Biden plays the China card

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Welcome to POLITICO’s 2021 Transition Playbook, your guide to the first 100 days of the Biden administration

President JOE BIDEN is playing the China card as he tries to pass his massive infrastructure plan. So are some of the Republicans trying to kill that very same plan.

When he debuted the $2 trillion plan last week, which would invest in things like new roads, bridges, airports, electric vehicles, water pipes, semiconductor manufacturing and expanding Medicaid and broadband Internet, Biden described it as a way to “promote our national security interests and put us in a position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years.” The White House summary of the plan was feistier, describing it as a way to counter “the ambitions of an autocratic China.”

President DONALD TRUMP, however, bashed the corporate tax hikes that Biden proposed to pay for the plan as “a massive giveaway to China.” Other Republicans have followed his lead. House Minority Leader KEVIN McCARTHY attacked the plan for raising the corporate tax rate “higher than communist China.”

Former Sen. BLANCHE LINCOLN (D-Ark.), who served with Biden in the Senate and is now a lobbyist, made the same argument on behalf of a coalition of companies such as FedEx, Lockheed Martin and Verizon that are fighting the proposed tax hikes. “American employers will struggle to build back better with an even higher corporate tax rate than global competitors like China,” she said in a statement.

China bashing has been an undercurrent of American politics for decades. But the dueling strategies around Biden’s infrastructure initiative reveal the extent to which it’s increasingly the main plotline. After a Beltway consensus through the early 2000s that China should be better integrated into the international economic system, the pendulum has swung dramatically in the other direction.

For Biden, it is a bit of a tricky balance. He has denounced hateful rhetoric targeting Asian-American communities and Chinese Americans, in particular, around the emergence of Covid-19, noting the rise in hate crimes targeting those groups. At the same time, he’s ratcheting up his own language on competing with the Chinese government, and his administration is now home to a number Democratic China hawks.

The White House’s rhetoric echoes a strategy that TARUN CHHABRA — now a senior director on of Biden’s National Security Council — laid out in a piece he co-authored in Foreign Affairs last year headlined, “The Left Should Play the China Card: Foreign Rivalry Inspires Progress at Home.” In the piece, Chhabra argued that framing “large-scale public investment” as a way to counter China was the surest way to get conservatives on board.

“In almost every other policy area, Republicans block major new federal expenditures, but initiatives designed to counter China offer a chance for bipartisanship,” Chhabra and his co-authors wrote. They cited the BUILD Act, a law passed in 2018 with wide bipartisan support that created a new U.S. development agency as a way to compete with China.

“Framing reform around rivalry with China could dramatically broaden the appeal of progressive projects to moderates and conservatives,” they wrote.

So far, it’s not working — at least with Republicans in Congress. They’ve shown no signs they’re willing to back Biden’s signature piece of legislation — a much, much bigger package than the BUILD Act — just because he’s pitching it as a way to stick it to China.

“The tax increases and lavish spending in President Biden’s so-called infrastructure proposal have little to do with infrastructure, much less with beating China,” Sen. TOM COTTON (R-Ark.), one of the GOP’s leading China hawks, said in a statement to Transition Playbook. “Republicans and Democrats should work together to beat China, but President Biden’s partisan infrastructure plan isn’t the way to do that.”

Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL expressed similar skepticism last month about a China bill that Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER has in the works, warning Democrats on the Senate floor to “resist the temptation to pile a long list of unrelated policy wishes into a big package and try to label it ‘China policy.’”

(Republican voters might be more receptive: A Data for Progress poll released today found that 73 percent of likely voters support the American Jobs Plan when some of its elements are described to them, including 57 percent of Republicans. Notably, though, the pollsters didn’t mention in their questions that Biden had proposed the plan.)

Still, even the academics who co-wrote the Foreign Affairs piece with Chhabra expressed skepticism that their strategy would help sell Republican lawmakers on the infrastructure bill, though they praised Biden for trying.

“We shouldn’t expect simply saying the word China a few times to suddenly produce a dozen Republican votes for this infrastructure bill,” said co-author DOMINIC TIERNEY, a Swarthmore College professor.

