Friday morning news - October 22, 2021

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Democrats tout progress on Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar spending proposal » The White House and Democrats are hurriedly reworking key aspects of President Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar spending plan hoping to pass a scaled-back version soon.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters …

PIERRE: A couple days ago, the president spent hours meeting with congressional members, and everyone basically said the same, which is there’s progress.

After two moderate Senate Democrats balked at the president’s $3.5 trillion dollar price tag, the White House began pushing a $2 trillion spending plan.

The reworked proposal scales back spending on social services and climate change programs while reworking the tax hikes that would help pay for the spending.

The White House is even floating an idea what would abandon plans for reversing the Trump-era tax rates in favor of an approach that would involve taxing the investment incomes of billionaires.

But House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said he’s not impressed by the proposed changes.

SCALISE: Whether it’s a trillion dollars, imagine what a trillion dollars in new taxes and spending would mean to families to families who are already facing high inflation and lower wages. They would be hit even harder with this bill.

Democrats plan to pass a spending bill without any Republican votes using reconciliation. But they can’t afford a single Democratic defection in the Senate.

Pfizer trial: Booster shots fully restore vaccine protection » Pfizer says new data suggest a booster shot of its COVID-19 vaccine restores protection against the virus to nearly 96 percent.

The company released results of a large study on Thursday, but the data is not yet peer reviewed. The trial tested 10,000 participants, 16 years of age and older. The median age of participants was 53.

Earlier data showed that the effectiveness of its two-shot vaccine diminishes over time. Protection starts at 96 percent and drops to about 84 percent after four months. That data gave rise to a push for boosters.

The FDA authorized Pfizer booster shots for higher risk Americans last month. And earlier this week, it gave the thumbs up to Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters.

Unemployment claims again fall to new pandemic low » The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits has once again fallen to a new pandemic low. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has details.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The Labor Dept. says new jobless claims dipped slightly last week to 290,000. That was the third straight drop and the fewest people to apply for benefits since March of last year.

Applications for jobless aid have fallen steadily from about 900,000 in January.

But even as unemployment claims begin to normalize, hiring has slowed in the past two months, despite a near-record number of open jobs.

The Labor Department's report Thursday also showed that the number of people receiving jobless aid continues to fall steadily. In the week of Oct. 2, 3.3 million people received unemployment benefits, down from 3.6 million in the previous week.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

House votes to hold Bannon in contempt » The House voted Thursday to hold former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena.

The committee investigating the January Capitol riot demanded that Bannon testify. But Bannon says he’s shielded from a subpoena by the Trump administration’s executive privilege though he left the White House years before the Capitol riot.

The vote split largely down party lines.

AUDIO: On this vote the yeas are 229. They nays are 202. The resolution is adopted.

Democrats voted “yes.” Republicans mostly opposed the measure.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the vote was bigger than Bannon and that it was in fact a vote to uphold the authority of Congress.

PELOSI: If in fact you want to negate the ability of a check of one branch of government over another then you are undermining the Constitution. So this goes beyond Bannon in terms of its importance.

But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy fired back …

MCCARTHY: Issuing invalid subpoenas weakens our power, not if somebody votes against it. He has the right to go to the court to see if he has executive privilege or not. I don’t know if he does or not but neither does the committee.

It will now be up to the Department of Justice to decide whether to bring charges against Bannon.

Trump launching company to compete with social media & tech giants » Former President Donald Trump announced this week that he’s launching a company to compete with social media platforms that have censored or blocked him. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has that story.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The new company is called the Trump Media & Technology Group.

The new venture said it had been created through a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., and seeks to become a publicly listed company.

Trump has spoken for months about launching his own social media site ever since major platforms such as Twitter and Facebook either banned him or suspended his accounts.

In a statement, Trump said—quote—“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced.”

The company is planning to soft-launch the Truth Social media app early next year. It’s also planning a video-on-demand service dubbed TMTG+. It will feature entertainment programming, news and podcasts.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org.

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