders and Sarah Kolinovsky


Jan. 6 was 'most heinous attack,' Garland says

Garland described the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol as "the most heinous attack on the democratic processes I have ever seen and one I never expected to see in my lifetime." He added he will make sure to provide career prosecutors all the resources they need to carry out their investigations while also taking a broader look at the symptoms behind the country's domestic extremism problem.

Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whether the president "has the absolute right to do what he wants with the Justice Department," Garland said presidents are "constrained by the Constitution as are all government officials" and cited comments by Biden committing to not interfere with Justice Department matters. At the same time, Garland said that the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch and because of that, on policy matters they do "follow the lead of the president and the administration as long as it is consistent with the law." When asked who an attorney general represents when his interests conflict with the president's, Garland said the attorney general "represents the public interest, particularly and specifically as defined by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States."

Asked whether the president can order an attorney general to open or close an investigation, Garland said such a question was a hard one for constitutional law but that he did not expect it to be a question for himself given President Biden's statements assuring independence for the department.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., took a contentious tone with Garland in his line of questioning as he pressed him on multiple topics. At one point, when Graham asked Garland whether he thought former FBI Director Comey was a good FBI director, Garland declined to answer, which Graham said he found "stunning" because he thought Comey was terrible. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., pressed Garland on whether he would commit to investigating not only the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, but those "upstream" like the funders, organizers, ringleaders or others not actually at the Capitol.  Garland cited his past experience as a line prosecutor, noting "we begin with the people on the ground and we work our way up to those who are involved and further involved -- and we will pursue these leads wherever they take us."

Asked about whether he would end the Trump Justice Department's policy of generally stonewalling in the face of oversight requests from Congress, Garland committed to Whitehouse that the department would be "as responsive as possible" to any requests and "at the very least why if it can't answer a question or can't answer a letter." Garland also committed that he would work with Whitehouse on getting answers to the committee on requests that the Justice Department under Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions previously ignored.

In an exchange with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Garland committed that his personal politics will have no impact on prosecutions and investigations he oversees as attorney general. Asked what he would do if he was ordered to do something that he considered to be unlawful, Garland said he would first tell the president or whoever else was asking him that what they were ordering was unlawful and would resign if no alternative was accepted.

Asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., what he will do to improve morale in the department, Garland said he would on his first day make an oath to career prosecutors and agents "that my job is to protect them from partisan or other improper motives." Klobuchar then asked Garland whether he believes he'd need "additional authorities" to combat the country's domestic terrorism problem. Garland said while the department "is probably always looking for new tools ... the first thing we have to do is figure out whether the tools that we have are sufficient."

-ABC News' Alexander Mallin