Coarse correction urged for Biden aide who F-bombed GOP

Outreach with an ouch

The problem wasn't with President-elect Joe Biden's incoming deputy chief of staff Jen O'Malley Dillon defending his desire to work with Republicans to help the nation achieve healing.

No, the issue was with how she defined Republicans in a Glamour magazine interview posted Tuesday. "I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of [expletive]. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He [Biden] rejected that," she said.

Axios reported Wednesday that the remark by O'Malley Dillon, who served as campaign manager, frustrated some Biden advisers. A donor who thinks she needs to apologize called the comment in the Glamour interview "just plain stupid."

In public comments, the Biden camp shrugged it off. Communications director Kate Bedingfield tweeted that O'Malley Dillon "would be the first to tell you her mom doesn't approve of spicy language" but that "the point she was making … unity and healing are possible — and we can get things done."

Rep. Paul Mitchell of Michigan, who quit the Republican Party on Tuesday out of disgust with Trumpian attempts to overturn the election, tweeted advice to Biden: "Starting any Interaction with name calling and aspersions does not encourage conversation and problem solving."

O'Malley Dillon's overall remarks embraced Biden's goal of coming together. "From start to finish, he set out with this idea that unity was possible, that together we are stronger, that we, as a country, need healing, and our politics needs that too," she said in the interview.

Steve Schmidt, a former GOP top operative who co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and announced Tuesday he is registering as a Democrat, tweeted that there is "no apology due" from O'Malley Dillon. As for her language choice, Schmidt, referring to his New Jersey upbringing, said "that's term of affection where I come from."

Why COVID relief may happen

If Senate Republicans needed an extra incentive to go along with the coronavirus relief compromise that appears to be coming together, McConnell gave them one on Wednesday.

"Kelly and David are getting hammered" on the issue, according to Politico and CNN reports based on a source who heard his remarks. McConnell was speaking about Georgia's Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are fighting to hold onto their seats — and the GOP Senate majority — in Jan. 5 runoffs. The lack of new stimulus payments has become a big issue there.

Democratic leaders are struggling to keep their ranks behind the $900 billion package while progressives complain it's far from adequate and lacks direct aid to state and local governments.

The emerging plan calls for direct payments of perhaps $600 to most Americans and a $300-per-week bonus federal unemployment benefit to partially replace a $600-per-week benefit that expired this summer. It also renews extra weeks of state unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.

More than $300 billion in subsidies for businesses, including a second round of "paycheck protection" payments to especially hard-hit employers, are locked in, The Associated Press reported.

What Trump's watching

The efforts by congressional leaders to hammer out a deal went unremarked upon by President Donald Trump, who tweeted out another collection of election fraud claims, took a delayed slap at McConnell for recognizing Biden as president-elect ("Too soon to give up") and seemed to be watching a lot of TV.

Trump is still mad at Fox News, with a new gripe about "endless negative and unedited commercials."

He live-tweeted OAN's coverage of a Wednesday hearing held by Senate homeland security committee chairman Ron Johnson on "election irregularities," which featured a pair of Trump campaign lawyers repeating unsupported and discredited claims.

Ex-CDC officials: Science took a beating

Two Trump appointees to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who joined in 2018 and quit in August say the agency's voice was slowly suffocated by political interference from the administration.

In a story posted Wednesday, Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff, and his deputy, Amanda Campbell, both Georgia Republicans in their 30s, told The New York Times that they had tried to protect their colleagues against political meddling from the White House and Department of Health and Human Services.

The White House insisted on reviewing — and often softening — the CDC's closely guarded coronavirus-guidance documents, with such nonscientist figures as the White House budget director, senior counselor Kellyanne Conway and Ivanka Trump weighing in. "Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won," McGowan said.

In a related story, Politico reports that a top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a "herd immunity" approach to COVID-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the coronavirus. "Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk ….so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected …" wrote Paul Alexander to his boss, Michael Caputo, a political operative who Trump put in charge of public affairs at Health and Human Services.

"It was understood that he spoke for Michael Caputo, who spoke for the White House," said McGowan. In a statement to Politico, an HHS spokesperson said Alexander’s demands for herd immunity "absolutely did not" shape department strategy. Alexander, a part-time professor at a Canadian university, left HHS in September.

Vets groups want VA boss gone

The nation's six largest veterans groups, including the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, called on Trump on Wednesday to immediately fire Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie over the mishandling of a congressional aide's allegation of a sexual assault at a VA hospital.

The groups said they had lost all confidence in Wilkie’s ability to lead the government’s second-largest department following a blistering audit last week, The Associated Press reports. An investigation by the VA's inspector general found Wilkie had acted unprofessionally, if not unethically, in spreading negative information about the woman.

"Sexual assault and harassment have no place in the VA or our society," according to the letter from the Legion, VFW, Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, Paralyzed Veterans of America and Vietnam Veterans of America. "This is a tremendous breach of trust among veterans," they wrote.

Wilkie has denied wrongdoing. In response to calls for his resignation, the VA said Wilkie "will continue to lead the department."

More coronavirus news

See a roundup of the latest regional pandemic developments from Long Island and beyond by Newsday's reporting staff, written by Lisa L. Colangelo. For a full list of Newsday's coronavirus stories, click here.

What else is happening:

• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is quarantining after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. Pompeo himself "has been tested and is negative," the State Department announced Wednesday. On Tuesday, of more than 900 guests invited by Pompeo to an indoor holiday party, only a small fraction showed up, The Washington Post reported.
• Biden is expected to receive his first coronavirus vaccination as soon as next week, a Biden transition official said on Wednesday. The White House announced that Vice President Mike Pence will be vaccinated on Friday in a public event.
• Trump is expected to attend the Republican National Committee meeting in Florida next month and plans to give remarks, CBS News reported.
• Biden’s allies are seeking to raise millions of dollars from corporations and individuals by offering special "VIP participation" in scaled-down inaugural festivities, The New York Times reported.
• Trump has come so close to firing FBI Director Christopher Wray in recent months that the White House Counsel’s Office has warned him not to do so because it could put him in potential legal jeopardy, NBC News reported. It risked creating the perception that a "loyalty test" was being imposed on a position that traditionally has maintained independence.