From Capitol Hill to presidential decisions to 2024 campaign talk, Washington is stuck in a waiting game these days.
Right now, it feels like just about everything going on in Washington is in a holding pattern.
It is theoretically possible that Senate Democratic leaders and West Virginia senator Joe Manchin could reach some sort of deal on a trimmed-down Build Back Better, in negotiations that seem to have gone in circles for the past year. But Manchin just tested positive for Covid-19, and he’s probably going to self-isolate for a week or so. Alaska GOP senator Lisa Murkowski also tested positive for Covid, so she won’t be around for any floor votes. On August 8, the Senate is scheduled to adjourn until after Labor Day.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might be visiting Taiwan in the coming weeks, or she might not. The White House and Pelosi’s office are still arguing about whether it’s a good idea for her to go.
President Biden might cancel student debt or extend the payment deadlines out even further, or he might not; he’s still thinking about it.
The Justice Department might be slowly – very slowly – building a case for the indictment of former president Donald Trump. (Andy McCarthy wants everyone to calm down about this.) Or attorney general Merrick Garland and federal prosecutors might conclude there isn’t sufficient evidence to bring charges, or that the country would be ill-served by a criminal prosecution of a former president.
Donald Trump may well announce he’s running for president before the midterm elections. But there was a rumor that he would announce around July 4, and that didn’t pan out.
A new poll out this morning finds just 20 percent of New Hampshire voters want Joe Biden to run for another term, an utterly terrible result for a man who won the state with almost 53 percent less than two years ago. The top staffers around Joe Biden can read a poll, they know that Biden’s odds for reelection look terrible right now. But if Biden does decide to not seek a second term, that announcement won’t come for a while.
And then, of course, there are the midterm elections. We’ve known for months now that this is likely to be a terrible year for Democrats, but we don’t know just how terrible. (But the casting of ballots is closer than you think; Minnesota allows voters to cast early in-person ballots starting September 23.)
And so, we wait.