JUDY WOODRUFF: Back now to our top political story of the day.
The American Rescue Plan, as it's named, is in its final stretch toward becoming law,
marking President Biden's first significant legislative achievement
since taking office nearly 50 days ago.
Our Politics Monday team is here to analyze what it means.
That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and Tamara Keith of NPR.
Hello to both of you. So good to see you.
And let's start by talking about this.
Amy, it is about to cross the finish line. What does it mean
for President Biden? And does it diminish the win in any way that
he didn't get any Republican votes, or doesn't appear to be getting any?
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: That's right.
I mean, Judy, it is a big win to get a bill passed in this day and age with
everything you wanted in it. Remember, he came out, the administration came out saying,
this is a $1.9 trillion package. And it looks like he's going to get a $1.9 trillion package.
There are some changes in there. But he pretty much got what he wanted. It was drama-free.
I mean, there was a little bit of consternation on Friday night about Joe Manchin and the debate over
unemployment extension -- unemployment insurance extension.
But, overall, you think how different it is, Judy, than what we have been
watching for the last four years, right, where a deal that looked like it was going
one way could be derailed just by a tweet coming from President Trump.
This had all the markings of just sort of a traditional way
of moving through a piece of legislation. And the Democratic Party is really united on this. Now,
does it mean they're going to be united for everything to come? It's unclear.
The big risk for Democrats going forward is that
they put a lot of their political capital into this, and that it doesn't work. The
risk for Republicans is that they all voted against it, and it does work.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Tam, pick up on that. I mean,
what does it mean going forward, I mean, the fact that no Republicans voted for it,
and the fact you have got other important legislation coming down the pike?
TAMARA KEITH: Yes, the groundwork for this win for President Biden -- and this will be a big win,
and he will do a prime-time address, and he will continue talking about it
for several weeks to sort of cement the idea in people's minds that this is a big deal.
This was hatched on January 5, when those
Senate seats in Georgia were won by Democrats, instead of Republicans,
and then Democrats got this narrowest possible majority in the Senate, which they were then
able to use to make this deal happen, to get this bill over the finish line without any Republicans.
And you're right. This was a unique situation. They were using budget reconciliation, which
is a process that they can't use for every bill. It has to be budget-related. And so,
in the future, for things like raising the minimum wage, for instance, or gun control legislation, or
infrastructure, which is, I think, where President Biden wants to turn his attention next,
his Build Back Better plan, as they call it, all of that
is likely going to require bipartisan support, particularly in the Senate.
These are not going to be things that can get done
only through budget reconciliation with the narrowest 50-vote majority.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So much coming down the pike, voting rights and the rest of it.
I want to turn you both to something else that is in the headlines right now. And that is New
York's Governor Andrew Cuomo, Amy, not only accused of not being truthful about nursing home
deaths in his state from COVID, but also, as we know now, a number of accusations from
young women that he was -- accusing him of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment.
What do you make of his handling of it? I mean, every time we think the story, the MeToo stories
may be go going away, they pop up again. There are now two Republican members of Congress, Madison
Cawthorn, Ronny Jackson, who have had their own accusations made about them.
What do you see happening first, though, with Governor Cuomo?
AMY WALTER: Well, I think what we're starting to see in New York,
because everything's bigger in New York, it gets a whole lot of attention
that maybe the governor of another smaller state wouldn't.
Andrew Cuomo isn't just the governor of New York. He's a national figure. And he became a national
figure, too, because of how much New York was at the epicenter early on in the COVID crisis.
It's also the first real test for Democrats in this MeToo movement. It's one of their own.
Al Franken was at the very beginning of this, the senator from Minnesota who resigned under
pressure from many Democrats. But this is really since the Trump era has ended and the
Biden era began, here's the first opportunity for Democrats to sort of put down their marker
on how they're going to handle allegations of sexual harassment in their own ranks.
And I think what you're seeing is pressure on the governor, first of all, to agree to
the attorney general investigating which he has agreed to.
You're starting to see legislators, Democratic legislators, calling for him to resign.
I think, as this moves forward, depending on what comes forward, you may see more people announcing
that. The biggest political hurdle for Cuomo right now -- or the biggest question mark is,
does he run for a fourth term and can he run for a fourth term?
Or is it -- are we going to be talking about a resignation before then?
JUDY WOODRUFF: And I think, to Tam, a lot of people are asking, is this the kind of thing
he can survive? I mean, he says he's not -- he's not going anywhere.
But they have now -- these accusations have now reached a level that, as Amy says,
a number of prominent state Democrats are calling on him to step down.
TAMARA KEITH: And I think Democrats are really still, as Amy said,
trying to figure out their footing when it comes to MeToo and other scandals.
Democrats, certainly, during Al Franken's period in the early part of this MeToo movement,
had essentially a zero tolerance policy, whereas Republicans did not have a zero
tolerance policy. They have been fairly tolerant of some unfortunate behavior.
And you have this most recent example, where Republicans have felt maybe Democrats took
it too far and questioned whether Democrats would regret the zero tolerance policy. Well,
now you have a situation where you have someone who's saying, I'm not going to go.
And, typically, in these sorts of cases, if someone isn't going to go,
then there isn't a mechanism really, other than an election,
to get them to go. And that's what you saw in Virginia with Governor Northam and others who
were wrapped up in various scandals, a blackface scandal, other scandals.
Top Democrats were calling for them to resign. Governor Northam and everyone
else in top leadership in the state of Virginia stayed. And nothing happened. They just stayed.
And so perhaps we are seeing another test of, hey, if you're just willing to stick
it out and take the pressure, can you just take the pressure indefinitely?
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we are watching it, and we will see what happens,
and we will have more opportunities to ask you about it down the line.
Thank you both, Politics Monday, Amy Walter, Tamara Keith. Thank you.
AMY WALTER: You're welcome.
TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.