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Where's Joe

In Alexandria, Va. to visit a vaccination site at the Virginia Theological Seminary Immanuel Chapel. Biden was joined by Dr. BASIM KHAN, executive director of Neighborhood Health; KEVIN TRAC, prevention quality coordinator at Neighborhood Health; Dr. MARTA WELMAN, medical director of Neighborhood Health; and JEFF ZIENTS, Covid-19 response coordinator.

Biden was also greeted by IAN MARKHAM, dean of Virginia Theological Seminary; Dr. MARTY BURNETT, acting associate dean of chapel at Virginia Theological Seminary; Rev. CRAIG HARCUM of the Macedonia Baptist Church; Rev. Dr. HOWARD-JOHN WESLEY of the Alfred Street Baptist Church; and LOLITA YOUMAN, administrator at Alfred Street Baptist Church.

Later, Biden talked about vaccination progress nationwide in the State Dining Room.

Where's Kamala

In Chicago to visit a vaccination site established by the city of Chicago and the Chicago Federation of Labor created for union members.

Illinois Governor J.B. PRITZKER and Chicago Mayor LORI LIGHTFOOT greeted her at the airport. She was later joined by Illinois Sens. DICK DURBIN and TAMMY DUCKWORTH along with Rep. DANNY DAVIS.

She later stopped at Brown Sugar Bakery on the South Side (the 4 layer cakes look amazing). Lt. Gov. JULIANNA STRATTON and Cook County state’s attorney KIM FOXX joined her.

Presidential Trivia

With the Center for Presidential Transition

Which president was the first to call himself a feminist while in office?

(Answer is at the bottom.)

Pro Exclusive

WH PUSHES ‘MIX’ OF GRANTS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING — White House Press Secretary JEN PSAKI said today that the administration expects the money in its infrastructure proposal to be distributed through a mix of formula funding and competitive grants, TANYA SNYDER reports.

The remaining articles and infographics in this section are exclusively available to POLITICO Pro subscribers. Pro is a smart, personalized policy intelligence platform from POLITICO. If you are interested in learning more about how POLITICO Pro can support your team through the 2020 transition and beyond, visit this webpage.

The West Wing

BIDEN TONES IT DOWN — After the White House distanced the president from the MLB’s decision to move the All-Star game out of Atlanta, Biden stayed away from similar questions about whether the Masters ought to be moved. “That’s up to the Masters,” he told reporters today.

He continued: “It’s reassuring to see that for-profit operations and businesses are speaking up about how these new Jim Crow laws are just antithetical to who we are. ... The other side to it, too, is that when they in fact move out of Georgia, the people who need the help the most, people who are making hourly wages, sometimes get hurt the most. I think it’s a very tough decision for a corporation to make or a group to make. But I respect them when they make that judgment and I support whatever judgement they make.”

A tradition unlike any other is still on…. for now.

FILLING THE RANKS

BIDEN UNVEILS GSA PICK — The White House today announced the president’s pick to head the General Services Administration: ROBIN CARNAHAN.

Carnahan is the former secretary of state of Missouri and has been particularly focused on upgrading and unifying government technology. From 2016 to 2020, she led 18F, an internal tech team inside the GSA (here’s a 2016 Q&A with her, if federal government tech is your thing).

The post requires Senate confirmation and she already has an important early endorsement. Republican Sen. ROY BLUNT, who Carnahan ran against in 2010 for the Senate, said Tuesday that he supports her nomination. “Robin Carnahan is smart, capable, and understands what they do at GSA,” he said in a statement.

FWIW: Carnahan is also the daughter of former Sen. JEAN CARNAHAN (D-Mo.), who took her husband’s place in the Senate when he was posthumously elected in 2000. He and their son had died in a plane crash three weeks before Election Day. In 2019, as Biden was being criticized for unwanted touching, Carnahan wrote on Twitter about Biden’s ability to comfort her during that particular moment of sorrow when she arrived in the Senate.

“It was his empathy and encouragement more than that of any of my colleagues, that gave me strength to meet each day,” she wrote. “And, yes, I sometimes got a shoulder pat or even a head kiss.” Read the full thread here.

Advise and Consent

TAKE BACK THE (LOWER) COURT(S) — Progressives’ push to pack the Supreme Court gets most of the attention, but some of those same activists are pressing the Senate to expand the number of judges in the lower courts as well.

