Biden hosts bipartisan meeting on infrastructure; Senate opens debate on coronavirus relief bill

The Biden administration has imposed temporary limits on drone strikes targeting suspected terrorists outside the battlefields of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, tightening a Trump-era policy while officials review how much leeway to give the military and the CIA in counterterrorism operations.

The restriction was imposed on Jan. 20 — the day of President Biden’s inauguration — by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, according to administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

President Biden’s pick to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon may be in jeopardy after controversial tweets targeting Republicans emerged, after a similar scenario helped sink another Cabinet nominee earlier this week.

Several Republican senators forced Colin Kahl to answer for his past tweets during his confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee on Thursday, including one in which he said Republicans who supported former president Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria “debase themselves at the alter of Trump” and are “the party of ethnic cleansing.”

Charlotte Bennett, a former aide to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), said she thought the governor was propositioning her for sex when he asked her questions about her sex life, according to an exclusive interview with Norah O’Donnell of CBS Evening News.

In the interview, which aired Thursday night, Bennett said that she felt “deeply uncomfortable” and wanted to “get out of this room as soon as possible” in her encounters with Cuomo. Bennett said the inappropriate conversations started last May, after she had shared that she was a sexual assault survivor and also around the time Cuomo was getting national attention for his coronavirus response.

The chairman of the House Transportation Committee pitched a plan Thursday to raise money for infrastructure spending without Republican votes in the Senate ahead of a bipartisan discussion at the White House.

Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), the leading voice on infrastructure in the House, described the idea in an interview with CNBC on the same day that he met with President Biden in the Oval Office. It would involve using reconciliation, a parliamentary procedure that Congress can use to pass budget measures with 50 votes in the Senate.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, panned the U.S. Capitol Police’s request to extend the National Guard presence on Capitol Hill for another two months, calling it “outrageous.”

“It’s outrageous because that’s not their function, that’s not their mission,” he said. “They cannot do it. All of our employed people, all of the thousands of employers who would be forced to do something that they financially couldn’t do, it’s destroying careers of people. That’s not what they’re supposed to be, that’s not their mission. We have the Capitol Police, that is their mission.”

Former president Donald Trump’s YouTube channel will remain suspended “due to the risk of incitement to violence,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said Thursday at a virtual Atlantic Council event.

Wojcicki told the think tank that the company was monitoring government statements and warnings, as well as other violent rhetoric on their own platform, to measure the risk of violence. She cited Capitol Police warnings about another potential attack on the Capitol on Thursday as reasons for the continued suspension of Trump’s account.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) left a meeting in the Oval Office with President Biden, Vice President Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other lawmakers with a directive from the president to have a large infrastructure bill ready soon.

“He wants to move quickly, he wants us to take the lead, he feels strongly we have to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” DeFazio said. “He’s set on getting it done and getting it done” soon.

An ambitious infrastructure package that not only maintains and repairs, but builds anew, evaded the last two administrations, which couldn’t figure out a way to pay for it. A quick way to raise a lot of money fast would be to raise the gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993, but that’s been a political nonstarter.

The Senate on Thursday voted to proceed with Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, with a 51-50 vote on party lines. Vice President Harris cast the tiebreaking vote.

Republicans united in opposition, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) predicted they would. Similarly, the House on Saturday passed the bill with no GOP support.

After the vote, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) — who had vowed to delay the bill in several ways — objected to dispensing with the reading of the bill. A clerk commenced reading the 628-page bill, something Johnson had estimated could take up to 10 hours.