 | | Joe Biden, then vice president, and Chris Coons in 2010.Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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Roll the clock back a few decades, and the longtime junior senator from Delaware was often at the heart of negotiations on Capitol Hill. |
He helped to shape legislation on violence against women, crime and foreign policy. And though he was a Democrat, he took pride in his friendships with members of the Republican Party — relationships that often served him well when it came time to reach across the aisle in search of votes. |
Back then, that senator's name was Joe Biden. But today, a similar dynamic is at play with his successor, Senator Chris Coons, who came of age under Biden's wing, won election to Biden's former seat in 2010, and is now one of the president's closest confidants in the chamber. Like Biden, Coons is a relative moderate with a proclivity for bipartisan deal-making, and as the administration navigates the politics of an evenly divided Senate, he has been working with both Democrats and Republicans to advance the White House's agenda. |
But four months into the administration, major bipartisan legislation continues to prove elusive, and with the 2022 midterms approaching fast, Coons admits that the clock is ticking. Will he be able to help Biden bring enough Republicans on board to reach the 60-vote threshold on legislation around infrastructure? Or criminal justice? Or competition with China? |
These questions were front-of-mind for our congressional reporter Luke Broadwater as he trailed Coons around the Senate in recent days. Today, Luke published a profile of the senator, and he took a moment this afternoon to answer a few questions about what he'd learned reporting it. |
Hi, Luke. Chris Coons has been a mentee of Joe Biden's for decades, starting when Biden was among the most powerful negotiators in the Senate. Now, Coons is filling a similar role. It's a "student becomes the master" kind of moment. How crucial has Biden been to the development of Coons's career? |
I would say that Biden has been quite influential to Coons's career. In many ways, Coons has followed a similar path. He started as an intern for Biden, became his mentee on the New Castle County Council, campaigned for him in Iowa and now holds the seat that once belonged to him. He takes the train home to Delaware on Thursdays, as Biden famously did. |
After Biden won the presidential election, Coons briefly held out hope of becoming secretary of state. Instead, he's still in the Senate — where he has become something like the White House's eyes and ears. How crucial is he to helping the Biden administration navigate the Senate? |
Biden is well-known as a creature of the Senate who loves to invite his old colleagues to the White House for hourslong discussions. |
That said, Coons spends much of his day trying to aid the Biden administration's agenda on the Hill however he can. He's constantly talking to Republicans, gathering their concerns and feedback, and reporting back to his contacts at the White House. He often ends conversations with the White House with the phrase, "Is there anything else I can do to be helpful?" |
He's also engaged in some foreign policy work on behalf of the Biden administration, including traveling to Ethiopia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. |
In your article, you quote Coons as saying that the window for passing bipartisan bills this Congress is quickly closing. What are the big pieces of legislation he sees as possible, and how is he feeling about their chances? |
Coons says he's focused on trying to help Democrats reach deals with Republicans on four major pieces of legislation: China competitiveness, infrastructure, immigration reform and policing reform. |
From what I can tell, he's not necessarily involved as a primary negotiator on these bills, but he's playing a role as an adviser and sounding board, particularly for Republicans. He told me he doesn't believe Congress will get deals on all four, but is confident at least one will reach fruition. "The question is: Will we get one, two, three or four?" he said. |
To me, the Endless Frontier Act, led by Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, seems most likely to pass. |
Coons also talked to you about having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to bipartisan deal-making, since Mitch McConnell basically rendered the practice extinct during his time as majority leader. How has Coons gone about bringing Republicans into the fold and re-establishing the practice of reaching across the aisle? |
It's no secret the Senate has taken on a reputation as a legislative graveyard for the bills passed by the more liberal House. The government watchdog group Common Cause ranked the last Congress the "least productive in history," noting that only about 1 percent of bills introduced became law. |
I think Coons would say he's working to change that just by constantly listening to Republicans and being practical about what's possible in a Congress where the legislative filibuster is still a reality. |
The Justice Dept. will fight to keep secret most of a Barr-era memo on whether Trump obstructed the Russia inquiry. |
The Biden administration has decided to fight to keep secret most of a Trump-era Justice Department memo related to former Attorney General William Barr's much-disputed declaration in 2019 clearing President Donald Trump of illegally obstructing justice in the Russia investigation. |
In a late-night filing on Monday, the Justice Department appealed part of a district-court ruling that ordered it to make public the entire memo. It was written at the same time that Barr sent a letter to Congress claiming the evidence in the then-still secret report by the special counsel, Robert Mueller III, was insufficient to charge Trump with a crime. |
The Justice Department did release the first page and a half of the nine-page memo. While Mueller had declined to render a judgment about what the evidence added up to because the department's policy was not to charge a sitting president, the memo said Barr was justified in making a decision in order to shape public understanding of the report. |
"Although the special counsel recognized the unfairness of levying an accusation against the president without bringing criminal charges, the report's failure to take a position on the matters described therein might be read to imply such an accusation if the confidential report were released to the public," wrote Steven Engel and Edward O'Callaghan, two senior Trump-era Justice Department officials. |
Those actions included attempting to bully his White House counsel, Donald McGahn II, into falsifying a record to cover up an earlier attempt by Trump to fire Mueller, and dangling a potential pardon at Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to encourage him not to cooperate with investigators. |
The new Justice Department filing also apologized for and defended its Barr-era court filings about the memo, which Judge Amy Berman Jackson had labeled "disingenuous," saying that they could have been written more clearly but were nevertheless accurate. |
"The government acknowledges that its briefs could have been clearer, and it deeply regrets the confusion that caused," the Justice Department said. "But the government's counsel and declarants did not intend to mislead the court, and the government respectfully submits" that any missteps still did not warrant releasing the entire memo. |
Mr. Barr's claim — which he made weeks before releasing the Mueller public — that the evidence gathered showed that Mr. Trump did not commit a chargeable offense of obstruction has been widely criticized as deeply misleading. |
Among other fallout, a government watchdog group, CREW, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in the United States District Court in Washington seeking disclosure of an internal memo about the matter. |
This piece comes from our live briefing, where you can find more updates on the news in Washington today. |
How to save ourselves from disinformation |
You've seen it. That meme that seems just too good to be true. That outlandish story your family member prefaced with, "Can you believe he said that?" followed by a video link of unknown origin and vintage. |
We are in an era of misinformation — and even disinformation, when someone intentionally disseminates false or misleading information. And while there are some bad actors, also important are social and psychological forces that lead people to spread and fall for false information in the first place. |
Join Sarah Silverman, the comedian and host of the Sarah Silverman Podcast, and the Times reporters Kevin Roose, Sheera Frenkel and Davey Alba as they untangle the roots of disinformation, and the effects it has on our world. |
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