SAMUEL MOYN, a Yale Law School professor, and AARON BELKIN, the director of Take Back the Court, which advocates for expanding the Supreme Court, recently sent a 16-page memo to Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER and other top Senate Democrats arguing that they can add hundreds of new federal judges via the parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation, LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ tells us.

The Byrd Rule, which governs what the Senate can and can’t do via reconciliation, is complicated, and it’s up to the Senate parliamentarian to decide how to apply it. But Moyn and Belkin argue that expanding the courts meets the crucial “merely incidental” test, based on their analysis of hundreds of past rulings by the parliamentarian. Any provision that results in spending or revenue that is “merely incidental” to the larger reconciliation bill wouldn’t pass the test.

But a bill “expanding federal appellate and district courts by 250 seats and costing between $209 million and $382 million per year meets the Byrd Rule’s ‘merely incidental’ standard,” they write.

Even if the parliamentarian disagrees, Vice President KAMALA HARRIS has the power to overrule her — which Moyn and Belkin urged her to do. This is, of course, the same argument some progressives made last month after the parliamentarian ruled that Democrats couldn’t raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour via reconciliation. The White House dismissed it and it never went anywhere.

THE BUREAUCRATS

OLYMPICS DRAMA — The State Department had to clarify that they didn’t intend to make news today about a potential boycott of the 2020 Beijing Olympics. Asked at the department’s briefing about a potential boycott,spokesperson NED PRICE said, “It is something that we certainly wish to discuss,” adding that, “a coordinated approach will be not only in our interests but also in the interests of our allies and partners,” BEN PAUKER reports.

Soon after, Price realized he may have goofed. “As I said, we don’t have any announcement regarding the Beijing Olympics,” he tweeted. “2022 remains a ways off, but we will continue to consult closely with allies and partners to define our common concerns and establish our shared approach to the PRC.

Agenda Setting

BATTERY BRAWL — Meeting the president’s ambitious electric vehicle goals in its latest infrastructure plan will require a surge in advanced batteries, GAVIN BADE writes. But one of the factories slated to help meet that demand — a $2.6 billion plant in Commerce, Ga., being built by South Korean battery maker SK Innovation — is caught up in an international trade dispute.

The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in February that SK Innovation stole trade secrets from rival South Korean company LG Chem, and ordered that the U.S. block SK from importing components to build batteries. SK says the ruling will likely force it to abandon the factory.

What We're Reading

Kamala Harris’s former condo in D.C. is listing for $1.995 million (WSJ’s Katherine Clarke)

The Center for American Progress has already stocked the Biden administration with 56 policy wonks (Insider’s Robin Bravender and Kimberly Leonard)

Why Democrats won’t overturn many Trump-era rules (The American Prospect’s David Dayen)

The state of independent agency nominations - Update for April 2021 (The Revolving Door Project’s Eleanor Eagan)

Biden plan spurs fight over what ‘infrastructure’ really means (The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek)

The Oppo Book

Biden senior advisor MIKE DONILON has been in Democratic politics so long he once worked against his own brother, fellow longtime Biden aide TOM DONILON.

During the 1984 presidential race, Mike joined GARY HART’s campaign while his older brother Tom was already working to elect WALTER MONDALE.

Mike’s mother, THERESA DONILON, was unamused.

“How could you go against your brother?” she demanded of Mike, according to a 2004 piece in The Providence Journal (here’sthe Nexis link). Tom told the newspaper: “I don’t think my mother spoke to Mike for six months.”

Tom and Mike reconciled. In 1988, Tom joined Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign and Mike helped out while working for Biden’s pollster, PAT CADDELL.

We don’t know how long it took for Mama Donilon to get over it, however. Tom told Transition Playbook that upon reflection, “I do not believe that my union organizer, Irish mother would have kept Mike in the penalty box for only 6 months after siding against her first born. A bit longer would be my bet.”

He added: “I should in fairness point out that we lost 49 states in 1984 and Mike is today sitting in the office next to the President of the United States.”

Mike did not respond to a request for comment.

TRIVIA ANSWER

MARTIN VAN BUREN, on Jan. 5, 1838, coined the term “feminist” when he quickly …. OK, fine.

On June 14, 2016, while delivering remarks at a White House event on the United States of Women, BARACK OBAMA said: “I did want to stop by and make one thing very clear — I may be a little greyer than I was eight years ago, but this is what a feminist looks like.”